Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/562

Rh 550 PROSPER. the same time, that the existence of this second Prosper as a personage distinct from the antagonist of the Semipelagians, has never been clearly de- monstrated, and consequently all statements re- garding him must be received with caution and distrust. 3, Labbe, in his Nova Bibliotheca MSS. Libro- rum, fol. Paris, 1657, published the Chronicon Con- sulare, with another chronicle prefixed, commencing with Adam, and reaching down to the point where the Consulare begins. This was pronounced by Labbe to be the complete work as it issued from the hands of Prosper, the portion previously known having been, upon this supposition, detached from the rest, for the sake of being tacked as a supple- ment to the chronicle of Jerome. The form and style, however, of the earlier section are so com- pletely different from the remainder, that the opi- nion of Labbe has found little favour with critics. For full information with regard to these chro- nicles, and the various opinions which have been broached as to their origin, we may refer to Ron- calli, Vetust. Lat. Script. Chrotiicorum, 4to. Patav. 1787; Rosier, Chronica Medii Aevi, Tubing. 1798 ; Graevius, T/iesaur. Antiq. Rom. vol. xi. II L Poetical. Among the works of the Christian poets which form the fifth volume of the following are attributed to Prosper Aquitanicus, but we must premise that they have been collected from many different sources, that they unquestionably are not all from the same pen, and that it is very difficult to decide whether we are to regard Prosper Aquitanicus and Prosper Tiro, the laMer name being prefixed to several of these pieces in the MSS., as the same or as distinct in- dividuals. 1. Exsententiis S. AugvMini Epigrammatum Liber vnus^ a series of one hundred and six epigrams in elegiac verse, on various topics connected with speculative, dogmatical, and practical theology, and with morals. Thus the third is De Essentia Dei- tatis, the thirty-ninth De Jttstitia et Gratia, the twenty-second De diligendo Deum^ the hundred and fifth De cohibenda Ira. 2. Carmen de Ingratis, in dactylic hexameters, divided into four parts and forty-five chapters. An introduction is prefixed in five elegiac couplets, of which the first two explain the nature and extent of the poem. Unde voluntatis sanctae subsistat origo, Unde animis pietas insit, et unde fides. Adversum ingratos, falsa et virtute superbos, Centenis decies versibus excolui. 3. In Obiredatorem S. Augustini Epigramrna, in five elegiac couplets. 4. Another, on the same subject, in six elegiac couplets. 5. Epitaphium Nestorianae et Pelagianae haereseon, in eleven elegiac couplets, in which " Nestoriana Haeresis loquitur." Written after the condemnation of the Nestorians by the council of Ephesus in a. d. 431. 6. Uxorem liortatur ut se totam Deo dedicet^ in fifty-three elegiac couplets, with an introduction in sixteen Iambic Dimeters Catalectic (Anacreon- tics). Besides the above there is a Carmen de Providentia divina, in some editions of Prosper, which is rejected by Antelmius, and made over by some scholars to Hilarius. The first among the works ascribed to Prosper which issued from the press was the Epigrammata PROTAGORAS. published at Mayence, 4to. 1494, as " Epigrammata Sancti Prosperi episcopi regiensis de Vitiis et Vir- tutibus ex dictis Augustini," and reprinted by Aldus, 4to. Venet. 1501, along with other Chris- tian poems. Next appeared the treatise De Gratia Dei, printed by Schoeffer at Mayence, 4to. 1524, as " S. Prosperi Presbyteri Aquitanici Libellus ad- versus inimicos Gratiae Dei contra Collatorem," in a volume containing the epistle of Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, the epistle of Pope Coelestinus, and other authorities upon the same subject. Then followed the Epistola ad Ruffinum and the Respon- siones ad Excerpta, &c. 8vo. Venet. 1538, and soon after Gryphius published at Leyden, fol. 1539, the first edition of the collected works, care- fully corrected by the collation of MSS. The edition of Olivarius, 8vo, Duaci, 1577, was long regarded as the standard, but far superior to all others is the Benedictine, fol. Paris, 1711, super- intended by Le Brun de Marette and D. Man- geaut. Full information with regard to the interminable controversies arising out of the works of Prosper is contained in the notes and dissertations of the Benedictines, in the dissertations of Quesnel and the Ballerini in their respective editions of the works of Leo the Great, and in a rare volume "De veris Operibus SS. Patrum Leonis Magni et Pros- peri Aquitani Dissertationes criticae, &c." 4to. Paris, 1689, by Josephus Antelmius, to which Quesnel put forth a reply in the Ephemerides Par risienses, viii. and xv. August, 1689, and Antel- mius a duply in two Epistolae duubus Epistolae P. Quesnelli partibus respo7isoriae, 4 to. Paris, 1690, (See the works on the Semipelagian heresy re- ferred to at the end of the articles Cassianus and Pelagius.) [W. R.] PROSTA'TIUS, a Roman artist in mosaic, of the time of the emperors, whose name is inscribed on a mosaic pavement found at Aventicum (Aven- ches) in Switzerland. (Schmidt, Antiq. de la Suisse, pp. 17, 19, 24 ; R. Rochette, Lettre a M. Schorn, p. 394.) [P. S.] PROTA'GORAS {UpaTa-yopas), was born at Abdera, according to the concurrent testimony of Plato and several other writers. {Protag. p. 309, c, De Rep. x. p. 606, c. ; Heracleides Pont. ap. Diog. Latrt. ix. bo ; Cicero, de Nat. Deor. i. 23, &c.) By the comic poet Eupolis {ap. Diog. Latrt. ix. 50), he is called a Teian (TTjios), probably with refer- ence to the Teian origin of that city (Herod, i. 168, &c.), just as Hecataeus the Abderite is by Strabo. (See Ed. Geist in a programme of the Paedagogium atGiessen,1827 ; comp. Fr. Hermann in the Schulzeitung, 1830, ii. p. 509.) In the manifestly corrupted text of the Pseudo-Galenus {de Philos. Hist. c. 8), he is termed an Elean (com- pare J. Frei, Quaestiones Protagoreae, Bonnae, 1845, p. 5). By the one his father is called Ar- temon, by the others Maeandrius or Maeander (Diog.Laert. ix.50, ib. Interp.), whom Philostratus (p. 494), probably confounding him with the father of Democritus, describes as very rich ; Dio- genes Laertius (ib. 53) as miserably poor. The well-known story, however, that Protagoras was once a poor porter, and that the skill with which he had fastened together, and poised upon his shoulders, a large bundle of wood, attracted the attention of Democritus, who conceived a liking for him, took him under his care, and instructed him (Epicurus in Diug. La'crt. x. 8, ix. 53 ; AuL
 * ' Collectio Pisaurensis" (4to. Pisaur. 1766), the