Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/942

Rh 930 SUETIUS. by the prayer of Aeacus. (ApoUod. iii. 12. § 6.) [L. S.] STYPAX or STIPAX, of Cyprus, a statuary, to whom Pliny ascribes the execution of a cele- brated statue called Splanchnoptes^ because it represented a person roasting the entrails of the victim at a sacrifice, and blowing the fire with his breath, {H. N. xxxiv. 8. 19. s. 21.) According to Pliny, the person represented was a slave of Pericles, evidently the same as the one of whom he elsewhere relates the story, that he fell from the summit of the Parthenon, but was healed by the virtue of a herb which Minerva showed to Pericles in a dream {H. N. xxii. 17. s. 20), a story which Plutarch tells of the architect Mnesicles. Among the recent discoveries on the Acropolis, fragments have been found which Ross supposes to have belonged to the base of the Splanchnoptes, and he has put forth the conjecture that the name Stipax in Pliny is only a corruption of Strabax ; but these matters are too doubtful and intricate to be discussed here. (Ross, in the Kunstblatt, 184.0, No. 37, and in Gerhard's Arch'dol. Zeitunq^ 1844, p. 243.) [P. S.]^ STYX (2tjJ|), connected with the verb (rriryew, to hate or abhor, is the name of the principal river in the nether world, around which it flows seven times. (Hom. //. ii. 755, viii. 369, xiv. 271 ; Virg. Georg. iv. 480, Aen. vi. 439.) Styx is described as a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys (Hes. Theog. 361 ; Apollod. i. 2. §2 ; Callim. Hymn, in Jov. 36), and as a nymph she dwelt at the entrance of Hades, in a lofty grotto which was supported by silver columns. (Hes. Theog. 778.) As a river Styx is described as a branch of Oceanus, flowing from its tenth source (789), and the river Cocytus again is a branch of the Styx. (Hom. Od. x. 511.) By Pallas Styx became the mother of Zelus (zeal), Nice (victory), Bia (strength), and Cratos (power). She was the first of all the immortals that took her children to Zeus, to assist him against the Titans ; and, in return for this, her children were allowed for ever to live with Zeus, and Styx her- self became the divinity by whom the most solemn oaths were sworn. (Hes. Theog. 383; Hom. Od. V. 1 85, XV. 37 ; Apollod. i. 2. § 5 ; ApoUon. Rhod. ii. 191 ; Virg. Aen. vi. 324, xii. 816 ; Ov. Met. iii. 290 ; Sil. Ital. xiii. 568.) When one of the gods was to take an oath by Styx, Iris fetched a cup full of water from the Styx, and the god, while taking the oath, poured out the water. (Hes. Theog 775.) Zeus became by her the father of Per- sephone (Apollod. i. 3. § 1 ), and Peiras the father of Echidna. (Paus. viii. 18. § 1.) [L. S.] SUADA, the Roman personification of persua- sion, the Greek Peitho (UeiBu). She is also called by the diminutive Suadela. (Horat. Epist. i. 6. 38 ; Cic. Brut. 15, Cat. Maj. 11.) [L. S.] SU'BRIUS FLA'VIUS or FLAVUS. [Fla- vus.] SU'BULO, P. DE'CIUS, was one of the tri- umvirs for settling new colonists at Aquileia, in B. c. 169; and he is probably the same as the P. Decius, who was sent to Rome in the following year by the praetor L. Anicius, to announce his victory over the lUyrians and his capture of king Gentius. (Liv. xliii. 17, xlv. 3.) SUE'DIUS CLEMENS, was with two others placed by Otho over the troops who were to attack Gallia Narbonensis. (Tac. Bist. i. 87, ii. 1 2.) L. SUP^'TIUS, one of the witnesses against SUETONIUS. Verres, when he was accused by Cicero. (Cic. Verr. i. 5, ii. 12, v. 47.) SUETO'NIUS LENIS. [Suetonius Tran- QUILLUS] SUETO'NIUS OPTATIA'NUS, wrote the life of the emperor Tacitus. (Vopisc. Tac. 11.) SUETO'NIUS PAULI'NUS. [Paulinus.] C. SUETO'NIUS TRANQUILLUS. The little that is known of Suetonius is derived from his lives of the Caesars and the letters of his friend, the younger Plinius. He states that he was a young man (adolescens) twenty years after the death of Nero (Nero, c. 57.), and Nero died a. d. 68. Accordingly he may have been born a few years after Nero's death. In his life of Domitian (c. 12) he speaks of being present at a certain affair, as adolescentulus. It appears from various passages in his work that he might have received oral information about the emperors who lived before he was born, at least Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. His father Suetonius Lenis {Otko,c. 10), a tribune of the thirteenth legion, was in the battle of Bebria- cum or Bedriacuni, in which Otho was defeated by Vitellius. The words Lenis and Tranquillus have the same meaning ; but there may be some doubt about the reading Lenis, in the passage in the life of Otho. In the collection of the letters of the younger Plinius there fire several to Sueto- nius Tranquillus, from one of which (i. 18) it ap- pears that Suetonius was then a young man and entering on the career of an advocate. In another letter (i. 24) he speaks of his friend Tranquillus wishing to buy a small estate, such as suited a man of studious habits, enough to amuse him, ^ without occupying him too much. Suetonius does ^^H not appear to have been desirous of public employ- ^J ment, for he requested Plinius to transfer to a relation, Caesennius Silvanus, a tribuneship, which Plinius had obtained for Suetonius (iii. 8). In a letter of uncertain date (v. 11) Plinius urges Sue- tonius to publish his works (scripta), but without giving any intimation what the works were ; Pli- nius says that he had already recommended the works of Suetonius in some hendecasyllabic verses, and jocularly expresses his danger of being called on to produce them by legal process (ne cogantur ad exhibendum formulam accipere). In a letter to Trajanus (x. 95) Plinius commends to the em- peror the integrity and learning of Suetonius, who had become his intimate friend, and he says that he liked him the better, the more he knew him : he requested the emperor to grant Suetonius the jus trium liberorum, for though Suetonius was mar- ried he had no children, or at least had not the number of three, which was necessary to relieve him from various legal disabilities. The emperor granted the privilege to Suetonius. Suetonius became Magister Epistolarum to Ha- drianus, a situation which would give him the oppor- tunity of seeing many important documents relating to the emperors. In a passage in the life of Augustus (c. 7 ) Suetonius makes mention of his having given to the Princeps a bronze bust which represented Augustus when a boy. The critics generally assume that the Princeps was Hadrianus ; but it is immaterial whether it was Hadrianus or Trajanus, so far as concerns the biography of Suetonius. Hadrianus. who was apparently of a jealous disposition, deprived of their offices at the same time, Septicius Clarus, wlio was Praefectus