Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/892

Rh 880 SOSIANUS. SORA'NUS, SERVI'LIUS BA'REA. [Ba- RKA.] SORA'NUS, Q. VALE'RIUS, whom Crassus in the De Oratore designates as " literatissimuni togatorum omnium," is the author of two hexameters, quoted at second-liand from Varro, by St. Augus- tine {De Civ. Dei^ vii. 9), and also by the tliird of the mythographers first published by Mai. The lines in question, Progenitor genitrixque Deum, Deus unus et idem," may very possibly, as Meyer conjectures, have been contained in the work spoken of by Pliny (//. A^. Praef.) as having been entitled 'EttotttiSwi/, while the fragment adduced in the treatise of Varro De Linyua Latlna (vii. 31, comp. Q5, x. 70), as an example of the word adagio, is probably extracted from a different piece. It is evident, from the passage in Cicero referred to above, that Soranus mast have been a contemporary of Antonius the orator, and therefore flourished about B. c. 100. (See Antliol. Lot. ed. Meyer, praef. p. x.) The mythographer of Mai calls him Serranus, which is clearly a blunder, perhaps due to the copyist, and in no way must he be confounded with the Serranus of Juvenal {Sat. vii. 80), who lived under Nero. (Compare Plin. ^. A^, iii. 5 ; Plut. Quaest. Rom. 61 ; Gerlach's ed. of Lucilius, 8vo, Turic. 1846. p. xxxi.) [W. R.1 SORO'RIA, a surname of Juno, under which an altar is said to have been erected to her in common with Janus Curiatius, when Horatius, on his return home, had slain his sister, and had been purified of the murder. (Liv. i. 26 ; Fest. p. 297, ed. Muller.) [L. S.] SOSANDER (ScJo-ai/Spos). 1. A foster-brother of king Attains. He distinguished himself in the war between the latter and Prusias by his defence of Elaea {Polyh. xxxii. 25). 2. A navigator referred to in the epitome of Artemidorus of Ephesus (p. 63), as the author of a work on India. (Vossius, de Hist. Graecis, p 500, ed. Westermann.) [C. P. M]. SOSANDER (2ci5cra>'Spos), the seventeenth in descent from Aesculapius, who lived in the fifth and fourth centuries B. c. He was the son of Heraclides and brother of Hippocrates II., the most famous of that name. (Le Clerc, Hist, de la Mid.) A physician of the same name (who must have lived some time before the first century after Christ, and who may possibly be the same person), is quoted by Asclepiades Pharmacion (ap. Galen, Dc Compos. Medicam. sec. Loc. iv. 7. vol. xii. p. 733), who has preserved one of his medical formulae. See also Aetius (ii. 3. 78. p. 332.) [W. A. G.J SO'SIA GALLA. [Galla.] SOSIA'NUS, ANTI'STIUS, was tribune of the plebs, A. D. 56., and praetor, A. D. 62. In the latter year he was banished for having written libellous verses against Nero, but was recalled to Rome in A. D. 66, in consequence of his having brought an accusation against Anteius. He was, liowever, again banished at the commencement of Nero's reign as one of the informers under tlie tyrant. (Tac Ann. xiii. 28, xiv. 48, xvi. 14, Hist. iv. 44.) SOSIA'NUS, a surname of Apollo at Rome, derived from the quaestor C. Sosius bringing his HtJitue from Seleucia to Rome. (Cic. ad Ait. viii. 6 ; Plin. H. N. xiiu 5, xxxvi. 4.) [L. S.J SOSIBIUS. SO SIAS (2wcrtas), a vase-painter, whose name is inscribed on a beautiful cylia;, which was dis- covered at Vulci, in 1 828, and is now in the Royal Museum at Berlin (No. 1030). This work is one of the finest extant specimens of Greco- Etruscan vase-painting. Writers on ancient art have com- pared it to the productions of Polygnotus, on ac- count of the character visible in the figures, or to those of Dionysius on account of its minute and elaborate finish. At all events it belongs to one of the best periods of Grecian art, and from the man- ner in which the figures are adapted to the shape of the vessel, as well as from the whole style of the composition, it is pronounced by the best judges to be manifestly an original work and not a mere copy from some greater artist. The subject re- presented on the inner side of the vase is taken from the mythical adventures of Achilles and Patroclus. Achilles, who had been instructed by Cheiron in the healing art, is binding up a wound which Patroclus has received, as is supposed, in the battle against the Mysian Telephus, which was the first great victory gained by the two heroes. Tlie meaning of the composition on the outer side is more doubtful. It consists chiefly of figures of divinities, and has been variously interpreted as the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, or some other marriage subject, or, in connection with the other side of the vase, as a group of divinities assisting as spectators of the exploits of Achilles and his friend. The vase is supposed to have been a bridal pre- sent. It is engraved in the Monumenli Inediti of the Archaeological Institute of Rome, vol i, pi. 24, and in Gerhard's TritikscJuilen des Kon. Mus. pi. 6. Respecting the artist we have no further informa- tion, but the critics have of course indulged in sundry conjectures. Raoul-Rochette supposes that he may have been a Sicilian, from the frequency with which names beginning in Sos are found among the Greeks of Sicily ; a point of some im portance in connection with the theory formerly advanced by him, that the painters of Etruscan vases were generally Sicilian Greeks ; but that theory he now renounces. Others have seen a connection between the medicinal subject of the inner side of the vase and the root-meaning of the artist's name. (Miiller, Arch'dol. d. Kunst. § 1 43, n. 3 ; R. Rochette, Lettre a M. Schorn, pp. 59,60, 2d. ed. ; Nagler, Kunstler Lexicon., s. v.) [P. S.] SOSI'BIUS {:$wal6iosX historical. 1. A Ta- rontine, one of the captains of the body-guards of Ptolemy Philadelphus. (Joseph. Ant. xii. 2. § 2.) It is not improbable he may have been the father of the minister of Ptolemy Philopator. 2. The chief minister of Ptolemy Philopator, king of Egypt. Nothing is known of his origin or parent- age, though he may have been a son of No. 1 ; nor have we any account of the means by which he rose to power ; but we find him innnediately after the accession of Ptolemy (b.c. 222), exercising the greatest influence over the young king, and virtually holding the chief direction of aflfairs. He soon proved himself, as he is termed by Polybius, a ready and dexterous instrument of tyranny: it was by his ministration, if not at his instigation, that Ptolemy put to death in succession his uncle Lysimachus, his brother Magas, and his mother Berenice. Not long after, Cleomenes, of whose in- fluence with the mercenary troops Sosibius had at this time dexterously availed himself, shared the
 * Juppiter omnipotens, rerum reguraqae repertor,