Sacred Texts Classics Lucian Fowler Index Index Previous Next
These notes are collected here instead of being put at the foot of pages in order to avoid repetition, and also that they may not be obtruded on those who do not need them. No connected account of the persons or things commented upon is to be looked for, the intention being merely to give the particular facts that will make Lucian's meaning clear. When a name is not given, it may be taken either that we are unable, or that we have considered it unnecessary, to add to the information contained in the text.
References in italics are to pieces in the translation, the number, if any, indicating the section. References in capitals are to articles in these Notes.
The Notes are intended to be used by the reader whenever he wishes for information upon a name. Reference is not made to them at the foot of pages in the text unless there would be a difficulty in knowing what name to consult.
ACADEMY. A grove or garden in the suburbs of Athens, in which Plato taught; afterwards used as a name for the school of philosophy that acknowledged him as its founder. For Plato's characteristic doctrines, see under PLATO. Lucian's references to the school are (1) as eristic or argumentative. The Socratic method of eliciting truth being by discussion, and the Academy being descended from Socrates through Plato, it might be regarded as especially argumentative. (2) as disputing the possibility of judgement, and urging suspension. The Academy is divided into the Old, Middle, and New; of which the Middle Academy neglected the positive teachings of Plato, and developed rather the destructive analytic method of Socrates.
approaching nearly to the position of the Sceptics or followers of Pyrrho.
ACHILLES. Son of Peleus and the Goddess Thetis. When his mother gave him the choice between a glorious life and a long one, he chose the former; but, when interviewed by Odysseus on the occasion of the latter's visit to Hades, regretted his choice. Among the arms given him by Thetis was a shield on which Hephaestus had represented various scenes of peace and war.
ACTAEON. A huntsman who, having seen Artemis bathing, was punished by being torn to pieces by his own hounds.
ADONIS. A beautiful youth beloved by Aphrodite. Died of a wound received from a boar on Lebanon; but was allowed to spend half each year with Aphrodite on earth.
AEACUS. A son of Zeus, deified after death, and given authority in Hades.
AËDON. A woman who, having accidentally killed her own son, was compassionately changed by Zeus into a nightingale.
AEGIS. Zeus's goat's-skin shield, which he transferred to Athene, who attached to it the head of Medusa. See GORGONS.
AEGYPTUS. Brother of Danaus, who for fear of him fled with his fifty daughters from Libya to Argos.
AENIANES. An insignificant Greek tribe south of Thessaly.
AESCHINES (1). Born 389 B.C. The great rival of Demosthenes. Son of a humble elementary schoolmaster. Accused by Timarchus, retorted by convicting him of immorality. According to Demosthenes, was in the pay of Philip of Macedon, and a traitor to Athens.
AESCHINES (2). A philosopher, pupil of Socrates, and author of dialogues.
AËTION. A painter, probably contemporary with Lucian, and not to be identified with the Aëtion (flourished 350 B.C.) mentioned by Pliny.
AGAMEMNON. King of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks against Troy. After his return, was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her paramour Aegisthus. His son Orestes and daughter Electra, with Pylades, avenged him.
AGATHOBULUS. Unknown philosopher, teacher of Demonax and Peregrine.
AGATHON. Athenian tragic poet, friend of Euripides and Plato.
AGĒNOR. King of Phoenicia, son of Posidon, father of Cadmus and Europa.
AGLAÏA. 'The bright one,' one of the Graces, mother of Nireus.
AJAX (1). Son of Telamon, greatest Greek warrior next to Achilles. Claimed the latter's arms after his death, and when they were adjudged to Odysseus went mad, slew sheep in mistake for Greeks, and then committed suicide.
AJAX (2). Son of Oïleus, king of Locris. Slain by Posidon for defying his power when wrecked.
ALCAEUS. The wrestler mentioned in The Way to write History (9), probably lived about 40 A.D.
ALCAMENES. Athenian sculptor, 428 B.C.
ALCESTIS. Wife of Admetus. He was allowed by Apollo to find a substitute to die instead of him; she alone consented, died, and was brought back from the dead by Heracles.
ALCIBIADES. Son of Clinias, Athenian statesman, and chief instigator of the disastrous Sicilian expedition. Banished for sacrilege. Afterwards recalled with great rejoicings.
ALCINOÜS. King of Phaeacia. Entertained Odysseus on his way home from Troy, and heard the story of his adventures.
ALCMENA. Wife of Amphitryon, and mother, by Zeus, of Heracles.
ALEXANDER (1) of Macedon. Son of Philip and Olympias,
but represented by legend as begotten by Ammon, the Libyan Zeus. Taught by Aristotle. Killed his best friend Clitus in his cups, carried about Callisthenes, suspected of plotting, in an iron cage. Overthrew the empire of Darius at Issus and Arbela, 333 and 331 B.C. Married the Bactrian Roxana among others. In India, defeated King Porus and took the virgin fortress Aornus. Died at Babylon, handing his ring to Perdiccas.
ALEXANDER (2) of Pherae. Tyrant. Murdered 357 B.C. by his wife Thebe.
ALEXANDER (3) of Abonutichus. 'The narrative of Lucian would appear to be a mere romance, were it not confirmed by some medals of Antoninus and M. Aurelius' (Smith's Dictionary of Biography and Mythology).
ALPHĒÜS. River in Arcadia and Elis, partly subterranean, which gave rise to the tale.
AMALTHĒA. A nymph who fed Zeus with goat's milk. The goat's horn, broken off by Zeus, became the cornucopia.
AMMON. See ZEUS.
AMPHĪON. When he played the lyre, the stones moved of their own accord to make the walls of Thebes.
AMPHITRITE. Wife of Posidon.
AMPHITRYON. Husband of Alcmena and putative father of Heracles.
ANACĒUM. Temple of Castor and Pollux.
ANACHARSIS. Scythian prince. Visited Athens about 594 B.C.
ANACREON. Lyric poet of Teos. Sang of love and wine. Died 478 B.C.
ANAXAGORAS. Philosopher accused of impiety at Athens 450 B.C. Saved by Pericles.
ANAXARCHUS. Philosopher, accompanied Alexander into Asia, 334 B.C.
ANDROMEDA Her mother Cassiopeia, queen of Ethiopia, 'set her beauty's praise above the sea-nymphs,' for which Andromeda
had to be exposed to a sea-monster. She was rescued by Perseus.
ANTĒA. See BELLEROPHON.
ANTIOCHUS. King of Syria, 280-261 B.C. Called Soter after his victory over the Galatians. Son of Seleucus; fell in love with his step-mother Stratonice, whom his father ceded to him.
ANTIOPE. Mother by Zeus of Amphion and Zethus.
ANTIPATER. Macedonian general, left as regent by Alexander in Macedonia, of which he became king after Alexander's death.
ANTISTHENES. Athenian philosopher, about 400 B.C. Founder of the Cynics.
ANŪBIS. Dog-headed Egyptian God, identified by the Greeks with Hermes.
ANȲTUS. See under SOCRATES.
AORNUS. The word means unvisited by birds. See under ALEXANDER (1).
APHRODITE. Goddess of love, born of the sea foam, mother by Zeus of Eros, by Bacchus of Priapus, by Hermes of Hermaphrodites, and by the mortal Anchises of Aeneas. Her girdle or cestus conferred magic beauty on the wearer. Often called 'Golden' by Homer. Worshipped under the titles of Urania (heavenly) and Pandemus (common). Wife of Hephaestus.
APIS. Egyptian bull-God. Some details are given in Sacrifice (15).
APOLLO. Son of Zeus and Leto. Represented as youthful, beautiful, beardless, long-haired. Brother of Artemis and father of Asclepius by Coronis. Doctor, harpist, president of the Muses, archer, sender and averter of pestilence, giver of oracles at Delphi, &c. Lover of Daphne, who changed to a laurel to escape him, Hyacinth, whom he accidentally killed with a quoit, and Branchus, to whom he gave oracular power at Didyma, afterwards called Branchidae. When Zeus slew Asclepius with the thunderbolt, Apollo killed the Cyclopes who had forged it;
he was punished by being compelled to serve as a mortal on earth, where he kept the flocks of Admetus, and built the wall of Troy for Laomedon. Called Lycean as slayer of wolves, and Pythian from Pytho or Delphi.
APOLLONIUS (1) Rhodius. An Alexandrine poet, zoo B.C., author of the Argonautica.
APOLLONIUS (2) of Tyana. Born 4 B.C. A Pythagorean who pretended to miraculous powers.
APOLLONIUS (3). Stoic philosopher, sent for by Antoninus Pius to instruct his adopted son M. Aurelius.
ARCHELAÜS, king of Macedonia, 453-399 B.C. A great patron of letters.
ARCHIAS. An actor employed by Antipater for political purposes.
ARCHILOCHUS. An iambic poet of Paros, 690 B.C.
AREOPAGUS. An ancient Athenian council and law-court.
ARES. God of war, son of Zeus and Hera. Intrigued with Aphrodite.
ARĒTE. Wife of Alcinous.
ARETHUSA. A nymph. Pursued by the river-god Alpheus, fled to Sicily, where she became a fountain.
ARGO. The ship that went on the quest of the Golden Fleece; built by Athene, who inserted a plank from the Dodonaean oak, which gave prophecies.
ARGUS. The hundred-eyed guard of Io.
ARIADNE. See THESEUS.
ARION. Famous harper, 625 B.C. For his story, see Dialogues of Sea-Gods, viii.
ARISTARCHUS. See HOMER.
ARISTIDES. Athenian statesman called 'the just.' Great rival of Themistocles. Died poor. Date of death, 468 B.C.
ARISTIPPUS. Philosopher of Cyrene, founder of the Cyrenaic school. See CYRENAICS. Disciple of Socrates. Spent some time at the court of Dionysius. Flourished 370 B.C.
ARISTOGĪTON (1). With Harmodius, slew Hipparchus, brother of the Athenian tyrant Hippias, 554 B.C. The tyranny fell shortly after, and the two friends had the credit of liberating Athens.
ARISTOGĪTON (2). Athenian orator and adversary of Demosthenes.
ARISTOPHANES. Athenian writer of comedy, 444-380 B.C. Socrates is ridiculed in his Clouds.
ARISTOTLE. Philosopher, 384-322 B.C. Founder of the Peripatetic school, which see. Taught Alexander of Macedon, and Demosthenes.
ARMENIA. The Parthian war waged by Lucius Verus, 162-165 A.D., was begun in consequence of a Roman legion's being cut to pieces in Armenia by Vologesus, king of Parthia.
ARRIAN. A Bithynian philosopher and historian, pupil of Epictetus. He was made a Roman citizen and attained the consulship. Wrote the Anabasis Alexandri, and the Discourses and Enchiridion of Epictetus.
ARTEMIS. Daughter of Leto and sister of Apollo. Virgin, huntress. Under the name Ilithyia, presides over childbirth. Worshipped at Tauri in Scythia with human sacrifice.
ARTEMISIUM. The scene of Athenian naval victories before Salamis over the Persians.
ASCLEPIUS. Son of Apollo and Coronis. The God of medicine and health. For restoring the dead to life was slain by Zeus with the thunderbolt. Afterwards admitted to Olympus as a God.
ASTYANAX. Infant son of Hector and Andromache. Flung from the walls of Troy by the Greeks.
ATHAMAS. By Hera's command married Nephele, by whom he had Phrixus and Helle. His begetting Learchus and Melicertes by the mortal Ino offended Hera, who drove him mad. Ino threw herself with Melicertes into the sea, and both
became sea-gods, called Leucothea and Palaemon. Phrixus and Helle, saved by Nephele from Ino's persecution, had fled upon the Golden Ram, from which Helle falling gave her name to the Hellespont.
ATHENE. Sprang full-armed from the brain of Zeus. Remained a virgin. Carried Medusa's head on the aegis given to her by Zeus. Personification of power and wisdom. Gave breath to the men moulded of clay by Prometheus. Special patroness of Athens, where she was known as Polias, or city-goddess.
ATHENIANS. The Athenians thought themselves 'autochthones', produced from the very soil of Attica.
ATHOS. Mountain in Chalcidice, at the foot of which Xerxes cut a canal for his armada against Greece, to avoid the storms that prevailed there.
ATROPUS. See FATES.
ATTALUS II. King of Pergamum, poisoned by his son or nephew.
ATTHIS. A history of Attica, by Philochorus, about 300 B.C.
ATTIS. Phrygian shepherd, beloved by Rhea, who made him vow celibacy. Being driven mad by Rhea for violating this vow, he mutilated himself; and this became the custom among Rhea's priests, the Galli.
AUGEAS. See HERACLES.
AULIS. A port in Boeotia. See IPHIGENIA.
AURELIUS, M. Roman emperor, 161--180 A.D. Engaged in war with the Marcomanni and Quadi for almost the whole of his reign.
BACCHUS. See DIONYSUS.
BACIS. A prophet (or several prophets) to whom oracles were attributed.
BELLEROPHON. A Corinthian prince. Having slain a man,
fled for purification to Proetus of Argos, whose wife Antea fell in love with him and, being repulsed, accused him to Proetus. Proetus sent him to the king of Lycia with a letter requesting his execution. To ensure his death, the king told him to kill the monster Chimera (goat, serpent, and lion),which the winged horse Pegasus, however, enabled him to do.
BENDIS. A Thracian Goddess, identified with the Greek Artemis.
BRANCHUS. See APOLLO.
BRASIDAS. The most distinguished Spartan in the first part of the Peloponnesian War. Trying to dislodge Demosthenes from Pylos, ran his galley ashore, and fainted from the wounds received.
BRIMO. 'Grim.' A name of Persephone.
BRISEÏS. Daughter of the Trojan Brises. Being captured, fell to Achilles's share, from whom she was taken by Agamemnon.
BULIS and SPERCHIS. Two Spartans, given up to Xerxes to atone for his heralds' having been slain; the king refused to retaliate.
BUSĪRIS. King of Egypt, who used to sacrifice all strangers to Zeus. When he attempted to offer Heracles, Heracles offered him.
CADMUS. Came from Tyre, once an island, to Greece, bringing with him the Phoenician alphabet. Told at Delphi to follow a certain cow, and build a town where she should lie down; built the Cadmea, citadel of Thebes. Having slain a dragon that guarded a well, was told to sow its teeth, from which sprang the Sparti, or sown men, afterwards Thebans. Married Harmonia, by whom he had Semele and other children.
CALAMIS. Sculptor, 440 B.C. For Sosandra see note on Portrait-Study (4).
CALĀNUS. Indian gymnosophist. Accompanied Alexander in India. Being ill at eighty-three, burnt himself.
CALISTO. Beloved by Zeus. Turned by the jealous Hera into a bear, and by Zeus into the constellation of that name.
CALLIMACHUS. Famous Alexandrine grammarian and poet. Wrote eight hundred works. 260 B.C.
CALLIMEDON. Athenian orator in the Macedonian interest.
CALLISTHENES. A philosopher, who, accompanying Alexander, offended him by rude criticism. The king had him carried about in chains, which caused his death by disease.
CALYPSO Nymph of Ogygia, where Odysseus was shipwrecked. Promised him immortality if he would remain; he refused, and the Gods compelled her to let him go.
CAMBYSES. Son of Cyrus the Great, and king of Persia, 529-522 B.C.
CASSIOPEIA. See ANDROMEDA.
CASTALIA. Fountain on Mount Parnassus, in which Apollo's priestess had to bathe before giving an oracle.
CASTOR and POLLUX. Also called Dioscuri, and Anaces. Sons of Zeus and Leda, one mortal, the other immortal; the mortal being killed, the two were allowed to divide the other's immortality, spending alternate days in the upper and lower worlds. Pollux a great boxer. Patrons of sailors, appearing in storms as flames, and guiding the ship to safety. Worshipped especially at Sparta, where they were born.
CEBES. Theban disciple of Socrates, wrote an allegorical 'Picture' of human life.
CECROPS. The first king of Athens.
CELSUS. An Epicurean to whom Lucian addresses the Alexander. Origen, in replying to a treatise against Christianity written by a Celsus, accuses him of being an Epicurean; and Origen's Celsus has accordingly been identified with Lucian's, but from Origen's own account of Celsus's position
there is reason to doubt whether he could have been an Epicurean.
CERAMĪCUS. A quarter in the north-west of Athens, both within and without the walls, which were here passed by the Dipylon or Double Gate.
CERBERUS. The three-headed dog that guarded Hades. Allowed Orpheus to pass, being charmed by the sound of his lyre.
CERCŌPES. Droll and thievish gnomes, who robbed Heracles in his sleep.
CERCYON. King of Eleusis, wrestled with all strangers, killing those whom he overcame. Theseus threw and killed him.
CĒRȲCES. 'Heralds.' A priestly family at Athens.
CHAEREPHON. See SOCRATES.
CHAERONĒA. Here Philip defeated the Athenians and Boeotians, and ended the liberty of Greece, 338 B.C.
CHALDEANS. In general, Babylonians; in particular, wizards.
CHARES. Athenian general, one of the commanders at Chaeronea.
CHARMIDES. A favourite pupil of Socrates.
CHARON. The ferryman of Hades, who conducts the souls of the dead across Styx and Acheron.
CHARŎPUS. 'Bright-eyed,' father of the beautiful Nireus.
CHIMERA. See BELLEROPHON.
CHIRON. A wise centaur who taught Achilles.
CHRYSES. Trojan priest of Apollo, whose daughter Chryseis was taken by the Greeks and given to Agamemnon. When he asked her from Agamemnon and was refused, he appealed to Apollo.
CHRYSIPPUS. 280-207 B.C. Regarded as the chief of the Stoic school, which see, though Zeno was the actual founder. Chrys- = gold-. As to Lucian's thrice-repeated allusion to his hellebore treatment, nothing seems to be known; it was a recognized cure for madness; perhaps he took it to cure himself of care for the ordinary human objects of pursuit.
CINYRAS. Son of Apollo, priest of Aphrodite, and father of Adonis.
CLEANTHES. Stoic philosopher. Lucian's account of his death in The Runaways seems incorrect. Having been told to abstain from food for two days to cure an ulcer, he said that as he had advanced so far towards death, it was a pity to have the trouble over again, and continued to abstain till he died.
CLEARCHUS. Spartan commander of the ten thousand Greek mercenaries employed by Cyrus the younger; their retreat under Xenophon is described in the Anabasis.
CLEON. A bellicose Athenian demagogue in the Peloponnesian war; also employed as a general.
CLĪNIAS. Father of Alcibiades.
CLITUS. See ALEXANDER (1).
CLOTHO. See FATES.
CLOUD-CUCKOO-LAND. A town built by the Birds, in Aristophanes's play of that name.
CLYMENE. Wife of Helius.
CLYTEMNESTRA. Wife and murderer of Agamemnon, slain in revenge by her own son Orestes.
COCY̆TUS. 'Wailing,' one of the rivers of Hades.
CODRUS. King of Athens. An oracle declared that Dorians invading Attica should succeed, if the Attic king was spared; Codrus disguising himself contrived to be slain in their camp.
COLOSSUS. Statue at Rhodes of the Sun-god Helius, 105 feet high.
CORYBANTES. Priests of Cybele or Rhea, sometimes called descendants of Corybas, the Goddess's son. Danced wildly with drum and cymbal.
COTYTTO. The Goddess of debauchery, whose festivals were celebrated during the night. Her priests were called Baptae.
CRANĒUM. An open place with a cypress-grove outside Corinth.
CRATES. 320 B.C. See CYNICS.
CREON. King of Thebes. A prominent figure in many tragedies.
CREUSA. A princess of Corinth. Jason was to marry her, having divorced Medea, who provided a poisoned robe, which Creusa putting on was burnt to death.
CRITIUS and NESIOTES. Sculptors slightly earlier than Phidias. Their group of the tyrannicides, set up 477 B.C., was famous. The passage in The Rhetorician's Vade-mecum is the chief authority for their style.
CROESUS. King of Lydia, 560-546 B.C. To test Apollo's oracle, he asked what he would be doing on a certain day. The answer was, 'boiling tortoise and lamb,' which was correct. Thus convinced, he gave great gifts to the oracle, including golden bricks, and, acting on another oracle, which said that he by crossing the Halys should destroy a mighty empire, attacked Cyrus, king of Persia, who subdued and deposed him. Thus was verified the warning given to him by Solon, in the famous conversation reported in the Charon. The story of his son Atys is given in Zeus Cross-examined (12). His other son was born deaf and dumb, but when his father was in danger from Cyrus's soldiers, was enabled to say: Do not kill the king. His name is a commonplace for wealth and vicissitudes.
CRONĬDES. 'Son of Cronus,' i.e. Zeus.
CRONOSOLON. Solon being known as a legislator, the name is meant to suggest 'Cronus legislating' through his mouthpiece the priest.
CRONUS. King of Heaven in the dynasty of the Titans, which preceded that of the Gods. Deprived his father Uranus of his virility and of his government. Fearing dethronement from his own sons, he devoured them as soon as born: his wife Rhea, however, concealed from him Zeus, Posidon, and Pluto, the first of whom deposed him. The time of his reign was
looked back to as the Golden Age of plenty, equality, and virtue. The Saturnalia, or feast of the Latin God Saturn, who was commonly identified with Cronus, was a symbolic revival of that golden age.
CTESIAS. Author of (1) a long history of Persia, probably a really valuable work, and (2) a treatise on India, the fables mixed up in which caused him to be looked upon as an author who deserved no credit. He was a Greek physician at the court of Artaxerxes Mnemon. Flourished about 401 B.C.
CYBELE. See RHEA.
CYCLŌPES. A one-eyed race of shepherds, or, according to another account, of smiths in the service of Hephaestus, in Etna. Polyphemus, the chief of them, was son of Posidon.
CYLLARABIS. A gymnasium in or near Argos, which would be unsuitable for cultivation.
CYNAEGĪRUS. Brother of Aeschylus. At Marathon, pursuing the defeated Persians, laid hold of one of their ships. His hand being cut off, substituted the other; that cut off, gripped it with his teeth.
CYNICS. A school of philosophers, so called either because Antisthenes the Athenian, their founder (born 444. B.C.), and a pupil of Socrates, taught in the gymnasium called the Cynosarges, or else because their mode of life was regarded as no better than that of a dog (cyn-). Diogenes, Crates, Menippus, and (in his own time) Demonax, are mentioned by Lucian as favourable specimens of the school. Their ideal may be said, to have been plain living and high thinking; virtue is the only good; the essence of virtue is self-control; pleasure is an evil if sought for itself. The dialogue called The Cynic gives a not unfair view of their asceticism. The Peregrine and The Runaways illustrate the abuses to which this philosophy was liable, owing to the small intellectual demand it made, and the pride it generated. The Cynics were cosmopolitan, individualist, and
outspoken; their repulsive personal negligence, and their free use of their philosophic staves as offensive weapons, are often alluded to.
CYNURIA See OTHRYADES.
CYRENAICS. Aristippus, the founder of this school, was a disciple of Socrates, but developed only the practical side of his master's philosophy. Since the only things of which we can be absolutely certain are our sensations of pleasure and pain, all our actions should be calculated with a view to securing the one and avoiding the other. The principle is not so debased as it sounds, since there are higher and lower pleasures, present and future gratifications. Epicureanism and modern Utilitarianism are developments.
CYRUS. The Great. King of Persia, 559-529 B.C.
DAEDALUS. A famous artificer. He, with his son Icarus, fled from Minos, king of Crete, by means of wings fastened on with wax. He himself arrived safely in Italy; but Icarus flying too high, the wax melted, his wings dropped off, and he fell into the sea that was afterwards called after him.
DANAË. Daughter of Acrisius (upon whose name there is a jest in the Demonax), king of Argos. Her father, anxious that she should not have a child, confined her in a brazen tower: but, Zeus visiting her in a shower of gold, she gave birth to Perseus. Mother and child were thrown into the sea in a chest, but were saved.
DANAÏDS. When the fifty sons of Aegyptus followed the daughters of Danaüs to Greece, and demanded them in marriage, Danaüs consented, but supplied each of them with a dagger to kill her husband on the bridal night. Their punishment was to pour water perpetually into a leaky cask.
DAPHNE. See APOLLO.
DAVUS. Stock name for a slave in Greek comedies.
DELPHI. On the Gulf of Corinth, below Mount Parnassus; an oracle of Apollo, the most famous in Greece.
DEMADES. An Athenian orator, in the Macedonian interest; but put to death by Antipater, 318 B.C.
DEME. An Athenian citizen was officially described by the addition of the names of his father, his deme, and his tribe, to his own. The demes were local divisions of Attica, like our parishes; the tribes were groupings, independent of locality, of these demes into ten divisions for administrative purposes.
DEMETER. Sister of Zeus, mother of Persephone, Goddess of the fruits of the earth (Earth-mother).
DEMETRIUS (1). Poliorcetes. King of Macedonia, 294-287 B.C.
DEMETRIUS (2). A Platonic philosopher about 85 B.C.
DEMETRIUS (3). A distinguished cynic philosopher, of Sunium, teacher of Demonax, and probably the hero of the story in the Toxaris.
DEMOCRITUS. A philosopher of Abdera, 460-361 B.C., famous as the author of the atomic theory, as the laughing philosopher, and for the wide extent of his knowledge.
DEMŌNAX. A cynic and eclectic philosopher, senior contemporary of Lucian, from whose 'Life' all that is known of him is gathered.
DEMOSTHENES (1). One of the most distinguished Athenian generals in the Peloponnesian war. See BRASIDAS. Put to death by the Syracusans on the failure of the Sicilian expedition.
DEMOSTHENES (2). The Athenian orator. His father was a rich manufacturer of arms. Being defrauded by his guardians, took to oratory first for the purpose of suing them. His self-training is famous; the allusions in the Demosthenes are thus explained: he lived in a cave to study undisturbed, shaving half his head to keep him there, studied his gestures in a mirror
and corrected a shrug by hanging a naked sword over his shoulders, improved his articulation and voice by holding pebbles in his mouth and shouting at the waves, took lessons from Satyrus the actor, copied out Thucydides eight times. The great object of his life was to keep Greece and especially Athens free from subjection to Macedon.
DEUCALION and PYRRHA. The two who survived, according to the Greek flood-legend, to repeople the earth.
DIASIA. Festival of Zeus at Athens.
DIOGENES. 412-323 B.C. His father was a banker of Sinope. He went to Athens and became a philosopher of the Cynic school, which see, as a disciple of Antisthenes. He is said to have lived in a tub.
DIOMEDE. One of the chief Greek heroes at the siege of Troy.
DION. A citizen of Syracuse under the two Dionysii; when Plato visited Dionysius I, Dion became his disciple; being afterwards banished by Dionysius II, he returned and expelled the tyrant.
DIONYSIA. There were four annual festivals in honour of Dionysus at Athens. The Great Dionysia was the chief occasion for the production of new tragedies and comedies.
DIONYSIUS I and II. Father and son, tyrants of Syracuse, 405-343 B.C. The elder was a great patron of literature, and himself wrote verses and tragedies.
DIONYSUS, or BACCHUS. Son of Zeus and the Theban Semele. For his birth see SEMELE. Travelled through Egypt, Asia, &c., introducing the vine and punishing all who slighted his power. His female worshippers were known as Bacchantes, who roamed the country with dishevelled locks, carrying the thyrsus and crying evoe.
DIOPĪTHES. An Athenian commander frequently employed against Philip of Macedon.
DIOSCŪRI. See CASTOR.
DIOTĪMA. A priestess at Mantinea, called by Socrates (in Plato's Symposium) his instructress in the art of love.
DODŌNA. Ancient oracle of Zeus in Epirus, where responses were given by the rustling leaves of the sacred trees.
DOSIADAS. Author of two enigmatic poems whose verses are so arranged as to present the profile of an altar.
DRACHMA. Greek coin worth tenpence.
DRACO. Ancient Athenian lawgiver, 621 B.C.
DROMO. Stock name for a slave.
ELECTRA. See AGAMEMNON.
ELEUSIS. A town a few miles from Athens, where the Mysteries were celebrated.
ELEVEN, THE. The board at Athens in charge of prisons and executions.
EMPEDOCLES. A Pythagorean philosopher, 444 B.C. His skill in medicine and natural knowledge caused him to be credited with supernatural powers. He fell or threw himself into the crater of Etna, as some say that by his sudden disappearance he might be believed to be a God; but his brazen sandal was thrown up and betrayed him.
EMPŪSA. A monstrous spectre believed to devour human beings, and capable of assuming different forms.
ENDYMION. A beautiful Carian youth with whom Selene fell in love.
ENĪPEUS. A river and river-god in Thessaly.
EPHIALTES and OTUS. The two giants who piled Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa to scale heaven.
EPICTETUS. A celebrated Stoic philosopher of the first century A.D. Expelled from Rome with the other philosophers by Domitian. His Discourses and Enchiridion, still much read, are the notes of his teaching collected by his pupil Arrian.
EPICUREANS. The school of philosophy instituted by Epicurus (342-270 B.C.). He combined the physics of Democritus with the ethics of Aristippus; adopting the atomic theory of the former, he deduced from it the indifference or non-existence of Gods; and he qualified Aristippus's exaltation of pleasure by preferring mental and permanent to bodily and immediate gratification. Their religious attitude caused them to be held in abhorrence by other schools.
EPIMENIDES. Poet and prophet of Crete. The Rip van Winkle of antiquity, but a historical character.
EPIMETHEUS, 'after-thought,' was the brother of Prometheus, 'forethought.'
ERECHTHEUS II. Ancient king of Athens. Posidon, offended by the slaying of his son Eumolpus, demanded the sacrifice of one of Erechtheus's daughters; one being drawn by lot, the other three would not survive her.
ERICHTHONIUS, or ERECHTHEUS I. King of Athens, and son of Hephaestus; his mother was not Athene, but Ge.
ERIDĂNUS. Greek name of the Po.
ERIGŎNE. See ICARUS.
ERINYES. Also called Furies, Eumenides, and Dread Goddesses, employed in punishing the wicked, whether in Hades or on earth, where they represent the pangs of conscience.
ERIS. The Goddess of discord; for her story, see Dialogues of Sea-Gods, V.
EROS. God of love, the Latin Cupid. Lucian plays with the two accounts of his birth and age. According to one, he was older than all the Olympian Gods; according to the other, son of Zeus and Aphrodite.
ETHIOPIANS. The Gods were in the habit of visiting the blameless Ethiopians ' and being feasted by them, according to Homer.
EUBŪLUS. The most influential statesman of the Athenian
party opposed to Demosthenes and in favour of peace with Philip.
EUCTĒMON. An Athenian suborned by Demosthenes's enemy Midias to bring against Demosthenes a charge of deserting while on military service.
EUMOLPUS. A Thracian bard who joined the Eleusinians in an expedition against Athens, but was defeated and slain. He was regarded as the founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and his family, the Eumolpidae, continued to be the priests of Demeter there.
EUPHORBUS. See PYTHAGORAS.
EUPHORION. Epic poet of Chalcis, 276 B.C.
EUPOLIS. Among the most famous poets of the Old Comedy, with Aristophanes and Cratinus
EURIPIDES. The most philosophic of the Greek tragedians. Born 480 B.C., died 406 B.C. at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, whither he had retired from Athens about 408 B.C.
EUROPA. Daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor, and sister of Cadmus; carried away by Zeus, who assumed the form of a white bull.
EURYBATUS. An Ephesian who betrayed Croesus to Cyrus, and became a byword for treachery.
EURYDICE. See ORPHEUS.
EURYSTHEUS. King of Tiryns. See HERACLES.
EURȲTUS. King of Oechalia; challenged Apollo to a match with the bow, and was killed for his presumption.
EUXINE. 'The hospitable' (εὔξεος); a euphemism for 'the inhospitable,' ἄξενος. The Black Sea.
EXADIUS. One of the Lapithae, who were assisted by Nestor in their fight against the Centaurs.
FATES. The Three Sisters to whose power even the Gods must submit, and who regulate every human life. Clotho holds
the distaff, Lachesis spins, and Atropus cuts the thread of life. Lucian also gives them other functions.
FAVORĪNUS. A famous sophist, contemporary with Demonax, whose jests against him depend on the fact that he was supposed to be a eunuch.
GALATEA. The 'milk-white,' a Nereid, loved by Polyphemus.
GALLI. See ATTIS.
GANYMEDE. A beautiful Trojan youth, beloved by Zeus, and carried off by him to be the Gods' cupbearer.
GE. 'Earth,' wife of Uranus ('Heaven'), mother of Cronus, Rhea, and the other Titans.
GERȲON. A three-bodied Spanish giant. See HERACLES.
GIANTS. The brood that sprang from the blood of Uranus when mutilated. They made war on Heaven, armed with rocks and trees; but the Gods destroyed them and buried them under volcanoes.
GLAUCUS. A famous boxer.
GLYCERA. Stock name for a courtesan.
GODS. The XII were Zeus, Posidon, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, Hera, Athene, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia, Demeter.
GORGIAS. Orator and sophist, of Leontini in Sicily, fifth century B.C. He is a character in one of Plato's dialogues.
GORGONS. Three sisters with snaky hair, brazen claws, wings, scales, &c. Medusa, the only mortal one, was slain by Perseus with Athene's help, to whom he gave the head (which had the power of petrifying all who looked upon it) after using it against the sea-monster.
GYGES. A Lydian who found a ring that being turned rendered him invisible. By its means he usurped the Lydian throne, which he held 716-678 B.C. His wealth was proverbial.
GYLIPPUS. The Spartan chiefly instrumental in defeating the Sicilian expedition of the Athenians.
HARMONIA. Daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, wife of Cadmus.
HARPIES. Monstrous birds with women's faces, sent by Zeus to torment Phineus by defiling and carrying off all food placed on his table.
HECATE. A deity attendant on Persephone in Hades. Goddess of cross-roads and much invoked by witches. For Hecate's supper, and 'dining with Hecate,' see note on Dialogues of the Dead, i.;
HECUBA. Wife of Priam; a character in many Greek tragedies.
HEGESIAS. Sculptor. See CRITIUS, the description of whom applies to him also.
HELEN. Most of her history will be found in Dialogues of the Gods, xx. Her abduction by Paris caused the Trojan war, after which she returned to Menelaus.
HĒLIUS. God of the sun; one of the Titans.
HELLE. See ATHAMAS
HELLEBORE. See CHRYSIPPUS.
HELLESPONT. See XERXES.
HEPHAESTION. A Macedonian, the special friend of Alexander, who caused divine honours to be paid him after his death, 325 B.C.
HEPHAESTUS. Son of Zeus and Hera; god of fire and of metal-working, having his forge in Etna.
HERA. Daughter of Cronus and Rhea, wife and sister of Zeus, queen of Heaven.
HERACLES. Son of Alcmena, who bore twins, the divine Heracles son of Zeus, and the mortal Iphicles son of her husband Amphitryon. Married Megara, but, driven mad by the jealous Hera, killed their children. To expiate the crime entered the service of Eurystheus for twelve years, and performed for him twelve labours, among which were: Slaying of Hydra (as
two heads sprang for each cut off, Iolaus assisted him by searing the stumps); Shooting of Stymphalian birds; Capture of Diomede's man-eating horses; Cleansing of the stables of Augeas; Slaying of Nemean lion (whose skin he always afterwards wore); Driving away of Geryon's oxen (on which expedition he erected the Pillars of Hercules at the straits of Gibraltar). Other incidents: He went down to Hades to rescue Alcestis; founded and presided at the Olympic games; held up the heavens for Atlas; served with Omphale in woman's dress to atone for the murder, in a fit of madness, of his friend Iphitus; while drinking wine with Pholus, was attacked by the other centaurs and slew them. His last wife, Deianira, being jealous gave him a poisoned shirt; and in the resulting agony he caused Philoctetes to build a pyre and burn him on Mount Oeta, leaving his bow and arrows to the boy.
HERACLĪTUS. A physical philosopher of Ephesus, about 500 B.C. Conceived fire as the origin of all things, and continual movement as the necessary condition of existence Known as the weeping philosopher, in opposition to Democritus, the laughing.
HERMAGORAS. 'Hermes of the Market'; a statue of Hermes in the Athenian market-place.
HERMAPHRODITUS. See APHRODITE.
HERMES. Son of Zeus and Maia. Messenger, cupbearer, porter, crier, &c., of the Gods. God of windfalls, trade, thievery, music, and speech. He is represented with wings on his sandals and hat, and with the caduceus, a staff entwined with serpents. For his slaying of Argus, see Dialogues of the Gods, iii. He is charged with the conducting of the dead to Hades. Said to have been born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. Identified with the dog-headed Egyptian God Anubis.
HERMOCRATES The Syracusan most energetic in resisting the Sicilian expedition.
HERODES ATTICUS. Born about 104 A. D. The most famous rhetorician of his time. Used his great wealth in conferring benefits on the Greek towns, especially Athens; the aqueduct at Olympia is an instance. Mourned his wife Regilla and his favourite Pollux in the manner described in the Demonax.
HERODOTUS. Of Halicarnassus, born 484 B.C. Wrote in the Ionic dialect a history of the Graeco-Persian War, in nine books, to which the names of the Muses were given in recognition of their excellence.
HEROES. Used in two senses: (1) of demi-gods, born of a mortal and an immortal parent; (2) of the chiefs of the Trojan war period.
HESIOD. Of Ascra in Boeotia, about 850 B.C. According to his own account he was originally a shepherd, who, tending his flocks on Helicon, received from the Muses a laurel-branch, and with it the gift of poetry. His chief poems are the Works and Days, a didactic agricultural poem, and the Theogony, a work on the genealogies of Gods and heroes. The passage on Virtue so often alluded to by Lucian runs as follows: 'Vice you may have in abundance with ease; smooth is the road to it, and very near it dwells. But this side of Virtue the immortal Gods have set much toil; long and steep is the track to it, and rough at its setting out: but when a man has reached the top, then is its hardness turned to ease.'
HIMERAEUS. An Athenian orator, who opposed Macedonia after the death of Alexander, and fled to escape being surrendered to Antipater. Being caught by Archias, he was put to death.
HIPPIAS. A sophist of Elis, able but vain, contemporary of Socrates; a character in two of Plato's dialogues.
HIPPOCLĪDES. An Athenian of the sixth century B.C.; lost his chance of marrying the daughter of Clisthenes tyrant of Sicyon by dancing on his head, and remarked that 'Hippoclides did not care.'
HIPPOCRATES. A famous physician of Cos, 469-357 B.C.
HIPPOCRENE and OLMEUM. Fountains on Mount Helicon, sacred to the Muses.
HIPPOLYTA. See THESEUS.
HIPPOLYTUS. Son of Theseus and Hippolyta. His stepmother Phaedra fell in love with him, and being rejected accused him to his father. Theseus believed and asked Posidon to destroy him; he was thrown from his chariot and dragged to death by his horses, frightened at a monster sent by Posidon.
HIPPŌNAX. Greek iambic poet, 546-520 B.C.
HOMER. His poems formed the basis of Greek education and religion; Lucian perpetually quotes him, and refers to the questions of his birthplace and blindness. Famous ancient Homeric critics were Zoïlus (called Homeromastix), Zenodotus, and Aristarchus.
HYACINTH. See APOLLO.
HYDRA. See HERACLES.
HYLAS. Beautiful youth, beloved by Heracles, and carried off by the water-nymphs.
HYMENAEUS. The God of marriage.
HYMETTUS. Mountain of Attica, famous for marble and bees.
HYPERBOLUS. A disreputable Athenian demagogue, murdered 411 B.C.
HYPERBOREANS. A mythical people dwelling beyond the North wind in perpetual sunshine and happiness. Magical powers were attributed to them.
HYPERIDES. Athenian orator, generally acting with Demosthenes, though he accused him on one occasion. His tongue was cut out and he executed by Antipater.
IAMBŪLUS. A Greek writer on India, sufficiently characterized in The True History (3). 'Oceanica' is not an actual title.
IAPĔTUS. A Titan, brother of Cronus, and father of Prometheus.
ICARIUS. An Athenian who received Dionysus in Attica and learned from him the cultivation of the vine. Some peasants to whom he gave wine slew him in drunkenness. His daughter Erigone was led to his grave by his dog Maera, and hanged herself on the tree under which he lay. Dionysus placed the three in heaven as Arcturus, The Virgin, and Procyon (the lesser dog-star).
ICARUS. See DAEDALUS.
IDA. Mountain close to Troy.
ILISSUS. A small river at Athens.
ILITHYIA. Goddess of child-birth, generally identified with Artemis.
INO. See ATHAMAS.
IO. Daughter of Inachus, king of Argos. Zeus in love with her changed her to a heifer for concealment; Hera discovering it placed her under the care of Argus, who however was slain by Hermes at Zeus's command. Io swam to Egypt, conducted by Hermes, and there bore a son to Zeus.
IOLAÜS. Nephew of Heracles, and helped him against the hydra. Restored to youthful vigour by Hebe.
IPHIGENIA. Daughter of Agamemnon, was to be sacrificed to Artemis to secure the passage of the Greek fleet to Troy; but Artemis substituted a hart, and transported her to Tauri in Scythia, where as priestess she had to sacrifice all strangers. She saved her brother Orestes, on the point of being thus immolated, and fled with him to Greece.
IRIS. Goddess of the rainbow, sometimes charged with messages from heaven to earth.
IRUS. The beggar in the Odyssey who boxes with Odysseus.
ISIS. Egyptian Goddess, sometimes identified with Io.
ISMENUS. The river of Thebes.
ISOCRATES. 436-338 B.C. The greatest of Greek oratorical writers and teachers, but debarred from speaking by timidity and a weak voice.
IXĪON. King of the Lapithae, admitted by Zeus to the table of the Gods; his story will be found in Dialogues of the Gods, vi.
LABDACIDS. Laius, Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, Antigone and Ismene, the subjects of many Greek tragedies, were descended from Labdacus the Theban.
LAERTES. Father of Odysseus and king of Ithaca.
LAÏS. A famous courtesan of Corinth.
LAÏUS. King of Thebes and father of Oedipus, who slew him in ignorance of his identity, and so fulfilled an oracle.
LAOMEDON. See APOLLO.
LAPITHAE. A Thessalian people. When they invited the centaurs to the marriage feast of Pirithoüs, who was one of them, a quarrel and bloodshed arose.
LEDA. Wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta, loved by Zeus, who took the form of a swan. She produced two eggs, from one of which came Pollux and Helen, children of Zeus, and from the other Castor and Clytemnestra, of Tyndareus.
LEMNIAN WOMEN. Having offended Aphrodite, were abandoned by their husbands, and in revenge murdered all their male relations.
LEONIDAS. The king of Sparta who held Thermopylae with a small force against all the host of Xerxes till nearly all his men were slain, 480 B.C.
LEOSTHENES Commander of the Greeks in the Lamian war, for emancipation after Alexander's death.
LETHE. One of the rivers of Hades, of which all must drink and forget their lives on earth. Lucian, however, like other writers, does not trouble himself about this forgetfulness when it is inconvenient. There is also a river of the name in Spain,
to which perhaps Charon refers in the Voyage to the Lower World.
LETO. A Goddess loved by Zeus, and regarded with jealousy by Hera, who set the serpent Pytho to watch her, and induced the earth to refuse her a place in which to be delivered of her children. Posidon solved the difficulty by bringing up Delos from the depths of the sea and fixing it. Here Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis. Apollo afterwards slew Pytho. Leto was insulted by Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, proud of her seven sons and seven daughters; she was avenged by Apollo and Artemis, who shot all Niobe's children, and Niobe wept till she turned to stone.
LEUCOTHEA. See ATHAMAS.
LOTUS. The plant of which he who ate lost all wish of returning home.
LYCEUM. See PERIPATETICS.
LYCOPHRON Poet and grammarian 270 B.C. His poem Alexandra or Cassandra consists of supposed oracles of Cassandra, 'of no poetic value, but forms an inexhaustible mine of grammatical, historical, and mythological erudition.'
LYCURGUS (1). Ancient lawgiver at Sparta, who established the constitution and training that gave Sparta its military pre-eminence, 884 B.C.
LYCURGUS (2). Attic orator, a warm supporter of Demosthenes.
LYNCEUS. One of the Argonauts; could distinguish small objects at nine miles.
LYSIMACHUS. One of Alexander's generals, succeeded to Thrace on the division of the Macedonian empire. His wife Arsinoë made him believe that his son Agathocles was plotting against him, and he put him to death.
LYSIPPUS. A great sculptor, of Sicyon, in the time of Alexander.
MAEANDRIUS. Secretary to Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, to whose power he succeeded in 522 B.C.
MAGI. A priesthood among the Medes and Persians, founded by Zoroaster.
MAIA. Mother of Hermes.
MALTHACE. Stock name for a courtesan.
MANDROBŪLUS. Of Samos. He found a great treasure, his gratitude for which was expressed at the time with an offering of a golden sheep, on the first anniversary of the event with a silver one, on the second with a copper, and on the third with none at all
MARATHON. A village in Attica, the scene of a great victory of the Athenians over the Persians in 490 B.C.
MARGĪTES. Hero of a comic epic poem, formerly supposed to be Homer's. His name became proverbial for stupidity.
MARSYAS. A Phrygian Satyr, who challenged Apollo to a musical contest, and being defeated by him was flayed alive.
MAUSŌLUS. King of Caria, 377-353 B.C. His wife Artemisia raised a splendid monument to him after his death.
MEDEA. Daughter of Æetes king of Colchis, and famous for her skill in witchcraft. Falling in love with Jason when he came to Colchis for the Golden Fleece, she assisted him to obtain it, and followed him to Greece as his wife. When Jason afterwards deserted her for the daughter of Creon, she revenged herself by slaying her own children by him, and his second wife.
MELAMPUS. A seer, whose ears were cleansed by some young snakes that he had preserved from death, with the result that he was enabled to understand the language of birds.
MELEÄGER. Son of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and leader of the heroes who slew the boar that Artemis, offended at Oeneus's neglect in not asking her to a certain feast, had sent to ravage his country. Being in love with Atalanta, he gave her the boar's
hide, and subsequently slew his mother's brothers for taking it from her. To avenge their death, his mother Althaea threw into the fire that fatal firebrand whose consumption, as she knew from the Fates, must be followed by his death.
MELĒTUS. An obscure tragic poet, one of the accusers of Socrates.
MĔLIA. A Nereid, mother of the river-god Ismenus.
MELICERTES. See ATHAMAS.
MENANDER. A distinguished Athenian poet of the New Comedy, 342-291 B.C.
MENELAUS. Brother of Agamemnon, and Helen's husband. The abduction of Helen by the Trojan Paris was the cause of the Trojan War.
MENIPPUS. A Cynic philosopher, originally a slave, of Gadara in Coele-Syria. His date is placed about 60 B.C. It is probable that Lucian was much indebted to the writings of Menippus, which are now lost, though an imitation of them is still preserved in the Menippean Satires of Varro. Among the titles of his works are A Visit to the Shades, Wills, and Letters of the Gods. He appears frequently as a character in Lucian's dialogues.
MENTOR. A famous silversmith, before 356 B.C.
METRODORUS. A distinguished Epicurean philosopher, 330-277 B.C.
MIDAS. A king of Phrygia, to whom Dionysus granted the power of changing all that he touched into gold. Being unable in consequence to obtain any nourishment, Midas was permitted to cancel this privilege by bathing in the Pactolus. Chosen as a judge in a musical contest between Pan and Apollo he decided against the latter, who changed his ears into those of an ass.
MIDIAS. A wealthy Athenian, and a bitter enemy of Demosthenes, whose speech against him is extant.
MILO. Of Croton, a famous athlete, of whom various feats of strength are recorded.
MILTIADES. Son of Cimon. Commanded the Athenians at Marathon. He afterwards used the power entrusted to him for his private purposes, and the charges brought against him were better justified than is implied in Slander (29).
MINA. A sum of money--£4 1s. 3d.
MINOS I. Son of Zeus and Europa, brother of Rhadamanthus. King and legislator of Crete and, after his death, a judge in Hades.
MINOS II. Grandson of Minos I, and king of Crete. Made war on the Athenians and compelled them to send to Crete an annual tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, to be devoured by the Minotaur, the monstrous offspring of Pasiphae and a bull. See THESEUS.
MINOTAUR. See MINOS II
MITHRAS. God of the sun among the Persians.
MOMUS. Son of Night, and God of criticism.
MORMO. A female spectre, used to frighten children with.
MUSAEUS. The supposed author of various poetical works. His origin is doubtful; he is sometimes called the son of Orpheus.
MUSES. The Goddesses of poetry, and of the arts and sciences. They were nine in number, and were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory). Mount Helicon in Boeotia was their favourite haunt.
MUSONIUS RUFUS. A celebrated Stoic philosopher, banished by Nero in 66 A. D. on the pretext of conspiracy.
MYIA. Of this daughter of Pythagoras we have no certain information.
MYRON. A celebrated sculptor, born about 480 B.C.
MYSTERIES (Eleusinian). Eumolpus, Musaeus, and Demeter, are all mentioned as the founders of these Mysteries, in which were commemorated the rape of Persephone by Pluto, and the
wanderings of Demeter in search of her. They were held annually, the Greater at Eleusis and Athens, the Lesser at Agrae. Persons initiated at the Lesser could only be admitted to the Greater after a year's interval. A part of the Greater Mysteries, to which those only were admitted who had been fully initiated, and had taken the oath of secrecy, consisted of a torchlight procession from Athens to the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, after which the initiated were purified, repeated the oath of secrecy, and were admitted to the inner sanctuary of the temple. Of the secret doctrines there divulged nothing is known.
NARCISSUS. A youth so beautiful that he fell in love with his image reflected in a pool.
NAUSICAA. The beautiful daughter of Alcinous and Arete, who received Odysseus with kindness when cast up by the sea.
NELEUS. Of Scepsis; he is known to have been in possession of the MSS. of Aristotle, and may therefore have been a patron of literature.
NEMESIS. 'Wrath,' the Goddess who avenges presumption.
NEOPTOLEMUS, also called Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, after whose death the seer declared that Troy could not be taken without the help of his son. He distinguished himself in the taking.
NEPHELE. See ATHAMAS. Changed to a cloud after his desertion of her.
NEREÏDS. The sea nymphs, daughters of Nereus, a sea-God.
NESIOTES. See CRITICS.
NESTOR. Oldest and wisest of the Greek chiefs at Troy. His cup was one that 'scarce could another move from the table when it was full, but old Nestor lifted it with ease.'
NICANDER. Grammarian, poet, and physician of Colophon, about 140 B.C. Wrote Theriaca and Alexipharmaca, works on poisons and antidotes.
NICIAS. The Athenian general in command of the Sicilian expedition, 415 B.C. Put to death by the Syracusans.
NICOSTRATUS. A wrestler and double Olympic victor, about 40 A. D.
NIOBE. See LETO.
NIREUS. A Greek at the siege of Troy, famous for beauty.
NUMA. Second king of Rome; his reign was marked by peace and the founding of religious institutions.
ODYSSEUS. Son of Laertes, king of Ithaca. To escape joining the Greeks against Troy, simulated madness by driving a plough for a chariot, with one ox and one horse. Palamedes exposed him by threatening Odysseus's son Telemachus with a sword, when he confessed. In revenge, he ruined Palamedes at Troy, convicting him by forged evidence of treacherous dealings with the enemy. When Agamemnon lost heart, and was for returning, Odysseus prevailed on the Greeks not to give up. Took ten years getting home, detained by Calypso, by Circe, and otherwise. Circe enabled him to visit Hades and consult Tiresias. Escaped the Sirens by stopping his crew's ears with wax, and having himself bound to the mast.
OENEUS. See MELEAGER.
OLYMPIA. In Ells; the Olympic games took place every four years, and, starting from 776 B.C., from which time a record of them was kept, were used for dating events, under the name of Olympiads. The games were the occasion of the largest gatherings of Greeks that took place.
OLYMPIAS. Wife of Philip of Macedon and mother of Alexander.
OLYMPIĒUM. A temple of Zeus at Athens, begun by the tyrant Pisistratus (560-527 B.C.), but not finished till the time of Hadrian (117-138 A. D.).
OLYMPUS (1). A mountain separating Macedonia and
[paragraph continues] Thessaly, the summit of which was the residence of the Gods.
OLYMPUS (2). A celebrated flute-player of Phrygia.
OMPHALE. See HERACLES.
ORESTES. See AGAMEMNON.
ORION. A giant and hunter of Boeotia. Blinded by Oenopion for ill-treatment of his daughter Merope, he recovered his sight by the help of Cedalion, who directed his eyes towards the rising sun.
ORITHYIA. Daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens. Carried off by Boreas.
ORPHEUS. A Thracian musician, son of the Muse Calliope. His music charmed wild beasts, trees, and rocks, and prevailed upon Pluto to restore his wife Eurydice, on condition that Orpheus should not look back to see that she was following him; this condition not being observed, Eurydice remained in Hades. Orpheus was afterwards torn in pieces by the Thracian women, and his head and lyre thrown into the Hebrus, and carried to Lesbos.
OSIRIS. An Egyptian king, deified after death, as the husband of Isis.
OSROËS. Son of Vologesus I. A king of Parthia, engaged in war with the Emperor Trajan.
OTHRYADES. The only survivor of the three hundred Spartans who fought with three hundred Argives for the possession of Thyrea in Cynuria. Being left for dead by the two Argive survivors, he raised a trophy on the field, with an inscription in his own blood, and thus secured the victory.
OTUS. See EPHIALTES.
PACTŌLUS. A Lydian river, whose sands were said to contain gold.
PAEAN. (1) A name of Apollo; (2) a song sung before or after a battle.
PALAMEDES. A Greek hero in the Trojan War. See under ODYSSEUS. Said to have added certain letters to the Greek alphabet.
PAN. A rustic God, son of Hermes and Penelope. Invented the Pan's pipe, and attended upon Dionysus. Represented with horns and goat's legs.
PANATHENAEA. Two festivals of this name were celebrated at Athens with games, sacrifices, &c.; the Lesser annually, the Greater every fourth year.
PANCRATIUM. A contest in the public games, in which both boxing and wrestling were employed.
PANGAEUS. A range of mountains in Macedonia, famous for gold and silver mines.
PANTHEA (1). Wife of Abradatas, king of Susa. Her spirit and loyalty are commended by Xenophon.
PANTHEA (2). Presumably the mistress of the Emperor Lucius Verus.
PARIS. Son of Priam king of Troy.
PARMENIO. An able lieutenant of Alexander.
PARTHENIUS. A Greek elegiac poet, about 30 B.C.
PARTHIANS. The successors in Asia of the Persian monarchy. The war between their king Vologesus III and Rome, 162-165 A. D., was conducted on the Roman side by the Emperor Lucius Verus. He brought it to a successful conclusion, more by the merits of his lieutenants, Cassius and Statius Priscus, than his own.
PARTHONĪCE. 'Conquest of the Parthians,' quoted as an affected poetical-sounding title.
PATROCLUS. Friend and follower of Achilles, who, when he sulked himself, lent him his armour, in which Patroclus won great renown; but Apollo struck him senseless, Euphorbus ran him through, and Hector gave him the last fatal blow.
PEGASUS. See BELLEROPHON.
PELASGICUM. A space under the Acropolis at Athens, unoccupied till the Spartan invasions in the Peloponnesian war brought the country Attics into the town.
PELEUS. Father of Achilles.
PĔLIAS. King of Iolcus, usurper of his nephew Jason's rights. When Medea restored Jason's father Aeson to youth by cutting him to pieces and boiling him, she persuaded the daughters of Pelias to try the same system with their father, which resulted in his death.
PELOPIDS. The descendants of Pelops, many of them, as Atreus and Thyestes, Agamemnon and Menelaus, Orestes, Electra and Iphigenia, famous in tragic story.
PENELOPE. Wife of Odysseus.
PENTHEUS. King of Thebes, resisted the introduction of Dionysus's rites; the God caused his Bacchantes, among them Pentheus's mother Agave, to tear him to pieces in their frenzy.
PERDICCAS. One of Alexander's generals, who, on the strength of the dying king's having handed him his ring, claimed the succession, but was defeated by the combination of Ptolemy, Antipater, and other generals, and finally assassinated.
PEREGRINE. Nothing can be added to Lucian's description of him in the Death of Peregrine, but that he is a historical character.
PERIANDER. Son of Cypselus, and tyrant of Corinth. A patron of literature, and one of the Seven Sages.
PERICLES. Greatest of Athenian statesmen. A pupil of Anaxagoras. He was nicknamed 'Olympian.' Lucian mentions his funeral speech, delivered in 435 B.C., and his intercourse with the famous Milesian courtesan Aspasia, by whom he had a son Pericles.
PERIPATETICS. Aristotle of Stagira (385-323 B.C.), the founder of this school of philosophers, studied for twenty years under Plato. In 335 B.C. he began teaching independently in the
[paragraph continues] Lyceum, a public garden at Athens. The name Peripatetic refers to his habit of walking about while lecturing. Forty-six of his works remain, though perhaps only in the form of notes. They are remarkable for the rigidly systematic treatment applied to all subjects alike, to Ethics and Poetry, not less than to Zoology and Mechanics. Most notable of his doctrines is that which refers all definable things to four Causes, viz., Matter, the existence of which is Potentiality, and the Moving, Final, and Formal Causes, whose operation is included under the general term Energy; the combination of Potentiality and Energy resulting in the perfection of the completed thing. The summum bonum, according to Aristotle, is Eudaemonia (Happiness); and each virtue is the mean between the excess and defect of some quality. The virtuous mean between avarice and profuseness, or between luxury and asceticism, might perhaps involve that respect for money with which Lucian reproaches the Peripatetics. The ten Categories, or Predicaments, were an attempt to classify all existing things; among them were Substance, Quality, Quantity, Relation, Time, and Place.
PERSEPHONE. Daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Pluto, with the permission of Zeus, carried her down to Hades. Demeter, discovering the truth after a long search, left Heaven in anger, and took up her abode on earth. Zeus now ordered Pluto to restore Persephone: as, however, she had partaken of food in the lower world, she was compelled to return thither for one-third of each year.
PERSEUS. His story is given under DANAE, GORGONS, and ANDROMEDA.
PHAEACIANS. A fabulous people described in the Odyssey as inhabiting Scheria. Alcinous was their king.
PHAEDRA. Daughter of Minos of Crete, and wife of Theseus. See HIPPOLYTUS.
PHAEDRUS. A character in two of the dialogues of Plato, whose friend he was.
PHAETHON. Son of Helius and Clymene. Being allowed on one occasion to drive the chariot of the sun, he lost control of the horses, and almost consumed the earth with fire. Zeus slew him with a thunderbolt, and cast him into the river Eridanus. His sisters, changed into poplars on its banks, wept tears of amber for his loss.
PHALARIS. Tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily, 570-564 B.C. For the brazen bull in which he is said to have burnt many victims alive, see Phalaris I.
PHAON. An ugly old boatman at Mytilene, with whom Sappho is said to have fallen in love, after he had been made young and beautiful by Aphrodite as a reward for carrying her across the sea without payment.
PHARUS. A small island off the coast of Egypt, on which was a famous lighthouse, built by Ptolemy II.
PHĪDIAS. Famous Athenian sculptor, 490-432 B.C. The chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia was his work.
PHILIP OF MACEDON. King, 359-336 B.C. Raised Macedon from an insignificant State to the mistress of Greece, and made possible the conquests of his son Alexander by his organization. Used diplomacy as much as arms to effect his ends, and systematically bribed persons in the states opposed to him, especially in Athens.
PHILIPPIDES. More usually called Phidippides.
PHILO. The person to whom Lucian addresses The Way to write History is unknown.
PHILOCRATES. Prominent Athenian, probably in the pay of Philip, into whose hands he constantly played.
PHILOCTĒTES. Armour-bearer of Heracles, inherited his bow. Left at Lemnos on the way to Troy, because a wound from a snake-bite rendered him offensive by its stench. Later, an
oracle declaring the bow necessary for the capture of Troy, Odysseus went and induced him to come.
PHILOSOPHY. Lucian is fond of ridiculing the different schools of philosophy, some for their paradoxical choice of ends, some for their hypocrisy in practically disregarding their own precepts. The regulation philosophic garb and appearance also comes in for satire; it consisted of threadbare cloak, wallet, and staff, with long beard. A brief account of the chief schools will be found under ACADEMY, CYNICS, CYRENAICS, PERIPATETICS, STOICS, EPICUREANS, SCEPTICS, PLATO, PYTHAGORAS.
PHILOXENUS. A poet, who, for his severe criticism of a poem of Dionysius I, was imprisoned in the Syracusan quarries. The tyrant, having pardoned him and invited him to dinner, recited another poem he had composed. Asked his opinion of it, Philoxenus made no direct reply, but said, 'Take me back to the quarries.
PHINEUS. King of Bithynia, blinded by Zeus for unjustly blinding his own children; and see HARPIES.
PHLEGETHON. 'Burning,' one of the infernal rivers.
PHOCION. Athenian statesman and general, died 318 B.C.; distinguished for virtue, moderation, and poverty.
PHOEBUS. See APOLLO.
PHOENIX (1). Son of Amyntor king of Argos. Blinded by his father, fled to Peleus, was cured by Chiron of his blindness, and became tutor to Achilles.
PHOENIX (2). An Indian bird which lived five hundred years and then cremated itself, another rising from its ashes.
PHOLUS. See HERACLES.
PHRIXUS. See ATHAMAS.
PHRYGIANS. Troy being in Phrygia, 'Phrygians' is often used for 'Trojans.'
PHRYNE. Famous Athenian courtesan, 328 B.C.
PHRYNON. Athenian politician in the Macedonian interest, associated by Demosthenes especially with Philocrates.
PIRAEUS. The port of Athens, about five miles off.
PISA. The town in Elis, near which the Olympic games were held.
PITCH-PLASTERS were employed by women and by effeminate men for removing the hair from the body.
PITYOCAMPTES. 'Pine-bender,' descriptive surname of the robber Sinis, who killed travellers by fastening them to the top of a pine bent down and then allowed to spring up. He was killed by Theseus in the same way.
PLATAEA. A town in Boeotia, near which the final battle of the Graeco-Persian war was fought, 478 B.C. The Persians were defeated.
PLATO. An Athenian philosopher (428-347 B.C.), and pupil of Socrates, whom in his dialogues he often makes the mouthpiece of his own doctrines. He studied in Africa, Egypt, Italy, and Sicily, and returned to Athens in 386 B.C. to lecture in the gymnasium of the Academy. He paid three visits to the Syracusan court of Dionysius I and II. The Platonic theory of Ideas is an attempt to secure accuracy of definition (which is the first step towards knowledge), by contemplation of those abstract types or Ideas of things, of which external objects are in every case only an imperfect manifestation, and which are perceptible to us by reason of our familiarity with them in a previous existence; for the soul is immortal, and what we call the acquisition of knowledge is in fact only recollection. In his Republic we have a sketch of a model state, in which philosophers are to be kings, and community of women is recommended as a means of securing scientific breeding.
PLUTO. 'Rich' in dead, according to Lucian's derivation; also called Hades. Drew lots with his brothers Zeus and Posidon, and received the Lower World for his share. His wife was Persephone.
PLUTUS. Son of Iasion and Demeter, and God of wealth. Blinded by Zeus.
PNYX. The place where the Athenian Assembly was held. It was cut out of the side of a small hill west of the Acropolis.
PODALIRIUS. Son of Asclepius, and brother of Machaon, with whom he led the Thessalians of Tricca against Troy. Both brothers inherited their father's medical skill.
POECĪLE. The 'Painted' Porch in. the Athenian marketplace, adorned with paintings of Polygnotus. Here Zeno, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, opened his school, which was accordingly often spoken of as 'The Porch.'
POENAE. 'Punishments.' Infernal spirits, akin to the Erinyes.
POLEMON. Athenian philosopher, head of the Academy, 315 B.C. Had been dissolute in youth, but was converted, as related in The Double Indictment, by Xenocrates.
POLIAS. See ATHENE.
POLLUX (1). See CASTOR.
POLLUX (2). See HERODES.
POLUS (1). A rhetorician of Agrigentum, pupil of Gorgias, with whom he is introduced by Plato in the Gorgias.
POLUS (2). A celebrated tragic actor.
POLYCLITUS. 452-412 B.C. A Sicyonian sculptor, reckoned the equal of Phidias. His 'canon' was a bronze statue in which he exemplified the principles that he had laid down in a book to which he gave the same name. The Diadumenus, or youth tying on a fillet, was one of his most famous works.
POLYCRATES. Powerful tyrant of Samos. Frightened by his excessive prosperity, tried to propitiate Nemesis by throwing into the sea a ring that he prized highly; but a fisherman found it in a fish, and returned it, a sign that his offering was rejected. He was lured to Asia by Oroetes, satrap of Sardis, and by him crucified, 522 B.C.
POLYDĂMAS. Olympic victor, 408 B.C. Marvellous stories are told of his strength.
POLYGNOTUS. Famous painter, of Thasos, 422 B.C.
POLYNĪCES. One of the sons of Oedipus, who killed each other.
POLYPHEMUS. See CYCLOPES. His story is given Dialogues of the Sea-Gods, i.
POLYXĔNA. Daughter of Priam and Hecuba, loved by Achilles, who after his death demanded that she should be sacrificed to his manes. She submitted willingly, and was slain by Neoptolemus at his father's tomb.
PORCH, THE. See POECILE and STOICS.
PORUS. See ALEXANDER (1).
POSIDON. Son of Cronus, brother of Zeus and Pluto, received the sea as his province. Assisted Apollo in building the walls of Troy for Laomedon.
PRAXITELES. Athenian sculptor, 364 B.C. With Scopas, headed the later Attic school, known less for sublimity than beauty. The Cnidian Aphrodite was his.
PRIĀPUS. Son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, worshipped especially at Lampsacus.
PRŎDĬCUS. Sophist of Ceos, often at Athens, where Socrates is said to have attended his lectures, about 430 B.C. Spoken of by Plato with more respect than most sophists, and famous for his apologue of The Choice of Heracles, between Pleasure and Virtue.
PROETUS. See BELLEROPHON.
PROMETHEUS. Son of Iapetus, and therefore first cousin of Zeus, who nailed him up on the Caucasus, and instructed an eagle to devour his liver, which grew again each night. The provocation had been threefold: (1) Prometheus, forming clay figures, had persuaded Athene to breathe life into them, and thus created man; (2) he had stolen fire from Heaven for the
use of man; (3) by dividing a slain animal into two portions, one consisting of bones wrapped up in fat, the other of the lean parts, and persuading Zeus to choose the former as his share, he had secured the more desirable portion of sacrificial animals for man. The confusion of the sexes alluded to in the Literary Prometheus (7) is perhaps drawn from Plato's account in the Symposium of the creation of double beings, who possessed the characteristics of both sexes, and referred by Lucian to Prometheus on his own responsibility; though in Phaedrus (Fables, iv. 54) Prometheus is charged with a confusion of the sexes in a different sense.
PROTESILAÜS. A Thessalian, son of Iphiclus, and the first Greek slain by the Trojans. Permitted to return to life for a few hours to see his wife Laodamia.
PROTEUS. The prophetic old man of the sea, from whom it was only possible to obtain information by seizing him; this was difficult, as he changed into many different shapes. Peregrine (whom see) took the name of Proteus.
PTOLEMY (1). Son of Lagus, surnamed Soter. A general of Alexander, and afterwards king of Egypt. Died 283 B.C.
PTOLEMY (2) Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Soter. Married his sister Arsinoe, 309-247 B.C.
PTOLEMY (3) Dionysus. King of Egypt, 80-51 B.C.
PUZZLES. Lucian is never tired of ridiculing the verbal quibbles in which the philosophers of his time indulged. He attributes them especially to the Stoics, whose insistence on pure reason, as opposed to emotion, for the guide of life, resulted in much attention to logic, including its paradoxical forms. Among these logical puzzles are the following: (1) Sorites, the heap trick. Suppose a heap of corn. Is it a heap? Yes. Take a grain away. Is it a heap? Yes. And so on, till only one grain is left. The drawing of the line is impossible. (2) The Horns. If you have not lost a thing, you still have it?
[paragraph continues] Certainly. Have you lost your horns? No. Then you are horned. (3) The Crocodile. A child is caught by a crocodile; the father asks him to give it back. I will, says the crocodile, on condition that you tell me correctly whether I shall do so or not. The dilemma is obvious. (4) The Day and Night. This appears to be a proof that there is no such thing as night, through the ambiguity in 'Day being, Night cannot be,' which in Greek, though not in English, is equally natural in the sense of Since it is day, it cannot be night, and, If day exists, night cannot. (5) The Reaper. I will prove to you that you will not reap your corn, thus. If you reap it, you will not either-reap-or-not-reap, but reap. If you do not reap it, you will not either-reap-or-not-reap, but not reap. So in each case you will not either reap or not reap, that is, there will be no reaping. (6) The Rightful Owner. Unexplained; but see Epictetus, ii, xix. (7) and (8) The Electra, and The Man in the Hood, sufficiently explained in Sale of Creeds (22).
PYANEPSION. An Attic month.
PYLADES. Cousin and friend of Orestes.
PYRRHUS. Stock name for a slave. Used jestingly in Sale of Creeds instead of Pyrrho.
PYRRHO. Of Elis. About 300 B.C. Gave up painting to become a philosopher, and was the founder of the Sceptics.
PYRRHUS. King of Epirus, 295-272 B.C. The greatest general of his time, won several victories over the Romans.
PYTHAGORAS. Born at Samos, settled at Croton in Italy. 580-510 B.C. The early Ionic philosophers, as Thales and Heraclitus, had found the origin of all things in some one principle, as water, or fire. Pythagoras found it in number and proportion; hence the name Order (κόσμος), which he first gave to the universe; hence also the mystic importance attached to certain numbers, e. g. the Decad, called Tetractys (which we
have translated 'quaternion') as made by the addition of the first four integers (1 + 2 + 3 + 4= 10), and the Pentagram, or figure resulting from the production of all the sides of a regular pentagon till they intersect. Pythagoras had travelled in Egypt, and perhaps brought thence his most famous doctrines of the immortality of the soul and transmigration; he is said to have retained the memory of his own previous existences, especially as Euphorbus the Trojan, whose shield he recognized; human knowledge, for him as for Plato, would be accounted for as recollection from earlier lives. He instituted a brotherhood of his disciples, with elaborate training and different degrees; and the Pythagorean 'Ipse dixit,' implying that what the master had said was not open to argument, marks the strict subordination; a novice had to observe silence for five years. Pythagoras left no writings, and this, combined with the mystic character of his speculations on number and his specially authoritative position, gave occasion to innumerable legends, misrepresentations, and extensions. The Pythagorean prohibition of beans as food has never been explained; see Mayor's note on Juv. xv. 174. The usual account is that he thought the souls of his parents might be in them. The story of his appearing at the Olympic games with a golden thigh is one of the later legends illustrative of his supposed assumption of superhuman qualities, which made him the model of impostors or half-impostors like Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander of Abonutichus, or Paracelsus.
PYTHEAS. An Athenian orator, of disreputable character; an enemy of Demosthenes.
PYTHON. An eloquent Byzantine orator in the pay of Philip of Macedon.
RHADAMANTHUS. Son of Zeus and Europa, and brother of Minos. After his death, a judge in Hades.
RHEA, or CYBELE. Daughter of Uranus and Ge, wife of Cronus, and mother of Zeus, Hera, Posidon, Pluto, Hestia, and Demeter. Her worship, celebrated by the Corybantes and the Galli, was of a wild and enthusiastic character. She is commonly represented as being drawn by lions. See also under ATTIS.
SABAZIUS. A Phrygian deity, of doubtful origin, commonly described as a son of Rhea.
SALAMIS. An island off the west coast of Attica, the scene of a great naval victory of the Athenians over the Persians in 480 B.C. It is to this victory that the oracle refers, quoted in the Zeus Tragoedus.
SALII. The dancing priests of Mars, said to have been instituted by Numa.
SALMŌNEUS. Son of Aeolus, and brother of Sisyphus. Zeus slew him with the thunderbolt, for claiming sacrifice, and imitating the thunder and lightning.
SAPPHO. A Lesbian poetess of the sixth century B.C. Taken as a type of elegance in the Portrait-study.
SARDANAPĀLUS. Last king of the Assyrian empire of Nineveh. Lucian's favourite type of luxury and effeminacy.
SARPĒDON. Son of Zeus and Laodamia, slain in the Trojan war by Patroclus.
SATURNALIA. The feast of the Latin God Saturn, held in the month of December. During the feast, all ranks devoted themselves to merriment, presents were exchanged, and public gambling was officially recognized. A mock king was also chosen, who could impose forfeits on his subjects. Lucian does not speak of the Saturnalia by that name, but only of the feast of Cronus, with whom Saturn was identified; and in some cases it is possible that he refers to a feast of Cronus himself.
SATYRS. Beings connected with the worship of Dionysus, and represented with snub noses, horns, and tails.
SCEPTICS. A school of philosophers founded by Pyrrho of Elis, who flourished 325 B.C. Abstention from definition, and suspension of judgement, were the guiding principles of the school.
SCHERIA. See PHAEACIANS.
SCIRON. A robber who infested the frontier of Attica and Megara, and compelled travellers to wash his feet upon the edge of the Scironian precipice, kicking them over into the sea during the operation. He was slain by Theseus.
SCŎPAS. A famous sculptor of Paros, flourished 400-350 B.C.
SELĒNE. Goddess of the moon. Fell in love with Endymion.
SELEUCUS. Surnamed Nicator. First king of Syria, 312280 B.C. For his wife Stratonice see ANTIOCHUS.
SEMELE. Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Beloved by Zeus. Incited by the machinations of Hera, she prevailed upon Zeus against his will to appear to her in all his splendour. His lightnings consumed her; but the child Dionysus, with whom she was pregnant, was saved by Zeus, and matured within his thigh.
SEMIRĂMIS and her husband Ninus were the founders of the Assyrian empire of Nineveh. Her date is placed at about 2000 B.C. She built numerous cities.
SILĒNUS. A Satyr, son of Hermes or of Pan. Usually represented as drunk, and riding on an ass, in attendance on Dionysus.
SIMONIDES. Of Ceos; a famous lyric poet, 556-467 B.C. Said to have added four letters to the alphabet.
SISYPHUS. King of Corinth, fraudulent and avaricious. Punished in the lower world by having to roll a stone up hill, which as soon as he reached the top always fell to the bottom again
SOCRATES. Son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete, 469-399 B.C.
[paragraph continues] He abandoned sculpture (his father's profession) for the study of philosophy, in which he was remarkable for the preference that he gave to ethics over physics, and for the method of dialectic, or logical conversation carried on by means of question and answer, for the purpose of eliciting accurate definition. He was frequently ridiculed on the comic stage by Aristophanes and other poets. In 399 B.C. a charge of impiety was brought against him by Anytus and Meletus, and he was condemned to drink hemlock. Socrates served with credit at the battle of Delium, 424 B.C. An oracle given to his disciple Chaerephon pronounced Socrates to be the wisest of men: Socrates himself claimed to know one thing only--that he knew nothing. Lucian alludes to his favourite oaths, the dog and plane-tree. For the (Platonic) theory of Ideas, and the community of women, see PLATO.
SOLI. A city on the coast of Cilicia, proverbial for the bad Greek spoken there.
SOLON. A famous Athenian legislator, 594 B.C. Said to have visited Croesus of Lydia.
SOPHIST. At Athens this word denoted in particular a paid teacher of grammar, rhetoric, politics, mathematics, &c. Lucian sometimes uses it also for 'philosopher,' and perhaps sometimes in the modern sense of a quibbler.
SOPHRONISCUS. Father of Socrates.
SPARTANS. Among the means adopted to train the youths in fortitude were competitive scourgings at the altar of Artemis Orthia, which must be endured without sign of distress.
STESICHŎRUS. Lyric poet of Himera, 612 B.C. Lost his sight after lampooning Helen, and only recovered it by composing a retractation, 'palinode.'
STHENEBOEA. Another name for Antea; see BELLEROPHON.
STOICS School of philosophy, so called from the Stoa Poecile, or Painted Porch, at Athens, in which Zeno their
founder taught. Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, were the first three heads, starting 310 B.C. Stoicism was a great influence among the Romans, as with the emperor M. Aurelius. Its aim was purely practical, to make man independent of his surroundings. The 'wise man,' who formed his views on pure reason, would recognize that virtue or duty was the only end, and that pleasure and pain, wealth, power, and everything else that did not depend on his own choice, were 'things indifferent.' He would ultimately attain to 'apathy,' and be completely unmoved by the ordinary objects of desire or aversion, being, in whatever external condition, the 'only king,' the 'only happy.' They paid great attention to logic, much reasoning being necessary to establish these paradoxes, whence their reputation for verbal quibbles, and their elaborate technical terms for the relations between sensation and the mental processes. Later Stoics relaxed the severity of the 'indifference ' doctrine by dividing indifferentia into praeposita and rejecta; e. g. health was to be preferred to sickness, though virtue was consistent with either. This would open the door to the preference of wealth, and account for Lucian's sneer at Stoic usurers. The Stoic physics was a materialistic pantheism.
STRATONICE. See ANTIOCHUS.
STYX. 'Loathing,' one of the infernal rivers. The oath by it was the only one that could bind the Immortals.
TAENĂRUM. Southern point of Greece, supposed way from earth to Hades.
TALENT. Sum of money, about £250.
TALOS (1). Nephew of Daedalus, famous artificer, worshipped as a hero at Athens.
TALOS (2). A brazen man made by Hephaestus, given to Minos, and employed as a sentinel to walk round Crete thrice daily.
TANĂGRA. Town in Boeotia, famous for a breed of fighting cocks.
TELLUS. See Charon (10).
TEREUS. Son of Ares and king of Thrace, committed bigamy with Procne and Philomela, daughters of Pandion. The two wives were changed at their own request to nightingale and swallow, and Tereus became a hoopoe.
TEUCER. Step-brother of Ajax Telamonius, and best archer among the Greeks at Troy.
THAÏS. A famous Athenian courtesan, accompanied Alexander.
THAMȲRIS. Thracian bard, blinded by the Muses for presuming to challenge them.
THEANO (1). Wife of Antenor and priestess of Athene at Troy.
THEANO (2). Female philosopher of Pythagoras's school, perhaps his wife
THEBE. A daughter of Prometheus, from whom Thebes had its name.
THEMISTOCLES. Saviour of Greece in the Persian war, 480-478 B.C.; he convinced the Athenians that the famous oracle meant by 'wooden walls,' and 'divine Salamis,' to promise a naval victory there if they trusted to their fleet.
THEOPHRASTUS. Head of the Peripatetic school after Aristotle.
THEOPOMPUS. Of Chios, historian, of the fourth century B.C.
THERICLES. A Corinthian potter, of uncertain date.
THERSĪTES. A Greek at Troy, deformed, impudent, and a demagogue.
THESEUS. Son of Aegeus, king of Athens. Destroyed Sciron, Pityocamptes, Cercyon, and other evil-doers. Slew the Minotaur (see Minos II) in the Cretan Labyrinth, and escaped thence by means of the clue given to him by Minos's daughter Ariadne, of whom he was enamoured, but whom he afterwards deserted
in Naxos, where she was found and married by Dionysus. Made an expedition against the Amazons, and carried off their queen Antiope, whose sister Hippolyta afterwards invaded Attica, but was repelled by Theseus. By Antiope he had a son Hippolytus, with whom his second wife Phaedra fell in love. Assisted by his friend Pirithoüs, Theseus carried off Helen from Sparta, and kept her at Aphidnae.
THESMOPHORIA. Festival of Demeter at Athens.
THĔTIS. Mother of Achilles.
THYESTES. Son of Pelops and brother of Atreus. The latter, having been wronged by him, killed and served up to him his own sons.
THYRSUS. A wand of the narthex plant, carried by the bacchantes, with its head wreathed in vine or ivy, which concealed a steel point.
TIBIUS. Stock name for a slave.
TIMON. The Misanthrope, lived during the Peloponnesian war.
TIRĔSIAS. A Theban seer; was changed into a girl as the result of striking two serpents. Seven years later, he recovered his sex in the same way. Asked by Zeus and Hera to decide their dispute which sex was constituted with stronger passions, said, the woman. Hera, offended, blinded him; Zeus consoled him with the gift of prophecy. See ODYSSEUS also.
TITANS. The dynasty previous to that of the Olympian Gods, till Zeus deposed Cronus, and imprisoned him and the other children of Uranus and Ge in Tartarus.
TITHONUS. The husband of Eos (Aurora), who gave him immortality, but not immortal youth, whence the use of his name for a withered old man.
TITORMUS. An Aetolian shepherd of gigantic strength.
TITYUS. A giant punished by vultures in Hades for violence offered to Artemis.
TRIBE. See DEME.
TRIPTOLEMUS. Favourite of Demeter, who gave him a winged chariot and seeds of wheat, which he scattered as he drove over the earth.
TRITON. A Sea-God, son of Posidon and Amphitrite.
TRITONIA. A name for Athene, of doubtful explanation.
TROPHONIUS. A mortal worshipped as a hero after death. His oracle was consulted in a cave in Boeotia.
TYRO. For her story see Dialogues of the Sea-Gods, xiii. Lucian plays on the name elsewhere (tyrus, cheese).
URANUS. See CRONUS and GE.
VOLOGĔSUS III. See PARTHIANS
XENOCRATES. Distinguished philosopher of the Academy, friend of Plato and Aristotle.
XERXES. King of Persia, 485-465 B.C. Invader of Greece, 480 B.C. His bridge over the Hellespont and canal past Mount Athos were proverbially foolish exercises of power.
ZAMOLXIS. A Thracian who, having been a slave of Pythagoras in Samos, learned his doctrines, and communicated them to the Thracians after his escape. He was deified in Thrace after death.
ZENO. See STOICS.
ZENODOTUS. See HOMER.
ZEUS. Son of Cronus, and of Rhea, who saved him at birth in the manner described under CRONUS. With the help of the Cyclopes, who gave him the thunderbolt, and of the Giants, he overthrew Cronus and the other Titans, imprisoned them in Tartarus, and established himself as king of the Gods. The Giants afterwards revolted, but were crushed with the assistance
of Hera. Zeus now became the father of Persephone by Demeter, of the Muses by Mnemosyne, of Apollo and Artemis by Leto, of Hebe, Ares, and Ilithyia by Hera, and of Athene, who was born from his head. He was the lover also of the mortals, Danae, Semele, Europa, Io, and many others, in various disguises. On one occasion Posidon, Hera, and Athene conspired against him, but were frustrated by Thetis and Briareus. Zeus in gratitude, at the request of Thetis, punished the Greeks for their ill-treatment of Achilles by persuading Agamemnon with a lying dream to make a premature attack upon Troy. His superiority to the other Gods is expressed in the boast alluded to in Dialogues of the Gods, xxi. Lucian also refers to the Cretan story, according to which Zeus lay buried in that island. His usual attributes are the sceptre, the eagle, and the thunderbolt. The famous statue of Zeus at Olympia was by Phidias. In Egypt he was identified with Ammon.
ZEUXIS. Celebrated painter of Heraclea, 424-400 B.C.
ZOÏLUS. See HOMER.
ZOPȲRUS. A Persian who mutilated himself horribly to gain entrance to Babylon and betray it to Darius.