502 EVANGELINUS APOSTOLIDES SOPHOCLES. 



EVANGELINUS APOSTOLIDES SOPHOCLES. 



EvANGELiNus APOSTOLIDES SoPHOCLES died, December 17,1883, 

 in his room in Holworthy Hall, at Harvard College. He was born in 

 1804 in the village of Tsangarada (TcrayKupaSa) in Thessaly, on the 

 slope of Mount Pelion. His father's name was Apostolos, and tlius 

 he obtained the patronymic Apostolides, which the rest of his family 

 still continue to use as a surname. The name of Sophocles, by which 

 he has always been known away from home, was gi^'en him in liis 

 youth by his teacher Gazes, as a compliment to his scholarship. He 

 spent his childhood in his Thessalian home, and thus he became 

 familiar with the scenes famous in the story of the Argonauts, with the 

 home of Achilles, and with the rocky coast of Magnesia on which a 

 part of the fleet of Xerxes was dashed as it was on its way to attack 

 Greece. While still a boy he accompanied his uncle to Cairo, where 

 he spent several years in the branch of the Sinaitic monastery of St. 

 Catherine, visiting also the principal monastery on Mount Sinai itself. 

 He returned to Thessaly in 1820, where he remained a year at school, 

 chiefly studying the Greek classic authors, under the instruction of 

 several teachers of repute, especially Anthimos Gazes, who had been 

 twenty-five years in Vienna and had there published a periodical in 

 Greek and a Lexicon of Ancient Greek, besides other literary works. 

 The breaking out of the Greek Revolution in 1821 closed this school, 

 and Sophocles, at the age of fourteen, returned to the monastery in 

 Cairo. After a few years he left the Sinaitic brotherhood on the 

 death of his uncle, and became again a pupil of Gazes at Syra, where 

 he became acquainted with the Rev. Josiah Brewer, a missionary of 

 the American Board of Foreign Missions, who visited Gazes in Sep- 

 tember, 1827. A few months later he removed with his teacher to 

 the island of yEgina, then the seat of the Provisional Government of 

 Greece. Mr. Brewer, who accompanied the party from Syra to 

 iEgina, there invited Sophocles to go to the United States, and by the 

 advice of Gazes the invitation was accepted. Sophocles arrived at 

 Boston from Smyrna, July lo, 1828, and put himself under the tuition 

 of Mr. Colton, of Monson, INIass. Here he studied Latin for the first 

 time. In 1820 he entered as Freshman at Amherst College, but 

 remained only a part of one year. He afterwards lived at Hartford 

 and New Haven. All his earlier works were published at Hartford, 

 where at one time he taught matliematics. In 1842 he came to Har- 

 vard College as Tutor in Greek, and remained until 1845. He 



