Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/916

Rh 904 STELLIO. No. 9] to seek the Divine mercy and to make restitution to those whom his father had oppressed. ' Being," says Theophanes " the genuine inheritor of his father's disposition," but perhaps influenced by the exhaustion of the imperial finances through an unfortunate war, he replied, that he could not spare for restitution more than three talents. " This," says the irate historian, " was but a small part of what he (Nicephonis) had wrongfully taken." The painfulness of his wounds, the suggestions of Theophano, who hoped, like Irene, to grasp the sceptre, and probably the intrigues of the parties themselves, alienated Stauracius from his brother-in-law Michael and several of the great officers of the court, and he is said to have contemplated bequeathing the empire to his wife, or even restoring the ancient forms of the Roman Republic. His courtiers conspired against him, and Stauracius having proposed to put out the eyes of Michael, matters were brought to a crisis ; Mi- chael was proclaimed emperor (Oct. 811), and Stauracius having put on the habit of a monk, was deposed, and died soon after his deposition, having reigned only two months and six days after his father's death. His widow Theophano embraced a monastic life, and employed the wealth which the humanity or policy of Michael [Michael I. Rhangabe] allowed her, in converting her palace into a monastery called " Hebraica" (Tot'ESpaiKa.) and by corruption Braca (to Bpaxa), and at a later period Stauraca CXTavpaKoi)., because in it the body of Stauracius, and afterwards that of Theophano, were buried. According to some writers his body was deposited in (perhaps transferred to) the monastery of Satyrus. The character of Stauracius is drawn in the most unfavourable colours by Theophanes, Zonaras, and others : but it was the misfortune of Nicephorus and his son to come between the two sovereigns, Irene and Michael Rhangabe, whose services to orthodoxy or profu- sion to the church made them great favourites with the ecclesiastical annalists of the Byzantine em- pire ; and their evanescent dynasty was founded by the deposition of one and overthrown to make way for the elevation of the other of these fa- vourites of the church. It is reasonable therefore to suppose that their characters have been un- fairly represented ; and, in the case of Stauracius especially, things harmless or unimportant have been described as evidences of the greatest depra- vity. (Theophanes, Chronog. pp. 405 — 419, ed. Paris ; pp. 322— 3.'52,ed. Venice ; pp. 745—769, ed. Bonn ; Leo Grammaticus, Chronog. pp. 204 — 206, ed. Bonn ; Cedrenus, Compend. pp. 477 — 482, ed. Paris ; vol. ii. pp. 33 — 43, ed. Bonn ; Le Beau, Bas Empire, liv. Ixvii, ch. x. xxviii — xxxv. ; Gib- bon, Decline and FalU ch. xlviii.) [J. C. M.] STELLA, ARRU'NTIUS. 1. The person to whom Nero entrusted the superintendence of the games which he exhibited in A. D. 55. (Tac. Ann. xiii. 22.) 2. A poet and a friend of Statius, who dedicated to him the first book of his Silvae, the second poem in which celebrates the marriage of Stella and Vio- lantilla. This Stella is also mentioned by Martial (vi. 21). STE'LLIO, C. AFRA'NIUS. 1. Praetor b. c. 1 85, and one of the triumviri for founding a colony B.C. 183. (Liv. xxxix. 23, 25). 2. Son of the preceding, served in B. c. 169 against Perseus, king of Macedonia, and was sta- STEPHANUS. tioned in the Illyrian town of Uscana, which was compelled to surrender to Perseus. (Liv. xliii. 18, 19.) STE'NIUS or STHE'NIUS, a Campanian and Lucanian name. Stenius was one of the leading men at Capua, who entertained Hannibal in b. c. 216, after the battle of Cannae (Liv. xxiii. 8) ; and Pliny speaks of a Stenius Statilius as a Lu- canian general. [Statilius, No. L] STENTOR (StcVto.^), a herald of the Greeks at Troy, whose voice was as loud as that of fifty other men together. His name has become pro- verbial for any one who screams or shouts with an unusually loud voice. (Horn. //. v. 783 ; Juven. Sat. xiii. 112.) [L.S.J STENYCLE'RUS (2T€WKrA7)pos), a Messeuian hero, from whom the Stenyclarian plain was be- lieved to have derived its name. (Paus. iv. 33. § 5.) [L. S.] STE'PHANUS (2Te>aj/os), historical. 1. One of the two sons of Thucydides, whom Plato men- tions among the instances of those sons of great men, whom their fathers, though educating them with the utmost care, have been unable to train to excellence {Menon, p. 94, c. d.). He is mentioned by Athenaeus (vi. p. 234, e.) as the scribe of a decree of Alcibiades, engraved on a pillar in the temple of Heracles at Cynosargos. 2. An Athenian orator, son of Menecles of Acharnae, against whom Demosthenes composed two orations, which contain scarcely any particulars of his life deserving notice here. He is also men- tioned by Athenaeus (xiii. p. 593, f.). 3. 'Epoid8r]s, the husband of Neaera, several times mentioned by Demosthenes in his Oration against Neaera. [P- S.] STE'PHANUS, emperor of Constantinople. [RoMANus I. ; Constantinus VII.] STE'PHANUS (2Te>oj/os), literary. I. An Athenian comic poet of the New Comedy, was pro- bably the son of Antiphanes, some of whose plays he is said to have exhibited. (Anon, de Com. p. XXX. ; Suid, s. v. 'Avt L(pdvr]s.) The other state- ment of Suidas (s. «. "AAe^is), that he was the son of Alexis, seems to arise merely from a confusion of the names of Alexis and Antiphanes. All that remains of his works is a single fragment, quoted by Athenaeus (xi. p. 469, a.), from his ^lAoAct/cwi', a play which was evidently intended to ridicule the imitators of Lacedaemonian manners. (Fabric. Bibl. Grace, vol. ii. p. 496 ; Meineke, Frag. Com. Craec. vol. i. pp. 304, 376, 485, 486, vol. iv. p. 544.) 2, Of Byzantium, the author of the well-known geographical lexicon, entitled 'EdviKci, of which unfortunately we only possess an epitome. There are few ancient writers of any importance of whom we know so little as of Stephanus. All that can be affirmed of him with certainty is that he was a grammarian at Constantinople, and lived after the time of Arcadius and Honorius, and before that of Justinian II. The ancient writers, often as they quote the 'EOpiko., give us absolutely no information about its author, except his name. We learn from them, however, that the work was reduced to an epitome by a certain Hermolaus, who dedicated his abridgement to the emperor Justinian. [Hermo- laus.] Hence, in turning to the few incidental pieces of information which the work contains re- specting its author, we are met by the question, whether such p;issagi!S were written by Stephanus