1007 



THEOX. 



THEOPHANES. 



1008 



who was then absent from his country, lost his landed property in 

 this revolution, which, with the rest of the Megarian territory, was 

 partitioned among the successful party. It appears that he lived in 

 exile at Thebes. The fragments of Theognis abound in allusions to 

 the revolution by which he had suffered, and he expresses in bitter 

 language hia complaints against that base class which had usurped the 

 station and property of the body to which he belonged. He had also 

 the mortification of seeing a rich rival of mean birth preferred to him 

 by the parents of a girl whom he courted, though he was in some 

 measure indemnified for his loss by retaining the affections of the girl 

 after she had married his ignoble rival. 



It appears from his verses that he had been in Sicily, Eubcea, and 

 Sparta ; and it was in Sicily that he wrote one of his elegies which was 

 addressed to the Sicilian Megarians, who were a colony from his native 

 state. There seems no reason to doubt that his elegies were composed 

 on various occasions and on particular subjects, and that so far they 

 resembled the elegies of Tyrtseus, Archilochus, and Solon. But as 

 these elegies contained numerous general maxims or lessons for con- 

 duct, it is conjectured that in the course of time nearly everything was 

 omitted from them which had a particular application, and thus the 

 elegies of Theoguis were formed into that general collection of gnomae 

 such as we now have it, consisting of above fourteen hundred hexa- 

 meter and pentameter verses. It is observed that nearly all the passages 

 in this collection which have a political reference are addressed to a 

 person named Cyrnus, the son of Polypas. Cyrnus appears to be a 

 youth of noble family for whom Theognis has a tender regard, and 

 whom he exhorts to the practice of virtue, to prudence in conduct, 

 and to the enjoyment of life. 



The verses of Theognis contain many allusions to the symposia, or 

 entertainments, of the Greeks, in which it was usual, after the libation 

 had been duly performed, for some of the guests to sing a poem, 

 accompanied by the flute. This poem, or elegy, was addressed either 

 to all the company, or, as appears to have been always the case with 

 the elegies of Theognis, it waa addressed to a single person. 



The fragments of Theognis have been often printed. They were 

 first printed in the Collection of Gnomic poets by Aldus, Venice, 

 1495; and they are contained in Gaisford's 'Poetse Minores Grseci,' 

 Oxford, 1814-20; and in Schneidewin's ' Delectus Poesis Grsecorum,' 

 Gottingen, 1838. One of the best editions is by F. T. Welcker, Frank- 

 furt-on-the-Main, 1826 ; and there is an edition by J. C. Orellius, 4to, 

 Turic., 1840. They were translated into German verse, with short 

 notes, by G. Thudichum (1828); and also by W. E. Weber (1834). 



(Miiller, History of the Literature of Antient Greece, vol. i. ; Hoff- 

 mann, Lexic. Bibliograph. ; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Orceca, vol. i. ; 

 Schneidewin, Procemium, in his Delectv* Grcec.) 



THEON, an eminent Greek painter, who was a native of Samos, and 

 appears to have lived in the time of Philip and Alexander of Macedonia. 

 He was reckoned one of the first masters of his age, on account of his 

 powers of invention and the gracefulness of his execution. (Quinc- 

 tilian, xii. 10, 6.) We know the subjects of only a few of his works, 

 but the execution is spoken of in such a manner that the excellence of 

 the artist cannot be doubted. Pliny, ' Hist. Nat.' xxxv. 40, 40, 

 mentions two of them, the one representing Orestes in the act of 

 killing his mother (compare Plutarch, 'De Audiendis Poet.,' p. 18, ed. 

 Frankf.), and the other Thamyris playing the cithara. A description 

 of a splendid painting by Theon representing a youthful warrior, who, 

 animated by a martial spirit and eager to fight, is hastening to meet 

 the enemy, is given by Aelian (' Var. Hist.,' ii. 44). 



THEON, JSLIUS, a rhetorician and grammarian of Alexandria, 

 who, according to some critics, lived about A.D. 500, but, according to 

 a more probable opinion, about A.D. 315. According to Suidas he 

 wrote a commentary on Xenophon, on the orations of Demosthenes 

 and Isocrates, a work on rhetoric, one on the structure of language, 

 ' Progymnasmata,' and several other books. With the exception of the 

 ' Progymnasinata ' (Tlpoyvfj.vda-/jiara.), or practical rules on rhetoric, 

 derived from the examples of the best Greek orators, there is no work 

 extant that can be ascribed to him with certainty. Theon's ' Progym- 

 nasmata ' excel those of Aphthonius in elegance, precision, and clear- 

 ness, and were, like those of Aphthonius, long used as a text-book in 

 schools. The first edition appeared at Rome, 4to, 1520 ; that of D. 

 Heinsius at Leyden, 8vo, 1626. Seheffer's edition (Upsala, 1670 and 

 1680), is incorrect. The best edition of the text, accompanied by 

 Greek scholia, is in Walz's ' Rhetores Grsoci,' vol. L, pp. 145-262. 



Kuster (on Suidas, ii., p. 182) ascribes to Theon also the still extant 

 scholia on Aratus, Apollonius Rhodius, Lycophron, and Theocritus. 

 The liriffToXiKol TVITOI which are contained in Aldus's and Cujacius's 

 collections of epistles, are likewise attributed by some writers to 

 Theon, while others assign them to Libanius or Proclus. A separate 

 edition of them appeared at Leyden in 1614, 12mo. 



(A. Westermann, Oeschichte der Oriech. Beredtsamkcit, p. 230, &c.) 



THEON. Theon, the Elder, of Smyrna, was the contemporary of 

 Ptolemy (who cites one of his observations), but a little older. Theon, 

 the Younger, of Alexandria, the commentator on Ptolemy, and father 

 of Hypatia, lived in the latter half of the 4th century. 



Of THEON THE ELDER, or Theon of Smyrna, we know nothing but 

 that he was a follower of Plato, and has left a work entitled Twv KO.TO. 

 fnadtnariK^v xP'"l (r ^ <av ta T V T0 '' Tl\drcavos avayvu/aiv, or on the parts 

 of mathematics which are useful towards a knowledge of Plato. Other 



works have been mentioned written by some Theon (there are many of 

 this name), but they are lost. This work consisted of four parts, 

 treating on arithmetic, music, astronomy, and the harmony of the 

 universe (irfpl rrjs iv K&fffjitf apuovlas). Bouillaud (Gr. Lat., 4to, Paris, 

 1644), published the first two of these parts, or what he found of them, 

 from a manuscript which came from De Thou's library, together with 

 what he supposed to be a fragment of the third, from the king's 

 library. Isaac Vossius assured Bouillaud that the third part was to 

 be found in the Ambrosian library at Milan, but it has never appeared. 

 Professor do Gelder, of Leyden, has recently (Gr. Lat., 8vo, Leyden, 

 1827) published the arithmetic, with ample notes and dissertations. 



Of the private life of THEON THE YOUNGER (who was also a Platonist) 

 we know nothing, except that he professed the ancient heathen doc- 

 trines, which led to the memorable fate of bis daughter Hypatia (A.D. 

 415), a crime which will excite disgust and indignation to the end of 

 time. [HYPATIA.] Theon of Alexandria is known as the commentator 

 of Ptolemy and the editor of Euclid. There is a commentary on 

 Aratus which is said to have been his, but Grotius is of opinion that 

 it is the work of several hands, for which he gives good reasons. The 

 whole of the commentary on the Syntaxis is preserved, except one or 

 two books. A full account of it is given in Delambre's ' History of 

 Ancient Astronomy,' who observes that it helps but little in the under- 

 standing of the Syntaxis, and gives none of that additional information 

 which is usually expected from a commentator. This commentary 

 was first printed in Greek in the Basel edition of Ptolemy (1538). 

 J. Baptist Porta published two books only (Latin, Naples, first book 

 1588, first and second 1605), and Halma gave an edition of these 

 same books (Greek and French, 2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1821). Besides 

 the commentary, we have the Kav6ves irp6xfpot, or manual tables, 

 described by Delambre from the manuscript, aud since published by 

 Halina (Greek and French, 2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1S22-23). They contain 

 a description of the modes of astronomical calculation in use at the 

 time. 



It only remains to speak of Theon as a commentator on Euclid, a 

 character which some still persist in giving him. The fact is, that 

 Theon, as 'he himself informs us in the commentary on Ptolemy, gave 

 an edition of Euclid, with here and there an additional proposition. 

 Some manuscripts of Euclid call this a commentary, and our fathers 

 of the middle ages got the notion that ail the demonstrations were 

 commentaries supplied by Theon, only the enunciations of the pro- 

 positions being Euclid's. For instance, in the folio of 1516 (Stephens), 

 in which the propositions are given twice, namely, Adelard's trans- 

 lation (called Campanua's) from the Arabic, and Zamberti's, from the 

 Greek, in this work the enunciations are headed Euclides ex Campano 

 and Euclides ex Zamberto, but the demonstrations are headed Campanus 

 and Theon ex Zamberto. Again, in ' I quindici Libri degli Elementi 

 di Euclide, di Greco tradotti in Lingua Thoscana,' Rome, 1545, we 

 find nothing but the enunciations of the propositions. The editor 

 has kept hia word, and given all he believed to be Euclid's: had he 

 meant to give demonstrations, his title would have been 'Euclid, with 

 Thetfh'a Commentary.' Many editions professing to give Euclid in 

 Greek and Latin, have the enunciations only in Greek, a necessary 

 warning to a person who wishes to buy Euclid in the original. Hence 

 arises the pertinacious continuance of the assertion that Theon com- 

 mented Euclid : so late aa the article ' Theon ' in the ' Biographie 

 Universelle ' we find this statement made ; and even more, namely, 

 that the commentary by Theon was published at the end of the Basel 

 edition of 1533, in Greek, that it was translated into Latin by Com- 

 mandine, and has been often republished. Any one who looks into 

 the Basel edition will see that the commentary at the end is by Proclus, 

 not by Theon. 



Robert Simson, and other editors who alter according to their own 

 ideas of perfection, and then declare that they have restored Euclid, 

 always lay the blame of the supposed alterations upon Theon ; 

 Simson's phrase is, " Theon, or some unskilful commentator." There 

 is no reason to suppose that Theon altered Euclid : all that is known 

 is that he added occasionally, and, if we look at those additions which 

 it is certain he made, judiciously. 



THEO'PHANES, a native of Mitylene, waa a contemporary and 

 friend of Pompey the Great. During the war between Rome and 

 Mithridates, when the Mitylenseans supported the king and delivered 

 up to him the Roman general Mauius Aquilius, Theophanes, who 

 refused to take any part in the revolt, was expelled, and went to the 

 camp of Sulla. (Velleiua Pat., ii. 18.) In Italy Theophanes became 

 acquainted with Pompey, formed an intimate friendship with him, 

 and henceforth accompanied him in all his expeditions. After the 

 termination of the war against Mithridates, Theophanes endeavoured 

 to perpetuate the exploits of his friend. His history, which ia now 

 lost, appears to have been a work of no mean order, for Strabo calls 

 Theophanea the most distinguished Greek of his age. Although he is 

 not charged with having sacrificed the truth, yet he was undoubtedly 

 anxious to wipe off any stain that was attached to the family of his 

 friend. Pompey is said to have been so delighted with the perform- 

 ance, that he procured Theophanes the rights of a Roman citizen. 

 (Cicero, 'Pro Archia,' 10.) Although Theophanes had been exiled 

 from Mitylene, he bore no grudge against his country, and on the 

 return of Pompey from Asia he availed himself of his influence with 

 the conqueror, and induced him to restore to the Lesbians their 



