OPELIUS MACRI'NUS. [MACRINUS.] OPHE LION ('îpeλiwv). 1. An Athenian comic poet, probably of the Middle Comedy, of whom Suidas says that Athenaeus, in his second book, mentions the following as being his plays:Δευκαλίων, Κάλλαισχρος, Κένταυρος, Σάτυροι, Μοῦaal, Movóτрonol, or rather, according to the emendation of Toup, Movóтрожоs. The last three of these titles are elsewhere assigned by Suidas to Phrynichus. In the second book of Athenaeus, which Suidas quotes, none of the titles are mentioned, but Ophelion is thrice quoted, without the name of the play referred to (Athen. ii. pp. 43, f. 66, d. 67, a.); and, in the third book, Athenaeus quotes the Callaeschrus, and also another play, which Suidas does not mention (iii. p. 106, a.). The reasons for assigning him to the Middle Comedy are, the reference to Plato in Athen. ii. p. 66, d., and the statement that he used some verses which were also found in Eubulus (Athen. ii. p. 43, f., where the name of Ophelion rightly substituted by Porson for that of Philetas). Who may have been the Callaeschrus, whose name formed the title of one of his plays, we cannot tell; but if he was the same as the Callaeschrus, who formed the subject of one of the plays of Theopompus, the date of Ophelion would be fixed before the 100th Olympiad, B. c. 380. There is, perhaps, one more reference to Ophelion, again corrupted into Philetas, in Hesychius, s. v. "Iois. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. p. 415, vol. iii. p. 380; Praef. ad Menand. pp. x. xi.)

2. A Peripatetic philosopher, the slave and disciple of Lycon (Diog. Laërt. v. 73). [P. S.] OPHE LION (Apeλíwv). 1. A painter of unknown time and country, on whose pictures of Pan and Aërope there are epigrams in the Greek Anthology. (Anth. Pal. vi. 315, 316; Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 382.)

2. A sculptor, the son of Aristonides, was the maker of a statue of Sextus Pompeius, in the Royal Museum of Paris. (Clarac, Catal. No. 150.) [P.S.]

The

year, which was suppressed by Agis, the general of
Ptolemy. Yet it could not have been long after
that he availed himself of the continued disaffection
of that people towards Egypt to assume the govern-
ment of Cyrene as an independent state.
continual wars in which Ptolemy was engaged
against Antigonus, and the natural difficulties of
assailing Cyrene, secured him against invasion;
and he appears to have continued in undisputed
possession of the country for near five years.
(Paus. i. 6. § 8; Droysen, Hellenism, vol. i. pp.
414, 417.) The power to which Ophellas had
thus attained, and the strong mercenary force
which he was able to bring into the field, caused
Agathocles, during his expedition in Africa (B. C.
308) to turn his attention towards the new ruler
of Cyrene as likely to prove an useful ally against
the Carthaginians. In order to gain him over he
promised to cede to him whatever conquests their
combined forces might make in Africa, reserving
to himself only the possession of Sicily. The am-
bition of Ophellas was thus aroused: he put him-
self at the head of a powerful army, and notwith-
standing all the natural obstacles which presented
themselves on his route, succeeded in reaching the
Carthaginian territories after a toilsome and perilous
march of more than two months' duration. He was
received by his new ally with every demonstration
of friendship, and the two armies encamped near
each other: but not many days had elapsed when
Agathocles took an opportunity treacherously to
surprise the camp of the Cyrenaeans, and Ophellas
himself perished in the confusion. His troops, thus
left without a leader, joined the standard of
Agathocles. (Diod. xx. 40-42; Justin, xxii. 7;
Oros. iv. 6; Polyaen. v. 3. § 4; Suid. s. v. 'Opéx-
Aas.) Justin styles Ophellas "rex Cyrenarum,"
but it seems improbable that he had really assumed
the regal title. He was married to an Athenian,
Eurydice, the daughter of Miltiades, and appears
to have maintained friendly relations with Athens.
(Diod. xx. 40; Plut. Demetr. 14.) [E. H. B.]

OPHELTES ('Opéλtns). 1. A son of Lycur-
gus, who was killed by a snake at Nemea, as his
nurse Hypsipyle had left him alone. (Apollod. i. ·
9. § 14; Paus. ii. 15. § 3; comp. ADRASTUS.)
2. One of the Tyrrhenians who wanted to

phosed into dolphins. (Hygin. Fab. 134.)

3. The son of Peneleus and father of Damasichthon, king of Thebes. (Paus. ix. 5. § 8.) [L.S.]

OPHION ('Opiwv), a Titan, was married to Eurynome, with whom he shared the supremacy previous to the reign of Cronos and Rhea ; but being conquered by the latter, he and Eurynome were thrown into Oceanus or Tartarus. (Apollon. Rhod. i. 503, &c.; Tzetz, ad Lyc. 1191.) There are two other mythical beings of the same name. (Ov. Met. xii. 245; Claudian. Rapt. Pros. iii. 348.) [L. S.]

OPHELLAS ('Opéλλas), king or ruler of Cyrene, was a native of Pella in Macedonia: his father's name was Seilenus. He appears to have accompanied Alexander during his expedition in Asia, but his name is first mentioned as command-carry off Dionysus, and were therefore metamoring one of the triremes of the fleet of that monarch on the Indus, B. c. 327. (Arrian, Ind. 18.) After the death of the Macedonian king, he followed the fortunes of Ptolemy, by whom he was sent, in B. c. 322, at the head of a considerable army, to take advantage of the civil war which had broken out in the Cyrenaica. [THIMBRON.] This object he successfully accomplished, totally defeated Thimbron and the party that supported him, and established the supremacy of Egypt over Cyrene itself and its dependencies. But shortly after, the civil dissensions having broken out again led Ptolemy himself to repair to Cyrene, which he this time appears to have reduced to complete subjection. (Diod. xviii. 21; Arrian, ap. Phot. p. 70, a.) The subsequent proceedings of Ophellas are involved in great obscurity. It seems certain that he was still left by Ptolemy at this time in the government of Cyrene, which he probably continued to hold on behalf of the Egyptian king until about the year B. c. 313: but no mention is found of his name in the account given by Diodorus (xviii. 79) of the revolt of the Cyrenaeans in that

OPILIUS. [OPELIUS.]

OPI'LIUS, AURELIUS, the freedman of an Epicurean, taught at Rome, first philosophy, then rhetoric, and, finally, grammar, and is placed by Suetonius next in order to Saevius Nicanor [NICANOR]. He gave up his school upon the condemnation of Rutilius Rufus, whom he accompanied to Smyrna, and there the two friends grew old together in the enjoyment of each other's society. He composed several learned works upon various subjects; one of these in particular, divided into

nine parts, and named Musae, is referred to by the most formidable opponents of C. Gracchus ; and A. Gellius (i. 25), who quotes from it an expla- accordingly when he first became a candidate for nation of the word Induciae, accompanied by a the consulship, C. Gracchus used all his influence most foolish derivation. To another piece termed with the people to induce them to prefer C. FanPinar an acrostic was prefixed on his own name nius Strabo in his stead. (Plut. C. Gracch. 11.) which he there gave as Opillius. (Sueton. de Gracchus succeeded in his object, and Fannius was Illustr. Gramm. 6; Lersch, Sprachphilosophie der consul in B. c. 122; but he was unable to prevent Alten, iii. p. 150.) [W. R.] the election of Opimius for the following year, and OPI'MIA, a vestal virgin in the time of the had only rendered the latter a still bitterer enemy second Punic War, was unfaithful to her vow of by the affront he had put upon him. Opimius's colchastity, and was in consequence buried alive at league was Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus. The the Colline gate. (Liv. xxii. 57.) history of the consulship of Opimius, B. c. 121, is OPIMIA GENS, plebeian, is first mentioned given at length in the life of C. Gracchus. It is in the time of the Samnite wars. The first only necessary to state here in general, that Opimember of the gens who obtained the consulship, mius entered, with all the zeal of an unscrupulous was Q. Opimius, in B. C. 154. The only cog-partisan and the animosity of a personal enemy, nomen of the Opimii is Pansa, but the more dis- into the measures which the senate adopted to tinguished persons of this name are mentioned crush Gracchus, and forced on matters to an open without any surname. On coins the name is rupture. As soon as he was armed by the senate always written Opeimius, as in the annexed spe- with the well-known decree, "That the consuls cimen, which represents on the obverse the head should take care that the republic suffered no inof Pallas, and on the reverse Apollo in a chariot jury," he resolved to make away with Gracchus, bending his bow, with M. OPEIM. ROMA. None and succeeded, as is related in the life of the latter. of the coins of this gens can be referred with cer- Opimius and his party abused their victory most tainty to any particular person. savagely, and are said to have killed more than three thousand persons. [For details see Vol. II. pp. 197, 198, and the authorities there quoted.]

ROMA

COIN OF THE OPIMIA GENS.

OPIMIUS. 1. C. OPIMIUS PANSA, quaestor B.C. 294, was killed in the quaestorium or quaestor's tent, in an attack made by the Samnites upon the Roman camp. (Liv. x. 32.)

2. Q. OPIMIUS Q. F. Q. N., was consul B. C. 154, with L. Postumius Albinus. Opimius in his consulship carried on war with the Oxybii and Deciatae, Ligurian tribes on the northern side of the Alps, who had attacked the territory of the people of Massilia, the allies of the Roman people, and had laid waste the towns of Antipolis and Nicaea, which belonged to Massilia. Opimius subdued these people without any difficulty, and obtained in consequence the honour of a triumph. (Polyb. xxxiii. 5, 7, 8; Liv. Epit. 47; Fasti Capit.; Obsequ. 76.) This Opimius seems to have been a man of as little principle as his son, and was notorious in his youth for his riotous living. Lucilius described him as "formosus homo et famosus" (Nonius, iv. s. v. Fama, p. 658, ed. Gothofred.), and Cicero speaks of him as qui adolescentulus male audisset." (De Orat. ii. 68, fin.) In the same passage Cicero relates a joke of Opimius.

66

In the following year, B. c. 120, Opimius was accused by Q. Decius, tribune of the plebs, of having put Roman citizens to death without a trial. He was defended by the consul, C. Papirius Carbo, who had formerly belonged to the party of Gracchus, but had gone over to that of the aristocracy. Although the judices now belonged to the equestrian order by one of the laws of Gracchus, they were too much terrified by the events of the preceding year to condemn the person who had been the prime mover in them, and accordingly acquitted the accused. (Liv. Epit. 61; Cic. de Orat. ii. 25.) Opimius thus escaped for the present, but his venality and corruption brought him before the judices again a few years afterwards, when he met with a different fate. He had been at the head of the commission which was sent into Africa in B. c. 112, in order to divide the dominions of Micipsa between Jugurtha and Adherbal, and had allowed himself to be bribed by Jugurtha, to assign to him the better part of the country. This scandalous conduct had passed unnoticed at the time; but when the defeat of the Roman army, through the misconduct of Albinus, in B. c. 109, had roused the indignation of the Roman people, the tribune, C. Mamilius Limetanus, brought forward a bill for inquiry into the conduct of all those who had received bribes from Jugurtha. By this law Opimius was condemned along with many others of the leading members of the aristocracy. He went into exile to Dyrrhachium in Epeirus, where he lived for some years, hated and insulted by the people, and where he eventually died in great poverty. He richly deserved his punishment, and met with a due recompense for his cruel and ferocious conduct towards C. Gracchus and his party. Cicero, on the contrary, who, after his consulship, had identified himself with the aristocratical party, frequently laments the fate of Opimius, and complains of the cruelty shown towards a man who had conferred such signal services upon his country

3. L. OPIMIUS Q. F. Q. N., son of the preceding, Was praetor B. c. 125, in which year he marched against Fregellae, which had risen in revolt, in order to obtain the Roman franchise. The town was betrayed to Opimius by one of its citizens, Q. Numitorius Pullus, and severe vengeance was taken upon the inhabitants. (Liv. Epit. 60; Cic. De rent, 34; Ascon. in Pison. p. 17, ed. Orelli; Vell. Pat. ii. 6; Plut. C. Gracch. 3.) Opimius be longed to the high aristocratical party, and possessed great influence in the senate. He was one of the most violent and, at the same time, one of monwealth, and characterises his condemnation as

VOL. IIL

as the conquest of Fregellae and the destruction of Gracchus. He calls him the saviour of the com

D

a blot upon the Roman dominion, and a disgrace to the Roman people. (Sall. Jug. 16, 40; Vell. Pat. ii. 7; Plut. C. Gracch. 18; Cic. pro Planc. 28, Brut. 34, in Pison. 39, pro Sest. 67; Schol. Bob. pro Sest. p. 311, ed. Orelli.)

The year in which Opimius was consul (B. C. 121) was remarkable for the extraordinary heat of the antumn, and thus the vintage of this year was of an unprecedented quality. This wine long remained celebrated as the Vinum Opimianum, and was preserved for an almost incredible space of time. Cicero speaks of it as in existence when he wrote his Brutus, eighty-five years after the consulship of Opimius (Brut. 83). Velleius Paterculus, who wrote in the reign of Tiberius, says (ii. 7) that none of the wine was then in existence; but Pliny, who published his work in the reign of Vespasian, makes mention of its existence even in his day, two hundred years afterwards. It was reduced, he says, to the consistence of rough honey; and, like other very old wines, was so strong, and harsh, and bitter, as to be undrinkable until largely diluted with water. (Plin. H. N. xiv. 4. s. 6; Dict. of Ant. s. v. Vinum.)

4. L. OPIMIUS, served in the army of L. Lutatius Catulus, consul B. c. 102, and obtained great credit by killing a Cimbrian, who had challenged him (Ampelius, c. 22).

5. Q. OPIMIUS L. F. Q. N. was brought to trial before Verres in his praetorship (B. c. 74), on the plea that he had interceded against the Lex Cornelia, when he was tribune in the preceding year (B. c. 75); but, in reality, because he had in his tribunate opposed the wishes of some Roman noble. He was condemned by Verres, and deprived of all his property. It appears from the Pseudo-Asconius that Opimius had in his tribunate supported the law of the consul C. Aurelius Cotta, which restored to the tribunes the right of being elected to the other magistracies of the state after the tribunate, of which privilege they had been deprived by a Lex Cornelia of the dictator Sulla. (Cic. Verr. i. 60; Pseudo-Ascon. in Verr. p. 200, ed. Orelli.)

7. M. OPIMIUS, praefect of the cavalry in the army of Metellus Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompey, was taken prisoner by Cn. Domitius Calvinus, B. C. 48. (Caes. B. C. iii. 38.)

8. OPIMIUS, a poor man mentioned by Horace (Sat. ii. 3. 124), of whom nothing is known. OPIS. [UPIS.]

2. VESTIA OPPIA, a woman of Atella in Campania, resided at Capua during the second Punic war, and is said to have daily offered up sacrifices for the success of the Romans, while Capua was in the hands of the Carthaginians. She was accordingly rewarded by the Romans in B. C. 210, when the city fell into their power. (Liv. xxvi. 33, 34.)

3. The wife of L. Minidius or Mindius. (Cic. ad Fam. xiii. 28.) [MINIDIUS.]

O'PPIA GENS, plebeian. This gens belonged to the tribus Terentina, and was one of considerable antiquity, and some importance even in early times, since a member of it, Sp. Oppius Cornicen, was one of the second decemvirate, B. c. 450. We even read of a Vestal virgin of the name of Oppia as early as B. c. 483 (Liv. ii. 43), but it is difficult to believe that a plebeian could have filled this dignity at so early a period. None of the Oppii, however, ever obtained the consulship, although the name occurs at intervals in Roman history from the time of the second decemvirate to that of the early emperors. [Compare however OPPIUS, No. 19.] The principal cognomens in this gens are CAPITO, CORNICEN or CORNICINUS, and SALINATOR; but most of the Oppii had no surname. Those of the name of Capito and Salinator are given below. [OPPIUS.] On coins we find the surnames Capito and Salinator.

OPPIA'NICUS, the name of three persons, two of whom play a prominent part in the oration of Cicero for Cluentius. 1. STATIUS ALBIUS OPPIANICUS, was accused by his step-son A. Cluentius of having attempted to procure his death by poisoning, B. C. 74, and was condemned. 2. OpriANICUS, the son of the preceding, accused Cluentius himself in B. c. 66, of three distinct acts of poisoning. 3. C. OPPIANICUS, the brother of No. 1, said to have been poisoned by him (Cic. pro Cluent. 11). A full account of the two trials is given under CLUENTIUS.

OPPIA NUS, a person to whom M. Varro wrote a letter, which is referred to by A. Gellius (xiv. 7).

6. OPIMIUS, is mentioned as one of the judices OPPIA NUS ('Ormiavós). Under this name by Cicero (ad Att. iv. 16. § 6) in B. C. 54. The there are extant two Greek hexameter poems, one word which follows Opimius, being either his cog-on fishing, 'AXLEUTIKά, and the other on hunting, nomen or the name of his tribe, is corrupt. (See Kunyetikά; as also a prose paraphrase of a third Orelli, ad loc.) This Opimius may be the same poem on hawking, 'IEUTIKά. These were, till as the following. towards the end of the last century, universally attributed to the same person; an opinion which not only made it impossible to reconcile with each other all the passages relating to Oppian that are to be found in ancient writers, but also rendered contradictory the evidence derived from the perusal of the poems themselves. At length, in the year 1776, J. G. Schneider in his first edition of these poems threw out the conjecture that they were not written by the same individual, but by two persons of the same name, who have been constantly confounded together; an hypothesis, which, if not absolutely free from objection, certainly removes so many difficulties, and moreover affords so convenient a mode of introducing various facts and remarks which would otherwise be inconsistent and contradictory, that it will be adopted on this occasion. The chief (if not the only) objection to Schneider's conjecture arises from its novelty, from its positively contradicting some ancient authorities, and from the strong negative fact that for nearly sixteen hundred years no

O'PITER, an old Roman praenomen, given to a person born after the death of his father, but in the lifetime of his grandfather. (Festus, p. 184, ed. Müller; Val. Max. de Nom. Rat. 12; Placidus, p. 491.) We find this praenomen in the Virginia Gens, for instance.

L. OPITE'RNIUS, a Faliscan, a priest of
Bacchus, and one of the prime movers in the intro-
duction of the worship of this god into Rome
B. C. 186. (Liv. xxxix. 17.)

OPLACUS. [OBSIDIUS.]
O'PPIA. 1. A Vestal virgin, put to death in
B. C. 483 for violation of her vow of chastity.
(Liv. ii. 42.)

II. The author of the "Cynegetica,” Kuvηyetiká, was a native of Apameia or Pella in Syria, as he himself plainly tells us in the following passage, where, speaking of the river Orontes, he says:Αὐτὸς δ ̓ ἐν μεσάτοισιν ἐπαιγίζων πεδίοισιν, Αἰὲν ἀεξόμενος καὶ τείχεος ἐγγὺς ὀδεύων, Χέρσον ὁμοῦ καὶ νῆσον, ἐμὴν πόλιν, ὕδατι χεύων. (ii. 125, &c.) And again, after speaking of the temple of Memnon in the neighbourhood of Apameia, he proceeds :

̓Αλλὰ τὰ μὲν κατὰ κόσμον ἀείσομεν εὐρέα κάλλη,

Πάτρης ἡμετέρης ἐρατῇ Πιμπληΐδι μολπῇ. (ii. 156.) In order to avoid the conclusion to which these passages lead respecting the birth-place of their author, it has been proposed to alter in the former, μ into een, and, in the latter, uerépns into VueTépns; but these emendations, which are purely conjectural, have not been received into the text by any one but the proposer. The author addresses his poem to the emperor Caracalla, whom he calls (i. 3)

Τὸν μεγάλη μεγάλῳ φιτύσατο Δόμνα Σεβήρα: and the tenth and eleventh lines have been brought forward as a presumptive evidence that he wrote it after Caracalla had been associated with his father in the empire, A. D. 198, and before the death of the latter, A. D. 211.

The "Cynegetica" consist of about 2100 hexameter lines, divided into four books. The last of these is imperfect, and perhaps a fifth book may also have been lost, as the anonymous author of the Life of Oppian says the poem consisted of that number of books, though Suidas mentions only