Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/927

Rh STRABAX. scribing its matter. The extracts quoted in illus- tration begin usually with passages from the poets, after whom come historians, orators, philosophers and physicians. Photius has given an alphabetical list of above 500 Greek writers from whom Sto- baeus has taken extracts, arranged according to tlieir different classes, as philosophers, poets, &c. The works of the greater part of these have pe- rished. To Stobaeus we are indebted for a large proportion of the fragments that remain of the lost works of poets. Euripides seems to have been an especial favourite with him. Pie has quoted above 500 passages from him in the Sermones, 150 from Sophocles, and above 200 from Menander. In ex- tracting from prose writers, Stobaeus sometimes quotes verbatim, sometimes gives only an epitome of the passage. The latter mode is more common in the Eclogae than in the Sermones. With regard to such passages the question has been raised, whe- ther Stobaeus quoted at first hand, or from some collection similar to his own. It is at least clear that he had Plutarch's collection of the opinions of philosophers before him, and that in its complete form. A detailed account of the contents of so miscellaneous a collection as that of Stobaeus would be foreign to the purpose of the present work. For tables of contents the reader may consult Photius (/. c.) and Fabricius (Bibl. Gr. vol. ix. p. 574, &c.). The first portion of the work of Stobaeus that was published was the Sermones, edited by Franc. Trincavelli (Venice, 4to. 1536) under the title 'iwdyvov TOW Srofiatou iKoyal o.Tro<pdcynaTuv. Three editions of the same portion were published by Conrad Gesner, with the title Kipas 'AjuaK- Oalas. 'ludvvov toD 'SroSaiov e/cAoyai airo(pO(y- fxcxTwy (or 6kA. dirocpd. kuI virodriKuv), at Ziirich in 1543, at Basle in 1549, and at Ziirich in 1559, fol. The best edition of the Sermones or Flori- legium 18 that by Gaisford (Oxford, 1822, 4 vols. 8vo.). The first edition of the Eclogae was that by Canter (Antwerp, 1575, fol.). The best edition is that by A. H. L. Heeren (Gotting. 1792— J 801, in 4 vols. 8vo.). The only edition of the whole of Stobaeus together is one published at Geneva in 1609, fol. (Scholl, Gesch. der griech. Litteratur. vol. iii. p. 395, &c.) [C. P. M.] STOLO, C. LICFNIUS CALVUS. [Cal- vus. No. 4.] STO'MIUS {Zrofxios), a statuary, who made the statue of Hieronymus of Andros, to celebrate his victory at Olympia over Tisamenus of Elis, tlie seer who was afterwards present at the battle of Plataeae. (Paus. vi. 14. § 5.) If the statue was made soon after the victory, the artist's age would of course fall at or just before the beginning of the Persian Wars, b. c. 500 or 490. (Thiersch, Epoche7i, p. 202.) [P. S.] STRABAX, a sculptor, known by an inscrip- tion on a pedestal found on the Acropolis, in front of the western portico of the Parthenon. This pedestal bears two inscriptions ; the one is on the front, from which we learn that it supported an ho- norific statue erected by the Areiopagus ; the other is on the top, by the side of the print of two bronze feet, and runs thus : 2TPABAEErOH2EN. From the form of the letters, Ross supposes that the artist lived in the middle of the 4th century B. c, that is, in the time of Praxiteles. (Ross, in Ger- hai'd's Ardi'dologische Zeitung for 1844, p. 243 ; STRABO. 91i R. Rochette, Lettre a M. Schoi-n^ pp. 408, 409, 2d. ed.) [P. S.] STRABO, a cognomen in many Roman gentes, was indicative, like many other Roman surnames, of a bodily defect or peculiarity ; such as Capita, Fronto, Naso, Varus, &c. It signified a person who squinted, and is accordingly classed with PaC' tus, though the latter word did not indicate such a complete distortion of vision as Strabo. (Plin. H. N. xi. 37. s. 55 ; Hor. Sat. i. 3. 45 ; Cic. de Nat. Deou i. 29.) STRABO, the geographer. Little is known of Strabo's personal history, and that which is known is collected from short notices in his own work. Strabo was a native of Amasia or Amasea, a town on the Iris, now the Jekil Irmak, and in the king- dom of Pontus : in his geography he has given a description of his native place (lib. xii. p. 561, ed. Casaub.). Of his parentage on his father's side he says nothing. On his mother's side he was de- scended from a distinguished Greek family, which was closely connected with the Pontic kings, Mi- thridates, Euergetes, and Mithridates Eupatorj and the fortunes of this family of course followed that of all these kings of Pontus. Dorylaeus, a dis- tinguished general (ra/fTj/co's) and a friend of Mi- thridates Euergetes, was the great-grandfather of Strabo's mother (pp.477, 557). Mithridates Euer- getes was murdered in Sinope, while his friend Dorylaeus was in Crete looking for mercenary troops, upon which Dorylaeus gave up all thoughts of returning home, and went to Cnossus, where he was employed as commander in a war against the people of Gortyna, which he quickly brought to a close. This success brought him distinction : he married a Macedonian woman, Sterope, who bore him a daughter and two sons, Lagetas and Stra- tarchas. Dorylaeus died in Crete. Dorylaeus, the friend of Euergetes, had a brother Philetaerus, who remained in Pontus ; and Philetaerus had also a son named Dorylaeus, who rose to high military rank under Mithridates the Great, and served against the Romans. He was also for a time chief- priest at Comana Pontica. At the wish of Mi- thridates the Great, Lagetas and Stratarchas with their sister returned to Pontus. Strabo saw Stra- tarchas in his extreme old age. Lagetas had a daughter, who was, says Strabo, " the mother of my mother." The relations of Strabo on his father's side, and on the side of his mother's father, may not have been pure Greek: indeed, there is little doubt that the Greeks of Amasia were intermingled with Cappadocians. The family of Strabo lost its importance with the death of Mithridates the Great ; and though some of the members of it had joined the Roman party, as in the case of the father of Strabo's mother, yet he did not even obtain what LucuUus had promised him for his services. The jealousy of Cn. Pom- peius, the successor of LucuUus, made him refuse every thing to the friends of LucuUus. Moa- phernes, the uncle of Strabo's mother, and probably her father's brother, was governor of Colchis imder Mithridates the Great, and his fortunes were ruined with those of the king. The period of Strabo is generally well known from his own work. He lived during the reign of Augustus, and at least during the first five years of the reign of Tiberius, for he speaks of the great earthquake of Sardis, which happened in the time of Tiberius (p. 626 ; Tacit. Ann. ii. 47). The 3n 2