987 



THEMISON. 



THEMISTOCLES. 



958 



THE'MISON (&ffj.iarai'), an ancient physician, who is probably best 

 known to most persons from Juvenal's somewhat equivocal line ('Sat./ 

 x., v. 221) 



" Quot Themison tcgros auctumno occiderit uno ; " 



but who was in reality the founder of a celebrated medical sect, and 

 one of the most eminent physicians of his time. He was born at 

 Laodicea in Syria, in the first century before Christ, and, from 

 Juvenal's line above quoted, may be conjectured to have practised at 

 Rome, though some writers believe the Themison of Juvenal to be a 

 different person to the founder of the Methodici, and to have been in 

 fact a contemporary of the satirist. The famous Themison was a 

 pupil of Asclepiades, from whose opinions however ho afterwards 

 dissented, and finished by founding a new medical sect, called the 

 Methodici. (Pliny, ' Hist Nat.,' lib. xxix., cap. 5, ed. Tauchn. ; Galen, 

 ' Introd.,' cap. 4, torn. xiv. p. 683, 684, ed. Kuhn ; Cramer, ' Anecd. 

 Gr. Paris,' vol. i., p. 395, 1. '26.) The following is the analysis of the 

 opinions of this school, which is given by Celsus in the historical 

 introduction to his work: "They assert that the knowledge of no 

 cause whatever bears the least relation to the method of cure ; and 

 that it is sufficient to observe some general symptoms of distempers ; 

 and that there are three kinds of diseases, one bound, another loose 

 (Jluens), and the third a mixture of these. For that sometimes the 

 excretions of sick people are too small, sometimes too large; and 

 sometimes one particular excretion is deficient, while another is 

 excessive. That these kinds of distempers are sometimes acute, and 

 sometimes chronic ; sometimes increasing, sometimes at a stand, and 

 sometimes abating. As soon then as it is known to which of these 

 classes a distemper belongs, if the body be bound, it must be opened; 

 if it labours under a flux, it must be restrained ; if the distemper be 

 complicated, then the most urgent malady must be first opposed. 

 And that one kind of treatment is required in acute, another in 

 inveterate distempers ; another when diseases are increasing ; another 

 when at a stand ; and another when inclining to health. That the 

 observation of these things constitutes the art of medicine, which they 

 define as a certaiu way of proceeding, which the Greeks call method 

 (jue'0o5os), and affirm it to be employed in considering those things that 

 are common to the same distempers : nor are they willing to have 

 themselves classed either with the rationalists (i. e. the Dogmatici), or 

 with those who regard only experiments (i. e. the Empirici) : for they 

 dissent from the first sect, in that they will not allow medicine to 

 consist in forming conjectures about the occult things ; and also from 

 the other in this, that they hold the observation of experiments to 

 be a very small part of the art." (Futvoye's ' Translation.') What 

 we know of his mode of treating diseases does not give us a very high 

 idea of his skill in therapeutics. He thought he could cure the most 

 violent attacks of pneumonia by means of oil and baths ; in pleurisy 

 he permitted the use of wine mixed with sea-water (Cael. 'Aurel, ' De 

 Morb. Acut.,' lib. i., cap. 16, p. 62,68); he recommended also violent 

 exercise in several acute diseases. (Id., ibid., lib. ii. cap. 29, p. 144.) 

 He is said by Sprengel (' Hist, de la M6d.') to have been the first 

 person who made use of leeches. (Id., ' De Morb. Chron.,' lib. i., 

 cap. 1, p. 286.) He is also said to have been himself attacked with 

 hydrophobia, and to have recovered. (Id., ' De Morb. Acut./ lib. iii. 

 cap. 16, p. 232; Dioscor., 'Theriac./ cap. 1, p. 423.) He wrote several 

 inf dical works, of which nothing but the titles remain. (Cael. Aureh, 

 'De Morb. Chron./ lib. i., cap. 1, p. 285; i. 4, p. 323; ii. 7, p. 387, 

 &c.) His followers were very numerous, of whom the mcst eminent 

 were Sorauus [SORANUS], Thessalus [TMBSALUS], Csclius Aurelianus, 

 whose work 'De Morbis Acutis et Chrouicis ' is one of the most 

 valuable of antiquity ; and Moschion, author of the work Ilfpi ruv 

 TwaiKfiuv TlaOwf, 'De Mulierum Passionibus.' 



(Sprengel, Mist de la Mcd. ; Fabricius, Biblioth. Grceca ; Haller, 

 Bilioth. Medic. Pract. ; Biog. Medicate; Diet, of Greek and Raman 

 Antiq., art. 'Methodic!.') 



THEMIS'TIUS, of Paphlagonia, was a distinguished orator in the 

 fourth century after Christ, and was surnamed Euphrades, on account 

 of his skill in his profession . He was much favoured by the Roman 

 emperor?. Constantius made him a senator; Julian appointed him 

 prefect of Constantinople in A.D. 362, and corresponded with him 

 by letters; and although he was a heathen, he was intrusted by 

 Theodosius the Great with the education of his son Arcadius. 

 In the year 384 he was appointed, for the second time, prefect 

 of Constantinople ; and during a period of almost forty years he 

 was repeatedly employed in embassies and other state business. 

 He was the teacher of Libanius and Augustin, and kept up a friendly 

 intercourse with Gregory Nazianzen, who calls him in his letters " the 

 king of arguments." Themistius had deeply studied the writings of 

 Plato and Aristotle ; and he taught the Peripatetic philosophy, as well 

 as rhetoric, at Rome and Constantinople. 



Of thirty six orations composed by him which were known to 

 Photius, thirty-three have come down to us in the original Greek, and 

 one in a Latin translation. They have reference for the most part to 

 public affairs, and several of them are panegyrics upon the emperors 

 by whom the orator was patronised. 



Editions of some of the orations were published by Aldus (fol. 

 1534), H. Stephens (Svo, 1562), llemus (4to, 1605), and Petau (8vo, 

 1613, and 4to, 1618). The most complete edition ia that of Harduin 

 (fol., Paris, 1684), which contains thirty-three orations, thirteen of 



which had not been printed before. Another oration was discovered 

 by Angelo Mai, and published by him at Milan, 1816, Svo. W. Din- 

 dorf also published, in 1830, two orations of Themistius, corrected 

 from a Milan manuscript, and an edition of the whole, Svo, Lips. 1832. 



The philosophical works of Themistius consist of commentaries, in 

 the form of paraphrases, on some of Aristotle's works, in Greek, and 

 two Latin translations of commentaries, one upon the work ' On 

 Heaven/ and the other upon the twelfth book of the ' Metaphysics.' 

 The paraphrases were first published in a Latin version by Hermolaus 

 Barbarus, 1481, which has been several times reprinted : the Greek 

 text of them forms part of the Aldine edition of Theruistiu?. The 

 two commentaries in Latin were printed at Venice in 1558, 1570, and 

 1574. There are some letters by Themistius in the collection of H. 

 Stephens, Svo, 1577. 



(Scholl, Gescldchtc der Griech. Lift., iii. 96, 388.) 



THEMI'STOCLES was born about the year B.C. 514. He was the 

 son of Nicocles, an Athenian of moderate fortune, who however was 

 connected with the priestly house of the Lycomedse ; hip mother, 

 Abrotonon, or, according to others, Euterpe, was not an Athenian 

 citizen; and, according to most authorities, not even a Greek, but 

 either a native of Caria or of Thrace. The education which he 

 received was like that of all Athenians of rank at the time, but 

 Themistocles had no taste for the elegant arts which then began to 

 form a prominent part in the education of Athenian youths; he 

 applied himself with much more zeal to the pursuit of practical and 

 useful knowledge. This, as well as the numerous anecdotes about his 

 youthful wilfulness and waywardness, together with the sleepless 

 nights which he is said to have passed in meditating on the trophies 

 of Miltiades, are more or less clear symptoms of the character which 

 he subsequently displayed as a general and a statesman. His mind 

 was early bent upon great things, and was incapable of being diverted 

 from them by reverses, scruples or difficulties. The great object of 

 his life appears to have been to make Athens great. The powers with 

 which nature had endowed him were quickness of perception, an 

 accurate judgment of the course which was to be taken on sudden 

 and extraordinary emergencies, and sagacity in calculating the conse- 

 quences of his own actions; and these were the qualities which 

 Athens during her wars with Persia stood most in need of. His 

 ambition was unbounded, but he was at the same time persuaded that 

 it could not reach its end unless Athens was the first among the 

 Grecian states ; and as he was not very scrupulous about the means 

 that he employed for these ends, he came into frequent conflict with 

 Aristides the Just, who had nothing at heart but the welfare of his 

 country ; and no desire of personal aggrandisement. 



In the year 483 B.C., when Aristides was sent into exile by ostracism, 

 Themistocles, who had for several years taken an active part in public 

 affairs, and was one of the chief authors of the banishment of his rival, 

 remained in the almost undivided possession of the popular favour, 

 and the year after, B.C. 482, he was elected archon cponymus of 

 Athens. The city was at that time involved in a war with -lEgiua, 

 which then possessed the strongest navy in Greece, and with which 

 Athens was unable to cope. It was in this year that Themistocles 

 conceived and partly carried into effect the plans by which he intended 

 to raise the power of Athens. His first object was to increase the 

 navy of Athens ; and this he did ostensibly to enable Athens to con- 

 tend with JEgina, but Lis real intention was to put his country in a 

 position to meet the danger of a second Persian invasion, with which 

 Greece was threatened. The manner in which he raised the naval 

 power was this. Hitherto the people of Athens had been accustomed 

 to divide among themselves the yearly revenues of the silver-mines of 

 Laurion. In the year of his archouship these revenues were unusually 

 large, and he persuaded his countrymen to forego their personal 

 advantage, and to apply these revenues to the enlargement of their 

 fleet. His advice was followed, and the fleet was raised to the 

 number of 200 sail. (Herodot., vii. 144 ; Plutarch., ' Themist./ 4.) 

 It was probably at the same time that he induced the Athenians to 

 pass a decree that, for the purpose of keeping up their navy, twenty 

 new ships should be built every year. (Boekh, ' Public Economy of 

 Athens/ p. 249, Eugl. transl., 2nd edit.) Athens soon after made 

 peace with ^Egina, as Xerxes was at Sardis making preparations for 

 invading Greece with all the forces he could muster. At the same 

 time Themistocles was actively engaged iu allaying the disputes and 

 hostile feelings which existid among the several states of Greece. He 

 acted however with great severity towards those who espoused the 

 cause of the Persians, and a Greek interpreter, who accompanied the 

 envoys of Xerxts that came to Athens to demand earth and water as 

 a sign of submission, was put to death for having made use of the 

 Greek tongue in the service of the common enemy. 



After the affairs among the Greeks were tolerably settled, a detach- 

 ment of the allied troops of the Greeks was sent out to take possession 

 of Tempe, under the command of Themistocles of Athens and Eusene- 

 tus of Sparta ; but on finding that there they would be overwhelmed 

 by the host of the barbarians, they returned to the Corinthian isthmus. 

 When Xerxes arrived in Pieria, the Greek fleet took its post near 

 Arteinisiurn, on the north coast of Euboea, under the command of the 

 Spartan admiral Eurybiades, under whom Themistocles condescended 

 to serve in order not to cause new dissensions among the Greeks, 

 although Athens alone furnished 127 ships, and supplied the Chal- 



