Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/30

 by Eusebius, who tells us that Oenomaus was pro- voked to write it in consequence of having been himself deceived by an oracle. (Euseb. Praep. Evang. v. 18, foil., vi. 7; Socrat. //. E. iv. 13 ; Niceph. X. 36 ; Theodoret. TJierap. vi. p. 86, x. p. 141, a.) Julian also speaks of tragedies by Oeno- maus {Orat vii. p. 210). . An epigrammatic poet, the author of a single distich upon Eros, inscribed on a drinking vessel. There is nothing to determine whether or no he was the same person as the philosopher (Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 402 ; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. iii. p. 110.)

. A tragic poet. [Diogenes, p. 1023.] [P.S.]

OENO'NE (OlvwuT}), a daughter of the river- god Cebren, and the wife of Paris. (Apollod. iii. 12. § 6 ; Parthen. Erot. 4 ; Strab. xiii. p. 596 ; comp. Paris.) [L. S.]

OENO'PIDES (OtVorrfSrjs), a distinguished astronomer and mathematician, a native of Chios. Plato (Erastae,c. 1) mentions him in conjunction with Anaxagoras, from which it has been concluded that he was a contemporary of the latter. It may have been so, but there is nothing else to confirm the conjecture. He is spoken of in connection with Pythagoras and his followers, so that he seems to have been regarded as a Pythagorean. Oenopides derived most of his astronomical knowledge from the priests and astronomers of Egypt, with whom he lived for some time. Diodorus (i. 98) mentions in particular that he derived from this source his knowledge of the obliquity of the ecliptic, the dis- covery of which he is said to have claimed (in the treatise de Plac. Phil. ii. 12, ascribed to Plutarch). Aelian ( F. H.x.7) attributes to Oenopides the invention of the cycle of fifty-nine years for bringing the lunar and solar years into accordance, of which Censorinus (c. 19) makes Philolaus to have been the originator. The length of the solar year was fixed by Oenopides at 365 days, and somewhat less than nine hours. (As Censorinus expresses it, the fifty-ninth part of twenty-two days.) Oenopides set up at Olympia a brazen tablet containing an explanation of his cycle. He had a notion that the milky-way was the original path of the sun, from which he had been frightened into his present path by the spectacle of the banquet of Thyestes. (Achilles Tatius, Isag. in Aral. c. 24.) Proclus, in his commentary on Euclid, attributes to Oenopides the discovery of the twelfth and twenty- third propositions of the first book of Euclid, and the quadrature of the meniscus. Oenopides is also mentioned more than once by Sextus Empiricus. {Hypot. iii. 4, adv. Math. p. 367.) He had a theory of his own about the rise of the Nile, which was this, that in the summer the waters beneath the earth are eold, in the winter warm ; a fact which he said was proved by the temperature of deep wells. So that in the winter the heat shut up in the earth carries off the greater part of the moisture, while there are no rains in Egypt. In the summer, on the contrary, the moisture is no longer carried off in that way, so that there is enough to fill the bed of the Nile and cause it to overflow. Diodorus (i. 41) objects to that theory, that other rivers of Libya, which correspond in position and direction to the Nile, are not so affected. (Fabric. Bill. Graec. vol. i. p. 860 ; Ideler, Handbuch der Oirono- logie, vol. i. p. 302.) [C. P. M.]

OENO'PION (OiVoTrfwj/), a son of Dionysus and husband of the nymph Helice, by whom he became the father of Thalus, Euanthes, Melas, Salagus, Athamas, and Merope, Aerope or Haero i^hol ad- Apollon. Rhod. iii. 996 ; Pans. vii. 4. § 6 ; Parthen. Erot. 20). Some writers call Oeno- pion a son of Rhadamanthys by Ariadne, and a brother of Staphylus (Plut. Tkes. 20 ) ; and Servius {ad Aen. i. 539 ; comp. x. 763) also calls him the father of Orion. From Crete he emigrated with his sons to Chios, which Rhadamanthys had as- signed to hira as his habitation (Pans. vii. 4. § 6 ; Diod. V. 79). While he was king of Chios, he received a visit from the giant Orion, who for a Isng time sued for the hand of Merope. Once Orion being intoxicated violated Merope, in conse- quence of which Oenopion blinded him and expelled him from his island. Orion, however, went to Lemnos, where Hephaestus gave to him Cedalion as a guide, or according to others stole a boy whom he carried on his shoulders, and who told him the roads. Orion was afterwards cured of his blind- ness, and returned to Chios to take vengeance on Oenopion. But the latter was not to be found in Chios, for his friends had concealed him in the earth, so that Orion, unable to discover him, went to Crete (Apollod. i. 4. § 3 ; Hygin. Poet. Astr. ii. 34 ; Eratosth. Catast. 32 ; Eustath. ad Horn. p. 1623). The tomb of Oenopion continued to be shown at Chios even in the days of Pausanias (vii. 5. § 6 ; comp. Orion ; V^olcker, Mythol. des Japet. C?eAc/i/. p. 112, &c.). [L. S.]

OENO'TROPAE (OtVorpoTrat), that is, the changers of or into wine, was the name of the three or four daughters of king Anius in Delos, because they had received from Dionysus the power of changing water into wine, and any thing else they chose into corn and olives (Tzetz, ad Lye. 750). When Agamemnon heard this, he wanted to carry them off by force from their father, that they might provide for the army of the Greeks at Troy ; but they implored Dionysus for assistance, and were accordingly metamorphosed into doves. ( Ov. Met. xiii. 640 ; Serv. ad Aen. iii. 80.) [L. S.]

OENO'TRUS {OXuwrpos), the youngest son of Lycaon who emigrated with a colony from Arcadia to Italy, and called the district in which he settled, after himself, Oenotria (Pans. viii. 3. § 2 ; Virg. Aen. i. 532, iii. 165, vii. 85 ; Strab. vi. p. 253, &c.). According to Varro, he was a king of the Sabines, and not a Pelasgian, and his brother was called Italus (Serv. ad Aen. i. 536). Accord- ing to Dionysius (i. 11, &c. ii. 1), Oenotrus was accompanied by his brother Peucetius, and landed in the bay of Ausonia. [L. S.]

OEOBA'ZUS (Oto'gafos). 1. A Persian, who, when Dareius Hystaspis was on the point of march- ing from Susa on his Scythian expedition, besought him to leave behind with him one of his three sons, all of whom were serving in the army. Dareius answered that, as Oeobazus was a friend, and had preferred so moderate a request, he would leave him all three. He then ordered them all to be put to death. (Her. iv. 84 ; comp. vii. 38, 39 ; Senec. de Ira., iii. 16, 17.)

. Father of Siromitres, who led the Paricanians in the Greek expedition of Xerxes. (Her. vii. 68.)

. A noble Persian, who, when the Greek fleet arrived in the Hellespont after the battle of Mycale (b. c. 479), fled from Cardia to Sestus, as the place of all most strongly fortified. Sestus was besieged by the Athenians under Xanthippus, and, on the famine becoming unendurable, Oeobazus, with