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EPEE, CHARLES-MICHEL DE L f . 



EPHRAEM. 



786 



uesus, so we cannot enter into the causes of its decline, except by 

 naying, that it aoon became plain that a mere change of masters, 

 Thebes instead of Sparta, would be of no service to the other states. 

 Achaia first, then Elis, then Mantiueia and great part of Arcadia, 

 returned to the Lacedaemonian alliance. To check this defection 

 Epaminondas led an army into Peloponnesus for tho fourth time, 

 B.C. 362. Joined by the Argians, Messeniaus, and part of the Arca- 

 dians, he entered Lacouia, and endeavoured to take Sparta by surprise ; 

 but the vigilance of Agesilaus just frustrated this scheme. Epami- 

 uondas then marched against Mantineia, near which was fought the 

 celebrated battle in which he fell. The disposition of his troops on 

 this occasion was an improvement on that by which he had gained the 

 battle of Leuctra, and would have had the same decisive success, but 

 that in the critical moment, when the Lacedaemonian line was just 

 broken, he received a mortal wound. The Thebau army was paralysed 

 by this misfortune; nothing was done to improve a victory which 

 might have been made certain, and this battle, on which the expecta- 

 tion of all Greece waited, led to no important result. " Each party," 

 says Xenophou, " claimed the victory and neither gained any advan- 

 tage : indecision, trouble, and confusion, more than ever before that 

 battle pervaded Greece." 



Whether Epaminondaa could much longer have upheld Thebes in 

 tho rank to which he had raised her, is very doubtful : without him 

 blie f"'.i at once to her former obscurity. His character is certainly 

 one of the fairest recorded in Greek history. His private life was 

 moral and refined; his public conduct uninfluenced by personal 

 ambition, or by personal hatred. He was a sincere lover of his 

 country, and if, in his schemes for her advancement, he was indifferent 

 to the injury done to other members of the Grecian family, this ia 

 a fault from which, perhaps, no Greek statesman, except ArUtides, 

 was free. 



(Xenophon, Ildlen. ; Plutarch, Pdopidcu, Agit, etc.) 



EPEE, CHARLES-MICHEL DE L'. This distinguished friend 

 and instructor of the deaf and dumb was born at Versailles, in 

 November 1712. His father, a man of talent and probity, was the 

 king's architect. Young I'Epe'e was educated for the church, a pro- 

 fession for which his mild, cheerful, and pious disposition peculiarly 

 fitted him. There were difficulties at first in the way of his admission 

 to the priesthood. He was required, according to the established 

 practice of the diocese of Paris, to sign a formulary of faith ; and this 

 being opposed to his own opinions (which were Janseuist), he could 

 not do so conscientiously. He was however admitted to the rank of 

 deacon, but was told never to pretend to holy orders. He was then 

 led to engage in the study of the law, but this profession did not suit 

 the bias of his mind. At last he succeeded in obtaining holy orders, 

 being ordained by the Bishop of Troyes, a nephew of Boasuet, and 

 received from him a cauonry in the cathedral of Troyes. 



An accidental circumstance led him to devote himself to the 

 instruction of the deaf and dumb. Business took him one day to a 

 house where he found only two young women, who were busily en- 

 gaged in needlework, but who paid no attention to his questions. The 

 mother of the young women arriving shortly afterwards, explained to 

 him with tears that they were deaf and dumb. An ecclesiastic named 

 Vanin had commenced the education of these young persons by 

 means of pictures ; but death had removed him, and no other person 

 had offered to instruct the mutes. " Believing," says M. de 1'Epde, 

 " that these two children would live and die in ignorance of their 

 religion, if I did not attempt some means of instructing them, I was 

 touched with compassion, and told tho mother that she might send 

 them daily to my house, and that I would do whatever I might find 

 possible for them." 



John Paul lionet's book came in the way of M. de 1'Epoe ; a person 

 offered a copy of it to him, urging him to buy it, which ho at first 

 refused, not knowing the nature of the work, and alleging that he did 

 not understand Spanish, and that the book was therefore of no use to 

 him. Opening it casually, he found the copperplate engraving of 

 lionet's one-handed alphabet. Tho book was immediately bought, 

 and De 1'Epde learned Spanish to enable him to read it. De 1'EpcSe 

 was persevering and disinterested in his instruction of tho deaf and 

 dumb. He persevered until he converted opposition and contempt 

 into approbation, eventually enlisting the public in favour of his 

 teaching to a much greater extent than any of his predecessors in the 

 work of instructing the deaf and dumb had done. De 1'EptSe employed 

 the finger-alphabet only partially in his method, his dependence being 

 placed chiefly on methodical signs and writing for the conveyance of 

 ideas ; but he failed to see that in teaching signs he was not teaching 

 ideas. He professed to teach the meaning with the signs and words, 

 but tho end would have been accomplished more simply by using the 

 words only. Yet,' though the methods of the Abbe" de 1'Epde were 

 incomplete and somewhat cumbrous, there can be no reasonable doubt 

 that he employed them because they were the best with which he 

 was acquainted, or of which he was able to obtain information ; and he 

 devoted his life and his means with entire single-miudedness to the 

 promotion of the moral and intellectual elevation of the unfortunate 

 class whose cause he had espoused. His income was about 4002., of 

 which he allowed about 1001. for his own expenses, and appropriated 

 the remainder to the support and instruction of indigent mutes. "The 

 rich," he said, " only come to my house by tolerance ; it is not to them 



that I devote myself it is to the poor ; but for them, I should never 

 have undertaken the education of the deaf and dumb." 



M. de l'Ep(5e died December 23, 1789, aged seventy-seven. His 

 memory received various honours : his funeral oration was pronounced 

 by the Abbe" Fauchet, the king's preacher. He ranks deservedly among 

 those whose lives have been devoted to the amelioration of the condition 

 of their fellow-men, and the fruits of whose labours do not die with 

 them. 



E'PHORUS, a Greek historian, born at Cyme in JEolis, in the year 

 B.C. 405. (Suidas.) He survived the passage of Alexander into Asia 

 (B.C. 333), which he mentioned in his history. (Clem. Al., ' Strom.,' 

 i. p. 337 A.) He studied rhetoric under Isocrates, but with so little 

 success that after he had returned from Athens his father Demophilus 

 sent him back to the rhetorician for fresh instructions. (Plutarch) 

 ' Vit. Isocratis,' p. 366, Wyttenb.) Isocrates, perceiving his unfituess 

 for public speaking, recommended him to turn his attention to histo- 

 rical composition (Seneca, ' de Tranquillit Animi," c. vi.) ; but his 

 style was low and slovenly even iu his histories (Dio., i. p. 479) ; and 

 Plutarch remarks upon the silliness of the set speeches which he 

 introduced. ('Polit. Prsecon.,' p. 803 B.) Polybius observes that, 

 though in his account of naval matters he is sometimes happy, he 

 always fails in describing battles by land, and was entirely ignorant of 

 tactics. (' Excerpt. Vatican.,' p. 391.) Ephorus wrote 1. ' A History 

 of Greece,' in 30 books, beginning with the siege of Troy, and termi- 

 nating with the siege of Periuthus (B.C. 340). Part of the 30th book 

 was written by his son Demophilus. (Diod., xvi. 14.) 2. 'On 

 Inventions,' in 2 books. 3. ' On Goods and Ills,' iu 24 books. 4. 'On 

 Remarkable Objects iu Various Countries,' 15 books. 5. ' The Topo- 

 graphy of Cyme.' 6. ' On Diction.' The fragments of these works 

 have been collected by Meier Marx, Carlsruhe, 1815 ; and by 

 C. & Th. Muller, in pp. 234-277 of 'Frag. Hist. Grose.,' Paris, 1841. 



EPHRAEM, or EPHRAIM ('EtyKu/i), an ecclesiastical writer of the 

 4th century of our era, was probably born in the town of Nisibis, 

 though some state that he was born at Edessa. The time at which 

 he attained the height of his fame is about A.D. 370. In his early 

 youth he entered the monastic life, and iu seclusion he carried on his 

 philosophical studies with zeal and success. But at a later period he 

 seems to have become tired of solitary life, and feeling a strong desire 

 to benefit others by the talent and knowledge which he possessed, he 

 went to Edessa, whither the most distinguished Syrians came to 

 receive his instruction. He soon became deacon of the church at 

 Edessa, but declined accepting any higher ecclesiastical office, and 

 when he was elected bishop and received intelligence of it he rushed 

 forth into the market-place and acted iu such a manner that the 

 people thought he was out of his senses. He then absconded until 

 another had been appointed to the office of bishop iu his place. He 

 now went to Cassarea in Cappadocia, to ses Basilius the Great, who 

 formed the highest opinion of his learning and piety. Ephraem spent 

 the greater part of his life iu writing and preaching on devotional and 

 moral subjects, and especially against the Arian heresy ; but he was 

 equally energetic whenever there was any occasion to show by his 

 acts that he really was the benevolent man that he appeared to be. 

 This was especially manifest at the time when Edessa was suffering 

 from famine : ho gavo his assistance everywhere ; he called upon the 

 rich to help tho poor, and he himself undertook the care of seeing 

 that the poor received what was intended for them. He was looked 

 up to with admiration and reverence by his contemporaries, who 

 distinguished him by the honourable designation of ' tho prophet of 

 the Syrians.' He died about 378, having ordered in his will that no 

 one should praise him, according to the common practice, in a funeral 

 oration, that his body should not be wrapped up in costly robes, and 

 that no monument should be erected on his tomb. An interesting 

 life o f Ephraem, though not free from marvellous stories, is contained 

 in the ' Acta Sanctorum,' torn. i. Febr. 49, &c. ; comp. Nyssenus, 

 ' Opera,' torn. ii. c. 60; Sozomen, iii. 16; Hieronymus, 'De Scriptor.,' 

 c. 115; Photius, 'Biblioth. Cod.,' 196; and some other sources col- 

 lected by G. Vossius, in the first volume of his edition of the works of 

 Ephraem. 



Ephraem was one of the most prolific writers of his time. He 

 knew no other language than the Syriac, but was considered to sur- 

 pass all his contemporaries in the elegance and power of his oratory. 

 Nearly all his works were translated into Greek in his own lifetime, 

 and their popularity was so great that in some churches they were 

 publicly read after the Scriptures. The Greek Church down to this 

 day regards him as a saint. According to Photius, he wrote upwards 

 of a thousand orations, besides many hymns, poems, and treatises on 

 a variety of theological, philosophical, and moral subjects, which are 

 still highly esteemed by theologians. Nearly all his works are extant, 

 either in Syriac or iu Greek and Arabic translations. The first 

 collection of them that was published, though it is not complete, and 

 only in a Latin translation, is that of G. Vossius, in 3 vols. folio, Rome, 

 1586-97; reprinted at Cologne, 1603, and at Antwerp, 1619. The 

 publication of this Latin translation created a strong desire to see all 

 the works of Ephraem, if not iu the original Syriac, at least iu the 

 Greek translations which were made in the author's lifetime. This 

 arduous task was undertaken by Assemaui, who intended to publish 

 tho Greek in three folio volumes, and the Syriac in three others. The 

 first three volumes, edited by Assemani himself, appeared at Rome in 



