, an eminent Greek scholar and commentator, was born at Hamburgh,
, an eminent Greek scholar and commentator, was born at Hamburgh, Dec. 29, 1699. At the age of thirteen, he went to a village called Dabha-usen, or Taubhausen, near the town of Griefenstein, where there was then a French colony, to learn that language; and made so much progress within seven months, that it appeared to be his native tongue. On his return home, he studied Latin and Greek; and, as his father designed him for the church, he was sent, in 1717, to the college of Herborn, a small town in the principality of Nassau-Dillenbuvgh, where, for two years and a half, he went through a course of philosophy, and studied Hebrew and divinity. In 1720, he removed to the university of Utrecht, where the instructions of the celebrated Drakenburgh and Duker inspired him with a decided taste for ancient literature, and he gave up divinity. About the end of 1723, when he had finished his studies at Utrecht, and wished to go through the same course at Leyden, he was appointed vice-director of the college of Middleburgh. In 1725, he was promoted to be rector ofthe same college; and, in 1741, he filled the same office in that of Zwol, in Over-yssel, where he remained until his death, in 1782.
, or Agelas, an. eminent Greek sculptor, flourished in the eighty-seventh olympiade,
, or Agelas, an. eminent Greek sculptor, flourished in the eighty-seventh olympiade, or 432 B. C. according to Pliny and Pausanias. His statues were once well known and admired in Greece, particularly two, in brass, of an infant Jupiter, and a young Hercules, and the female captives.
Aculeos, by a method approved and directed by L. Crassus, and placed there in a public school under an eminent Greek master. His father, indeed, discerning the promising
He was educated at Rome with his cousins, the young Aculeos, by a method approved and directed by L. Crassus, and placed there in a public school under an eminent Greek master. His father, indeed, discerning the promising genius of his son, spared no expence in procuring the ablest masters among whom was the poetA re hi as, who came to Rome with a high reputation, when Cicero was about five years old; and who was afterwards defended by Cicero in a most elegant oration, still extant.
, named the Scholastic, a native of Italy, and an eminent Greek and Latin scholar, was born about the year 510.
, named the Scholastic, a native of Italy,
and an eminent Greek and Latin scholar, was born about
the year 510. At the request of Cassiodorus he translated
into the Latin language the ecclesiastical histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodcret, a version more entitled
to commendation for its fidelity than its elegance. Cassiodorus was also indebted to Epiphanius for the improved
version of the “Codex encyclicus,
” or collection of synodal letters of the year
, an eminent Greek philosopher, palled also Pletho, was born at
, an eminent Greek philosopher,
palled also Pletho, was born at Constantinople, in 1390,
He was a zealous advocate for Platonism, and maintained
a violent controversy with the Aristotelians. He was a
strenuous defender of the Greek church against the Latins,
and was consulted as an oracle on the points in debate,
being unquestionably a man of learning and acuteness.
He is principally noticeable as being the first Greek who
gave occasion to the revival of Platonism in Italy, where
he made many illustrious converts, and was the means of
laying the foundation of a Platonic academy at Florence.
He afterwards returned to Greece, where he died at the
advanced age of nearly one hundred and one years. His
heretical and philosophical writings afford unquestionable
proofs of his learning, and particularly of his intimate
knowledge of the Alexandrian philosophy. In his “Kxplanation of the Magic Oracles of Zoroaster,
” Gr. and Lat.
Paris, On the Virtues,
”
Oxon. On the difference between the Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophy,
” Paris, He had a profound acquaintance with Grecian history, as appears by
his
” De iis qu post pugnam ad Mantinaam gesta sunt,“printed with the Venice edition of
” Herodian,“1503, foL
and with the Aldus
” Xenophon" of the same year.
, an eminent Greek orator, was born at Athens, in the 86th olympiad,
, an eminent Greek orator, was born at Athens, in the 86th olympiad, five years before the Peloponnesian war, and 436 B. C. At an early age he began to study philosophy and rhetoric under Gorgias, Prodicus, and Tiseas, whose doctrines and eloquence about this period astonished all Greece. It is affirmed that he also was a disciple of the celebrated orator Theramenes, whom the thirty tyrants caused to be put to death because he favoured the popular cause. He passionately loved glory; and the desire of distinguishing himself, and of bearing a part in the public administration, animated all his proceedings. In order to this end, besides possessing information and a turn for business, it was necessary to excel in eloquence; but nature having denied him both voice and self-command, he directed his efforts to composition, and confined himself to interesting questions, such as appeared to him calculated to render his country happy, and his fellow-citizens virtuous. His talents corresponded with the grandeur of his views. Youth flocked from all parts to be his pupils, and to form themselves on his lessons. Some of them afterwards became orators, some great statesmen, and others polished and profound historians. He died loaded with glory and wealth, at the age of ninety years, a few days previous to the battle of Chaeronea, B. C. 338.
, an eminent Greek orator, was born at Syracuse, about the year 459
, an eminent Greek orator, was born at Syracuse, about the year 459 B. C. He was educated at Athens,
and became a teacher of rhetoric, and composed orations
for others, but does not appear to have been a pleader. Of
his orations, which are said to have amounted to three or
four hundred, only thirty-four remain. He died in the
eighty-first year of his age, and in the 378th year B.C.
Cicero and Quintilian give him a very high character, and
suppose that there is nothing of their kind more perfect
than his orations. Lysias lived at a somewhat earlier period
than Isocrates; and exhibits a model of that manner which
the ancients call the “tenuis vel subtilis.
” He has none
of the pomp of Isocrates. He is every where pure and
attic in the highest degree; simple and unaffected; but
wants force, and is sometimes frigid in his compositions. In
the judicious comparison which Dionysius of Halicarnassus makes of the merits of Lysias and Isocrates, he
ascribes to Lysias, as the distinguishing character of
his manner, a certain grace or elegance arising from simplicity: “the style of Lysias has gracefulness for its nature; that of Isocrates seems to have it.
” In the art of
narration, as distinct, probable, and persuasive, he holdsf
Lysias to be superior to all orators; at the same time he
admits, that his composition is more adapted to private
litigation than to great subjects. He convinces, but he
does not elevate nor animate. The magnificence and splendour of Isocrates are more suited to great occasions. He
is more agreeable than Lysias; and in dignity of sentiment far excels him. The first edition of Lysias is that
by Aldus, folio, 1513, in the first part of the “Rhetorum
Gnecorum orationes.
” The best modern editions are that
of Taylor, beautifully and correctly printed by Bowyer, in
1739, 4to; of Reiske, at Leipsic, 1772, 8vo and of
Auger at Paris, 1782. Auger also published an excellent
French translation of Lysias in 1783.
, an eminent Greek, flourished about 1280, under the reign of Michael
, an eminent Greek, flourished
about 1280, under the reign of Michael Paleologus, and
Andronicus his successor. He was a person of high birth r
and had acquired no less knowledge in church-affairs in the
great posts he had among the clergy of Constantinople,
than of state-matters in the high employments he held m
the court of the emperor; so that his “History of Michael
Paleologus and Andronicus
” is the more esteemed, as he
was not only an eye-witness of the affairs of which he
writes, but had also a great share in them. This history
was published by Poussines, a Jesuit, Gr. et Lat. “ex
intorpr. et cum not. P. Possini,
” Rome, 1666—69, 2 vols. fol.
Pachymera composed also some Greek verses; but they
were little esteemed, and never printed. Brucker mentions a compendium of the Aristotelian philosophy published from his manuscripts; and Tilman published his
paraphrase on the epistles of Dionysius the Areopagite,
“Georgii Pachymerae Paraphrasis in decem epistolas bead
Dionysii Areopagitæ,
” Paris,
have been entertained by him in his own family, he paid much attention to the lectures of Leonicus, an eminent Greek scholar, who taught Pole to relish the writings
Having now acquired perhaps as much learning as his country at that time afforded, he was desirous of visiting the most celebrated universities abroad, to complete his education, and being provided by the king with a pension, in addition to the profits of his preferments, he fixed his residence for some time at Padua, where he hired a house and kept an establishment suitable to his rank. The professors at Padua were at this time men of high reputation, and were not a little pleased with the opportunity of forming the mind of one who was the kinsman ana favourite of a great king, and might hereafter have it in his power amply to reward their labours and some of them even now partook nobly of his bounty, being maintained by him in his house. Here commenced his acquaintance with Bembo, Sadolet, and Longolius, which lasted the remainder of their lives, and here also his acquaintance took its rise with Erasmus, who had received from his friend Lupset a very favourable representation of Pole. He therefore entered into an epistolary correspondence with him, which he began b\ T recommending to his favour the afterwards well-known John A Lasco. (See Alasco, vol. I. p. 292.) Besides the aid which Pole received in his studies from Longolius and Lupset, who is said to have been entertained by him in his own family, he paid much attention to the lectures of Leonicus, an eminent Greek scholar, who taught Pole to relish the writings of Aristotle and Plato in the original. While Pole continued at Padua, Longinus died in 1522, and such was the regard Pole had for him that he wrote his life, which Dr. Neve thinks was not only the first but the best specimen he gave the public of his abilities. It was the production, however, of a young man who could not have known Longolius above two years, and he has therefore fallen into some mistakes. (See Longueil.)
, an eminent Greek historian, was of Megalopolis, a city of Arcadia,
, an eminent Greek historian, was of Megalopolis, a city of Arcadia, and was the son of Lycortas, general of the Achaeans, who were then the most powerful
republic in Greece. He was born in the fourth year of the
143d olympiad, or in the 548th year of the building of
Rome, or about 203 years before Christ. When twentyfour years of age, the Achaeans sent him and his father
Lycortas ambassadors to the king of Egypt; and the son
had afterwards the same honour, when he was deputed to
go to the Roman consul, who made war upon Perses, king
of Macedon. In the consulships of Æmilius Paetus and
Julius Pennus, a thousand Achaeans were ordered to Rome,
as hostages, for the good behaviour of their countrymen
who were suspected of designs against the Romans; and
were there detained seventeen years. Polybius, who was
one of them, and was then thirty-eight years of age, had
great talents from nature, which were well cultivated by
education; and his residence at Rome appears to have
been of great advantage to him since he owed to it, not
only the best part of his learning, but the important friendship he contracted with Scipio and Lselius and when the
time of his detention expired, he accompanied Scipio into
Africa. After this he was witness to the sack and destruc*
tion of Corinth, and of the reduction of Achaia to tho
condition of a Roman provinces Amidst these dreadful
scenes, he displayed noble traits of patriotism and
disinterestedness, which obtained for him so much credit, that he was entrusted with the care of settling the
new form of government in the cities of Greece,
which office he performed to the satisfaction both of the
Romans and the Greeks. In all his journeys he amassed materials for his history, and took such observations
as to render his descriptions very accurate. Although
his chief object was the history of the Romans, whose language he had learned with great care, and the establishment of their empire, yet he had in his eye the general
history of the times in which he lived and therefore he
gave his work the name of “Catholic or Universal
” nor
was this at all inconsistent with his general purpose, there
being scarcely any nations at that time in the known world,
which had not some contest with, or dependence upon, the
Romans. Of forty books which he composed, there remain
but the first five entire; with an epitome of the twelve
following, which is supposed to have been made by that
great assertor of Roman liberty, Marcus Brutus. Brutus
is said to have been so particularly fond of Polybius, that,
even in the last and most unfortunate hours of his life, he
amused himself not only in reading, but also in abridging
his history. The space of time which this history includes,
is fifty-three years, beginning, after two of introductory
matter, at the third book.
, an eminent Greek poetess, was a native of Mitylene in the island
, an eminent Greek poetess, was a native of
Mitylene in the island of Lesbos. Who was her father is
uncertain, there being no less than eight persons who have
contended for that honour; but it is universally acknowledged that Cleis was her mother. She flourished, according to Suidas, in the 42d olympiad according to Eusebius, in the 44th olympiad, about 600 years B. C. Her
love-affairs form the chief materials of her biography.
Barnes has endeavoured to prove, from the testimonies of
Chameleon and Hermesianax, that Anacreon was one of
her lovers; but from the chronology of both, this has been
generally considered as a poetical fiction. She married
one Cercolas, a man of great wealth and power in the island of Andros, by whom she had a daughter named Cleis.
He leaving her a widow very young, she renounced all
thoughts of marriage, but not of love*; nor was she very
scrupulous in her intrigues. Her chief favourite appears to
have been the accomplished Phaon, a young man of Lesbos; who is said to have been a kind of ferry-man, and
thence fabled to have carried Venus over the stream in his
boat, and to have received from her, as a reward, the favour of becoming the most beautiful man in the world.
Sappho fell desperately in love with him, and went into
Sicily in pursuit of him, he having withdrawn himself thither on purpose to avoid her. It was in that island, and
on this occasion, that she composed her hymn to Venus.
This, however, was ineffectual. Phaon was still obdurate,
and Sappho was so transported with the violence of her
passion, that she had recourse to a promontory in Acarnania called Leucate, on the top of which was a temple
dedicated to Apollo. In this temple it was usual for de* “Sappho formed an academy of culpate her And might she not have
females who excelled*!!) music; and it written the celebrated verses
” Blest
was doubtless this academy which drew as the immortal gods is he,“&c. for
on her the hatred of the women of Mi- another Many of our poetical ladies
tylene, who accused her of being too whom we could name, have written
fond of her own sex; but will not her excellent impassioned songs of cornlove for Phaon, and the fatal termioa- plaint in a male character.
” Dr. Bur*
tioa of her existence, sufficiently ex- ney in Hist, of Music.
spairing lovers to make their vows in secret, and afterwards to fling themselves from the top of the precipice into
the sea, it being an established opinion, that all those who
were taken up alive, would immediately be cured of their
former passion. Sappho perished in the experiment. The
original of this unaccountable humour is not known. Her
genius, however, made her be lamented. The Romans
erected a noble statue of porphyry to her memory; and the
Mitylenians, to express their sense of her worth, paid her
sovereign honours after her death, and coined money with
her head for the impress. She was likewise honoured with
the title of the tenth Muse.
, an eminent Greek poer, was born in the fifty-ninth olympiad, or
, an eminent Greek poer, was born in the
fifty-ninth olympiad, or about 550 years before Christ. He
calls himself a Megarian, in one of his verses; meaning,
most probably, Megara, in Achaia, as appears also from
his own verses, for he prays the gods to turn away a threatening war from the city of Alcathous and Ovid calls the
same Megara, Alcathoe. We have a moral work- of his
extant, of somewhat more than a thousand lines, which is
acknowledged to be an useful summary of precepts and,
reflections; which, however, has so little of the genius and
fire of poetry in it, that, as Plutarch said, it may more
properly be called carmen than poema. These “Tw^cm,
Sententiae,
” or “Precepts,
” are given in the simplest
manner, without the least ornament, and probably were
put into verse merely to assist the memory. Athenacus
reckons this author among the most extravagant voluptuaries, and cites some of his verses to justify the censure;
and Suidas, in the account of his works, mentions a piece
entitled “Exhortations, or Admonitions,
” which, he says,
was stained with a mixture of indecency. The verses we
have at present are, however, entirely free from any thing
of this kind, whence some have supposed that they were
not left so by the author, but that the indecencies were
omitted, and the void spaces filled up with graver sentences.
They have been very often printed both with and without
Latin versions, and are to be found in all the collections of
the Greek minor poets. One of the best editions, but a
rare book, is that by Ant. Blackwell, Lond. 1706, 12mo.
, an eminent Greek scholar, was the son of Francis Winterton of Lutterworth
, an eminent Greek scholar,
was the son of Francis Winterton of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, A. M. where he was born. That he was an excellent Greek scholar appears from many of his productions in that language, which entitled him to be a competitor, though an unsuccessful one, in 1627, for the
Greek professorship at Cambridge, on the death of Andrew
Downes, with four other candidates, who all read solemn
lectures in the schools on a subject appointed them by the
electors. He was educated at KingVcollege, Cambridge,
where he had the misfortune, during the early part of his
residence, to be somewhat disordered in his intellects;
but, recovering, he took to the study of physic, and was
allowed to excel all of that profession in his time. In 1631
he 'published the first book of Hippocrates’s Aphorisms in
a Greek metrical version at Cambridge, in quarto, and the
year following the whole seven books together, in the same
manner. In 1633, by the advice of Dr. John Collins, regius professor of physic, he published an edition of the
Aphorisms in octavo at Cambridge, with Frere’s Latin poetical translation, and his own Greek version, with a Latin
prose translation by John Heurnus of Utrecht. At the
end is annexed a small book of epigrams and poems, composed by the chiefest wits of both universities, but chiefly
of Cambridge, and of KingVcollege in particular. In
1631 he printed, in octavo, at Cambridge, a translation of
“Gerard’s Meditations,
” whicfi went through six editions
in about nine years. In 1632 he published likewise at
Cambridge, in octavo, Gerard’s “Golden Chain of Divine Aphorisms.
” He published also, for the use of Etonschool, an edition of “Dionysius de situ Orbis,
” with
some Greek verse* at the end of it, addressed to the scholars, and exhorting them to the study of geography. This
was reprinted at London in 1668, 12mo. In the above
year (1632), he translated “Drexelius on Eternity,
” which
was printed at Cambridge. In the preface to this, he has
some sentiments which shew that he was of a pious but
somewhat singular turn of mind. In 1634, being M. D.
he was nominated by the king his professor of physic for
forty years, if he should live so long. The year following
he published at Cambridge in octavo an edition of the
“Minor Greek Poets,
” with observations upon Hesiod.
This has passed through many editions. His advancement
to the professorship appears to have interrupted his employment as an author; but he did not survive that honour
long, dying in the prime of life Sept. 13, 1636. He vva^
buried at the east end of King’s- college chapel, but without any memorial. After his death was published a translation by him of Jerome Zanchius’s “Whole Duty of the
Christian Religion,
” Lorid.