Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/278

Rh Bithynia, and resided at Tripolis, where he wrote his work. Tripolis is generally taken to be the city of that name on the Phoenician coast, but it may have been a town of the same name in Lydia, on the Meander.

His chief work 2&amp;lt;&amp;lt;xtpiKa, in three books treats of the properties of the sphere and its sections, with the object of establishing the geometrical principles of spherical astronomy. This work, which is classical, is distinguished for the order and clearness of the exposition as well as for the rigour of its proofs, and has ever since formed the basis on which the subject of spherical geometry has been treated. It does not contain any trace of spherical trigono metry, which, on the other hand, was the special subject of the work having the same title, and included in the same collection, of Menelaus of Alexandria, who lived at the end of the 1st century. Montucla suspected that a great part of the three books of Theodosius must have been known before his time, and that he merely did with respect to this branch of geometry what Euclid had done with the elements, namely, he collected and incorporated in his work the different propositions found before his time by astronomers and geometers. This conjecture of Moutucla has been confirmed by A. Nokk (Ueber die Spharik des Theodosius, Karls ruhe, 1847), by Heiberg (Litterargeschichtliche Stvdien iiber Euklid, pp. 43 sq., Leipsic, 1882), and by Hultsch, from whose researches, and especially owing to the publication by the last of the editio princeps of Autolycus, it is now quite certain that as early as the middle of the 4th century B.C. there existed a Greek text-book on Spherics which, in its essential contents, scarcely deviated from the three books of Theodosius. He must therefore be regarded as merely the editor, or at most the elaborator and expounder, of a doctrine which existed some centuries before him.

The Spherics of Theodosius was translated into Arabic at the beginning of the 10th century, and from the Arabic into Latin in the 12th century by Plato of Tivoli (Tiburtinus). This translation was published in 1518 at Venice, but was found so faulty by J. Voegelinus that he published a new Latin version, together with additions from the Arabian commentators, Vienna, 1529, 4to; other Latin translations were published by F. Maurolycus, Messina, 1558, fol.; by C. Clavius, Rome, 1586, 4to; and by Barrow under the title, Theodosii Sp/uerica, Methodo Nova Illuitrata et Succincte Demonstrata, London, 1675, 4to. The Greek text was first published, and with it a Latin translation, by J. Fena, Paris, 1558, 4to; it has been edited since by Joseph Hunt, Oxford, 1707, and by E. Nizze, Berlin, 1852, but these two editions are founded on that of Pcna. There is also a German translation by Nizze, Stralsund, 1826. His two editions are accompanied with valuable notes and an appendix containing additions from Voegelinus and others.

The two other works of Theodosius which have come down to us have not as yet been published in the original. The propositions, without demonstrations, in the work n-epi r^tpiav KOJ. WKTUJV (On Days and Jiights), in two books, were given by Dasypodius, in Greek and Latin, in bis Sp/uencse Doctrinie Propositiones, Strasburg, 1572, 8vo. A Latin version of the complete work, with ancient scholia and figures, was given by Joseph Auria, Rome, 1591, 4to. Pappus has given a pretty full commentary on the first book of this work of Theodosius. His work irepi olx^a-fiav (On Habitations) also was published by Auria, Rome, 1588. It gives an account of how, for every inhabitant of the earth from the equator.to the pole, the starry firmament presents itself in the course of a year. The proposi tions in it were also given by Dasypodius in his work mentioned above.

 THEOGNIS was one of the early Greek elegiac poets; he probably flourished about the middle of the 6th century B.C. We derive our knowledge of his life from the poems that bear his name. After the fall of Theagenes, who had made himself tyrant of Megara about 625, the usual struggles between oligarchy and democracy ensued. Theognis was a violent partisan of the oligarch ical faction in his native town, and wrote elegies in which he gave expression to the emotions roused in him by the varying phases of the struggle. He appears on one occasion to have lost his property (verse 345) and been driven into exile: perhaps it was then that he visited Sicily, Euboea, and Sparta (783 sq.). In the end if we may trust 1123 sq. he returned to Megara, and lived, at least for a time, in something like prosperity. The date of his death is unknown. The verses handed down to us under the name of Theognis amount in all to 1389. Not a few of them are ascribed on the evidence of the ancients to Tyrtaeus, Mimnernus, and Solon; modern criticism has made it probable that two of the longer elegies are from the hand of Evenus (467-496 and 667-686); other fragments are demonstrably later than Theognis. It is now generally admitted that the Theognidea were put together long after Theognis possibly even as late as the 4th century B.C. by some compiler who wished to provide a good collection of moral maxims for educational pur poses. To separate the genuine fragments of Theognis from those which were ascribed to him by the reverence of a later age is a hopeless task.

The collection is divided into two books. The first, which is addressed to a youth called Cyrnus, or Polypsedes, opens with a spirited invocation of Apollo and Artemis, along with the Muses and the Graces (vv. 1-18); then follows a passage which has been much discussed in connexion with the early history of writing, recommending Cyrnus to set a seal upon the author's verses, to prevent forgers from passing off spurious lines under his name (see Jevons, Hist, of Greek Lit., p. 46). With verse 27 begins a series of counsels to Cyrnus. On the whole they are remarkable neither for loftiness of tone nor for poetic elevation. Cyrnus is counselled to avoid "the bad" and frequent the society of "the good" men the terms "good" and "bad" being used to denote aristocrats and democrats, just as xoAbs Ka.ya.06s meant an oligarch in the later days of the Pelopouuesiau War. Sometimes the violence of party feeling leads Theognis beyond all bounds, as when he prays that he may "drink the black blood" of his opponents (349; cf. 337339 and 361). One striking feature in these elegies is the continual refrain about the evils of poverty. "To avoid poverty one should even throw oneself into the vasty deep, or from the beetling rocks" (175-176; cf. 266 sq., 351 sq., and 649 sq.). Elsewhere the poet reproaches Zeus with allowing evil men to prosper, and afflicting the good (373 sq.); he also complains that the punishment due to wicked men often falls upon their sons (731 sq.). A pleasing feature is the high value which is placed upon friendship: one is not to part with a friend lightly, or upon some slight occasion of displeasure (323 sq.). At the same time no one knows better than Theognis how quickly friends fail one in adversity (299-300). Life has on the whole few charms for our poet: "the best thing for man is not to be born or look upon the rays of the swift sun; once born it is best for him to pass as soon as possible the gates of death, and lie with a great barrow of earth above him" (425-429). The prevailingly sad tone of the elegies is occasionally broken by a convivial note. "It is shameful," says the poet, "to be drunk when others are sober, or sober when others are drunk " (626627); "among the uproarious I am very uproarious, but among the proper I am the properest of men " (313-314). The only elegy which possesses any considerable poetic merit in the first book is that in which Theognis predicts immortality for his young friend through the fame awaiting his own poems. The second book (1231-1389) consists of a number of amatory elegies addressed to some young friend of the author's. In vigour and harmony of versification they are on the whole superior to the first book; but most if not all of them are probably spurious.

Bergk, Poette Lyrici arxci, ii. 117-236, Leipsic, 1882.

 

HE The word theology comes from a heathen source—from the Greek classics. In the Republic of Plato and the Metaphysics of Aristotle it occurs, and in its etymological meaning of " discourse or doctrine con cerning Deity and Divine things" Xo yos irept TOV Oeov Kal Trfpl TOOV Ofiwv. Men who wrote about the gods and their doings, or who speculated about the Divine in the origination and operations of nature men like Homer, Hesiod, Pherecydes, and Thales, were called tfeoAo yot. But there could, of course, be no theological science based on the popular religion of Greece. Theology was only to be found among the Greeks in the form of philosophical speculation. Through St Augustine we know that Varro, "the most learned of the Romans," distinguished three kinds of theology, the first mythical or fabulous, the second physical or natural, and the third civil or popular. The mythical theology he censured as containing many things contrary to the dignity and nature of immortal beings; the natural theology he described as that which is true but beyond the capacity of the vulgar; the civil theology he considered to be that which it was good for the citizens to believe the received religion of Rome. The general attitude of the Greek and Roman mind to religion was unfavourable to the cultivation of theology. Religion being dissociated in thought from truth could not give rise to science.

