197 



AMYOT, THOMAS. 



ANASTASIU3 I. 



183 



is made from Amyot's French. His other works consist of French 

 translations of other Greek works, of which the principal are the 

 ' ^-Ethiopia History of Heliodovus, 1 seven books of Diodorus, the 

 ' Pastoral Loves of Daphnis and Chloe," &o. He ha* besides given an 

 ' Account of his Journey to Trent,' in a letter addressed to M. de 

 Morveiliieri He composed a treatise on ' Royal Eloquence ' for the 

 use of his pupil, Henri III., which was printed for the first time only 

 in 1805, under the reign of Napoleon I. It was at the suggestion of 

 Amyot that Henri III. founded in 1575 a Greek and Latin library. 



AMYOT, THOMAS, was born at Norwich about 1775, and settled 

 in that city as a solicitor. In 1802 he was appointed law-agent for 

 Mr. Windham in a contested election, and this led, on Windhatn's 

 becoming Secret;iry-at-War in 1S06 in the Grenville administration, to 

 his being appointed his private secretary. His tenure of this office 

 was something less thau a twelvemonth, but during it he had obtained 

 also one of the ordinary clerkships in the Colonial Office ; and in 1807 

 he was appointed Registrar of Records in Upper Canada, an office 

 executed by deputy. In 1810 Mr. Windham died; and in 1812 Mr. 

 Amyot published the speeches in parliament of his late patron, with 

 a short sketch of his life. Mr. Amyot's leisure was now devoted to 

 the study of the antiquities and history of his country, all his other 

 works being contributions to the ' Archteologia,' his principal papers 

 being on the Bayeux Tapestry, and on the asserted existence of 

 Kicbard II. in Scotland. In 1823 he was appointed treasurer of the 

 Society of Antiquaries, an office which he filled very effectively till 

 within a short time of hU death, which took place in London, Sep- 

 tember 2S. 1850. 



ANACHAUSIS, a Scythian of princely family, was, according to 

 Herodotu-, a son of Gnurus, or, according to others, of Daucetas, and 

 the brother of Saulius, who was king of the Scythians. Notwith- 

 standing the great aversion of the Scythians to everything foreign, 

 especially Greek, the natural good sense and talent which Herodotus 

 ascribe* to all the Scythians, and which AnacharsU possessed in a higher 

 degree than any of his nation, created in him such a desire of know- 

 ledge that he broke through the custom of his peopl-, and went to 

 Greece for the purpose of satisfying his wishes. He arrived at Athens 

 just at the time when Solon was engaged upon the work of bis legisla- 

 tion, and is said to have formed an intimate friendship with him. 

 The novelty of his appearance, his natural wit, which contrasted with 

 the more refined and artificial manners of the Athenians, his humour, 

 and hU anxiety to lean), created a great sensation among the Greeks. 

 Many of his witty sayings are recorded in Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, 

 Athenaeus, and Lucian. He ii said to have likened the legislation of 

 Solon to a spider's web, in which the weak might be caught, but which 

 the strong would break through. The fact that at Athens political 

 matters were discussed by the prytanes before they were laid before 

 the people for their approbation, led him to say that at Athens wise 

 men deliberated, but left the decision to fools. Some writers reckoned 

 Anacharsis one of the seven eages of Greece, and it was probably more 

 to these nnd similar sayings than to anything else, that he owed his 

 reputation as a wise man and a philosopher. It is said that he was 

 tiie only barbnrian that ever received the Athenian franchise, and was 

 initiated in the Eleu-inian mysteries : but Lucian justly doubts the 

 correctness of the statement. His fondness for religious mysteries 

 however is said to have been the cause of his death. On hia journey 

 homewards, when he reached Cyzicus, the inhabitants were celebrating 

 the mysteries of Cybele, the mother of the gods. Anachar.Ms prayed 

 to the goddess, and vowed that if he reached home in safety, he wouM 

 solemnise there mysteries in the same manner. He carried his vow 

 into execution in a wooded district called Hylaea, but he was discovered 

 by a Scythian, and denounced to the king, his brother. The king 

 came to the spot to convince himself; and when he saw Anacharsis 

 performing the Greek rites, he shot him dead with an arrow. The 

 Scythians were so indignant at the conduct of Auacharsis, that, as 

 Herodotus says, they afterwards pretended not to know him if anybody 

 asked them about him. 



There once existed several works which were ascribed to Anacharsis. 

 Among them are some letters addressed to various illustrious personages 

 of the time. Aldus, in his collection of the Greek ' Epistolographers ' 

 (Venice, 1499, 4to), published nine letters under the name of Ana- 

 charsis. But Beutley has justly remarked that, like other ancient pro- 

 ductions of the same class, they are forgeries. The other works ascribed 

 to Anachareis, such as an epic poem of eight hundred verses, a work 

 on war, on the laws .of the Scythians, and some Greek customs, are 

 now lost ; but they were unquestionably not more genuine than the 

 letters and the numerous inventions that were ascribed to him. 



(Herodotus, iv. 46, 76 ; Cicero, Tutctdantt Qiurationea, v. 32 ; 

 Strabo. vii. 301, 303; Plutarch, Solon, 5 ; Diogenes Laertius, i. c. viii. ; 

 Athenieus, iv. 159, x. 428, 437, xiv. 613, ed. Casaub. ; ./Elian, Vm-iir 

 lliitorur, v. 7; compare Lucian, Scytha, eu Conciliator JJotpitii,' and 

 Anacharsit, rive de Esercitationibut.) 



(Biographical Dictionary of Ueeful Knowledge Society.) 



ANACRKON was a native of Teos, a maritime town of Ionia in 

 Asia Minor, and born, according to the common opinion, about B.C. 

 i ! | nt hi* early life in his native town, and there imbibed the 

 li.-ht .-mil volatile spirit and the love of enjoyment which characterised 

 Mi" lnic nation. About B.C. 540, when Ionia fell under the yoke of 

 the I'er-i:ins, and Teos was taken by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, 



most of the Teians quitted their native town, and settled at Abdera in 

 Thrace, and Anacreon ia said to have joined his countrymen in their 

 emigration. If this statement is true, Anacreon cannot have remained 

 long at Abdera, for it was about the same time (B.O. 540) that Poly- 

 crates became tyrant of Samos ; and it is stated that Anacreon was 

 invited from Teos by the father of Polycrates, at the request of Poly- 

 crates, and before he became tyrant, to be his instructor and friend. 

 Hence the account of his emigration to Abdera is rejected by some 

 critics. Anacreon remained in Samos till after, or at least till shortly 

 before, the murder of his friend and patron iu B.C. 522. About the 

 time of the death of Polycrates, Hipparchus, the son of Piaistratus, 

 is said to have invited Anacn on to Athens, and to have sent a ship 

 of fifty oars to Samos to bring him over. At Athens he lived for some 

 time. His death is said to have been occasioned by a dried grape, 

 which choked him. The statement that he was a lover of Sappho is, 

 if not impossible, at least in the highest degree improbable, and arose 

 from the practice, so common among writers of antiquity, of placing 

 persons of the same character in some sort of relation to one another. 

 His native town, proud of the poet, placed his full figure and sometimes 

 his bust only on its coins, some of which are still extant. On the 

 acropolis of Athens there was likewise a statue uf Anacreon, repre- 

 senting him in a state of intoxicated joyousness. 



We still possess numerous fragments of the genuine poems of 

 Anacreon, which enable us to form a notion of the character of his 

 poetry, and which justify the universal admiration of antiquity. The 

 praise of beauty, love, and wine, waa the substance of his poems from 

 his earliest to his latest age ; and the cheerful and joyous old man, as 

 Anacreon describes himself iu some of his latest productions, has made 

 so strong an impression, that we can scarcely picture him to ourselves 

 in any other form than that of an old man, although the greater part 

 of his fragments belong to the period which he spent at Samos and 

 Athens. 



Besides the numerous fragments of the genuine poems of Anacreon 

 preserved in ancient writers, there is a collection of fifty-five odes, 

 which have been generally considered as poems of Anacreon, most of 

 which however are productions of a much later age. This collection 

 was first published by H. Stephens at Paris, 1554, 4to, from two manu- 

 scripts, which he describes very vaguely, and which no one else has 

 seen. The same poems however were subsequently found in the 

 ' Codex Palatinus' (now at Heidelberg) of the Greek Anthology, though 

 arranged in a different order from that in the edition of Stephens. 

 Most of these fifty-five poems are pretty in their way, but exhibit very 

 little of the character and spirit which we peroeivo in the genuine 

 fragments of Anacreon ; and all modern critics are agreed that they 

 are not the work of this poet, although they have been translated into 

 all European languages, and have with the majority of persons been 

 the groundwork upon which they have formed their notions of Ana- 

 creon. Of those who have attempted to present Anacreon in an 

 English dress, the most celebrated, and the most successful, are Cowley, 

 who translated twelve odes, and Moore. But the translations of the 

 former should rather be called paraphrases ; and the version of the 

 latter is too much loaded with ornament, too studiously brilliant, to 

 convey an exact idea of the style of his original. Some pretty speci- 

 mens of the poet (including one or two of Cowley's translations) will 

 be found in Merivale's ' Anthology." The genuine remains of Anacreon 

 are published in several collections of the minor Greek poets ; the beit 

 separate edition is that of Theod. Bergk, Leipzig, 1834, 8ro. 



(Muller, Hiitory of the Literature of Ancient Greece, i. 180, 4c. ; 

 Bode, Geschichte der Lyritchm Dichtkunst der Hellenen, i. 350, &c. ; 

 Wolper, De Antiquitate Carminum Anacreonteorwm, Leipzig, 1825, 

 8vo.) 



(Biographical Dictionary of the Useful Knowledge Society.) 



ANANl'AS, a convert to Christianity at Jerusalem iu the apostolic 

 age, was struck dead, with his wife Sapphira, for falsehood. (Acts v. 

 1-11.) 



ANANl'AS was son of that Onias, the high priest, who bein? 

 exiled fron. Jerusalem, built a Jewish temple near Heliopolis, in Lower 

 Egypt, and founded the town of Onion on the eastern froutier of the 

 Delta. Ananias and his brother Helcias, or Chelcias, were appointed 

 the commanders of the Egyptian army, by Cleopatra, when she warred 

 against her son Lathurus, in the year B.C. 102. Ananias remonstrated 

 against the intention of Cleopatra to seize the dominions of her con- 

 federate Alexander Jannseus, and assured her that tho Jews would 

 take revenge if she succeeded in killing Jaunams. Cleopatra, consider- 

 ing that Ananias and Jannseus were related to each other, and that 

 many Jews served in her army, gave up her treacherous plan. (Jost, 

 Qeschic.Me der Juden, vol. ii. p. 309-311.) 



ANANl'AS, the son of Nebedaeus, was high-prieat from the year 

 50 to 66 after Christ. He was sent to Rome by Quadratus, the governor 

 of Syria, in order to exculpate himself concerning the quarrels of 

 the Jews with the Samaritans. Agrippina interceded for Ananias, 

 and he was set at liberty. He condemned the apostle St. Paul. (Acts 

 xxii. 23, 24 ; and xxv. 1.) At th,n commencement of tha Jewish war, 

 Ananias and his brother concealed themselves in an aqueduct, but 

 were discovered and killed. 



ANASTA'SIUS I., emperor of Constantinople, succeeded Zeno, 

 A.D. 492, through the interest of Ariadne, Zeno's widow, who after- 

 wards married him. Anastasius waa then sixty year* of age. Ho was 



