B I A 



3G5 



B I A 



1 728. He dedicated the work to John V. king of Portugal, 

 who sent him in return a magnificent telescope, and a 

 handsome present in money. 



Bianchini formed the design of drawing a meridian line 

 through Italy, from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, 

 passing through Rome, Mount Soracte, Assisi, Gubbio, 

 Sic. With this view he carried on his operations for eight 

 years, at his own expense, and was obliged at last to give 

 them up for want of means. An account of his labours 

 was published after his death by his friend Eustachio Man- 

 Vedi of Bologna : Francisci Bianchini, Veronensis, Astro- 

 nomies: ac Geographicce Observationes selectee, Roma;, 

 atque aliter per Italiam habitce, ex ejus Aulographis ex- 

 'erptce, una cum Geographica Meridiani Romani Tabula a 

 Man Supero ad Inferum, ex iisdem observationibus collecta 

 et concinnata, cura et studio Eustachii Manfredi, Verona, 

 1737. Bianchini himself had published that part of his 

 observations which refers to the duchy of Urbino, through 

 which his meridian was to pass : Nolizie e Prove delta Coro- 

 grafia del Ducaio di Urbino, e della. longitudine e latitudine 

 geografica della citta medesima e delle vicine, che servono 

 <l stabilire quelle di tutta Italia. This memoir was inserted 

 in the work called Memorie di Urbino, folio, Roma, 1 724. 



Under Clement XI. Bianchini began a museum of anti- 

 quities connected with ecclesiastical history, which he in- 

 tended to illustrate by monuments, as he had already 

 done with regard to profane history. The plan was however 

 interrupted for want of funds. His nephew, Giuseppe Bian- 

 chini, made use of what had been collected for his Demon- 

 stratio Histories Ecclesiaslicce comprobata; Monumentis ad 

 fidem temporum et gestorum, two vols. folio, Roma, 1752, 

 which treats of the first two centuries of the church. While 

 Bianchini was one day, in 1 727, exploring the ruins of the 

 palace of the Caesars on Mount Palatine, he fell through a 

 broken vault to a considerable depth, and hurt himself se- 

 verely. Having recovered his health in some measure, 

 he resumed his elaborate description of those immense 

 ruins, which however was not published till after his death : 

 Del Palazzo de' Cesari in Roma, opera postuma, fol. Ve- 

 rona, 1738, with some fine engravings. He died at Rome, 

 March 2, 1729, and was buried in Santa Maria Maggiore. 

 A modest epitaph, which he had himself composed, was 

 placed on his tomb, but his brother canons added another 

 to it, in which a just tribute is paid to the character of the 

 deceased. The city of Verona raised a handsome monu- 

 ment to his memory in the cathedral. 



Bianchini was simple in his habits, strictly moral, pious, 

 and kind-hearted. He had no worldly ambition : his only 

 passion was that of study. Numerous dissertations by 

 him are scattered in the Memoires de VAca.de.mie des Sci- 

 ences, in the Acta Eruditorum, and in other collections. 

 There are eloges of him in the Nouvelles Litteraires de 

 I.eipsig, Jan., 1731, and the Hist, de FAcademie, 1729. 

 Mazzuchelli and Mazzoleni have written biographies of 

 Bianchini, with a long list of his works. 



His nephew, already mentioned, who was a man of con- 

 siderable learning, published some of his uncle's Opuscula 

 I'uria, in 2 vols. 4to. Rome, 1754, and also his dissertation 

 on the musical instruments of the antients : De Tribus 

 Generibus Instrumenlnrum Musicee Veterum Organica, 

 Rome, 1742. This Giuseppe Bianchini is likewise the ' 

 .author of several learned works. There is also a Giuseppe 

 Maria Bianchini, a native of Prato in Tuscany, who wrote a 

 treatise on the Italian satire, a history of the grand dukes 

 of Tuscany, and other works of literature. 



BIAPHO'LIUS (zoology), Leach's name for a genus of 

 bivalve shells, indistinctly known, and which Rang considers 

 to be identical with the genus Hiatella of Daudin. [See 



HlATELLA.] 



BIAS, one of the seven philosophers called ' the Wise Men 

 of Greece.' The exact dates of his birth and death are not 

 known, but it appears from Herodotus (i. 1 70), that he was 

 living at the time of the first conquest of Ionia by the Persians 

 under Cyrus, B.C. 544-539. He was born atPriene, and his 

 father was named Teutamus. Very few particulars of his 

 life are recorded, but among them is one anecdote to the 

 following effect: Having purchased some young Messe- 

 nian girls of good family, who had been made captives, he 

 brought them up as if they had been his own daughters, 

 gave them marriage-portions, and sent them home, without 

 ransom, to their parents. Soon after, a tripod being brought 

 up in the nets of some fishermen (Diogenes Laertius says of 

 Athens, in the Life nf Bias, and of Miletus in that of 



Thales), heaving an inscription, ' To the wise,' these young 

 women, or their father, appeared, and relating what Bias 

 had done, procured that the tripod should be given to their 

 benefactor. Bias sent the tripod to Apollo at Delphi, inti- 

 mating that the title of wise belonged to the god alone ; or,, 

 according to another account, consecrated it to the Thebaa 

 Hercules. But there are several varying versions of this, 

 story of the tripod, which is reasonably conjectured to be 

 nothing but a legendary method of accounting for the origin, 

 of the title of the ' Seven Wise Men.' 



It is said by Herodotus, that when Ionia was invaded by 

 the Persians, Bias advised a general migration to Sardinia. 

 The advice was not followed, and Bias ended his life in 

 his native city. One of the stories told of him is, that 

 when Alyattes, king of Lydia, besieged Priene, Bias fatted 

 two mules, and sent them out into the Lydian camp. 

 The king, surprised and dispirited by the apparent plenty 

 which the good condition of the animals indicated, sent a 

 messenger to treat of peace. On this, Bias directed the 

 citizens to make heaps of sand, and cover them lightly over 

 with grain. He took care that the messenger should see 

 these heaps ; and the man, on his return, represented the 

 abundance in the city in such a light, that Alyattes im- 

 mediately agreed to terms of peace. A similar story is told 

 by Herodotus of Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus (i. 21, 22). 

 The same author (i. 27) relates the manner in which either 

 Bias or Pittacus deterred Croesus from invading the Grecian 

 islands. These stories are worth notice, as indicating what 

 is to bo understood of the ' Seven Wise Men.' They wem 

 not philosophers in the sense in which th/e word is commonly 

 used, to designate men who have entered deeply into specu- 

 lative science, for Thales, the founder of the Ionic school,, 

 was the only one of them who had any claim to that 

 title : they seem merely to have been men of high re- 

 pute for moral, political, or legislative knowledge, such, 

 as it then existed. Thus the few remains of them which, 

 are extant are ' comprised in the form of short pithy 

 maxims, generally in verse, with the sentiment of which 

 we are now so familiar, for the most part, as to regard 

 them as self-evident propositions or truisms, and are there- 

 fore likely to underrate the merit of those who first enunci- 

 ated them. Such were those which Hipparchus inscribed 

 on the Herma> at Athens, ' selecting the wisest things, 

 which he knew, both what he had learned and what he had 

 himself thought out.' (Plato, Hipparchus, i. ii. 238, edit. 

 Bekker.) Of this class of sayings we find the following, 

 among others, ascribed to Bias : Being asked, what is diffi- 

 cult and unpleasant? he replied, ' To bear with nobleness, 

 the changes from better to worse.' ' What is sweet to man ?* 

 Answer, ' Hope.' He said that it was better to arbitrates 

 between your enemies than between your friends, because 

 one of the enemies was sure to turn to a friend, and one of 

 the friends sure to turn to an enemy. ' Life should be so> 

 ordered as if men. were to live a long time and a short one."' 

 ' Be slow to set hand to work, but what you begin abide by. r 

 ' Take wisdom as the provision for travelling from youth toi 

 age, for of all possessions that sticks the closest.' Agree- 

 ably to this, it is said that on one occasion, when all persons, 

 but himself were collecting their valuables for flight, he re- 

 plied to those who expressed their wonder at his indifference,. 

 ' I carry everything of mine about me.' He is said to have 

 written two thousand verses on the subject, ' How Ionia, 

 might most prosper.' He was celebrated for skill in plead- 

 ing causes, which, however, he has the credit of having 

 always employed on the right side. His death took place 

 after he had pleaded a cause successfully, in extreme old 

 age. After the exertion, he reclined with his head on the- 

 bosom of his grandson, and on the breaking up of the court, 

 he was found to be dead. His fellow- citizens gave him a 

 splendid funeral at the public expense, and consecrated a. 

 temple to him, which they called ' Teutamium.' Bias is. 

 one of the speakers in the ' Symposium ' of Plutarch.. 

 (Diog. Laert. in Bias; Brucker, History of Philosophy.) 



There are three collections of the sayings (yvw/iai) of the' 

 wise men: two, attributed to Demetrius Phalereus and 

 Sosiades, are preserved in Stobseus ; a third is by an un- 

 known author. Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch have pre- 

 served several apophthegms not found in these collections 

 The first two collections are preserved in the editions of 

 Stobseus ; the third was printed by the elder Aldus at the. 

 end of his 'Theocritus,' 1495. The completes! collection, 

 of these yvw/im is by Joh. Conr. Orelli, in the first volume 

 of his ' Moralisten.' 



