attempting to write a history of the period previous to the return of the Heracleidae; but the history of the subsequent time is still greatly intermixed with fables and mythical traditions; and it must be acknowledged that his attempts to restore a genuine history by divesting the traditions from what he considered mythical or fabulous, were in most cases highly unsuccessful, and sometimes even absurd and puerile. He exercised a sort of criticism which is anything but that of a real historian (Strab. xii. p. 550), and in some instances he forced his authorities to suit his own views. For the early times he seems to have preferred the logographers to the epic poets, though the latter, too, were not neglected. Even the later portions of his history, where Ephorus had such guides as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, contained such discrepancies from his great predecessors, and on points on which they were entitled to credit, that Ephorus, to say the least, cannot be regarded as a sound and safe guide in the study of history. The severest critic of Ephorus was Timaeus, who never neglected an opportunity of pointing out his inaccuracies; several authors also wrote separate books against Ephorus, such as Alexinus, the pupil of Eubulides (Diog. Laërt. ii. 106, 110), and Strato the Peripatetic. (Diog. Laërt. v. 59.) Porphyrius (ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. x. 2) charges Ephorus with constant plagiarisms; but this accusation is undoubtedly very much exaggerated, for we not only find no traces of plagiarism in the fragments extant, but we frequently find Ephorus disputing the statements of his predecessors. (Joseph. c. Apion. i. 3.) Polybius (xii. 25) praises him for his knowledge of maritime warfare, but adds that he was utterly ignorant of the mode of warfare on land; Strabo (viii. p. 332) acknowledges his merits, by saying that he separated the historical from the geographical portions of his work; and, in regard to the latter, he did not confine himself to mere lists of names, but he introduced investigations concerning the origin of nations, their constitutions and manners, and many of the geographical fragments which have come down to us contain lively and beautiful descriptions. (Polyb. ix. 1; Strab. ix. p. 400, &c., x. pp. 465, 479, &c.) As regards the style of Ephorus, it is such as might be expected from a disciple of Isocrates: it is clear, lucid, and elaborately polished, but at the same time diffuse and deficient in power and energy, so that Ephorus is by no means equal to his master. (Polyb. xii. 28; Dionys. de Comp. Verb. 26; Demetr. Пepl épμnv. § 68; Dion Chrysost. Orat. xviii. p. 256, ed. Morel.; Plut. Pericl. 28; Philostr. Vit. Soph. i. 17; Cic. Orat. 51; Phot. Bibl. Cod. 176.) The fragments of the works of Ephorus, the number of which might probably be much increased if Diodorus had always mentioned his authorities, were first collected by Meier Marx, Carlsruhe, 1815, 8vo., who afterwards published some additions in Friedemann and Seebode's Miscellan. Crit. ii. 4, p. 754, &c. They are also contained in C. and Th. Müller's Fragm. Historicor. Graec. pp. 234-277, Paris, 1841, 370. Both editors have prefixed to their editions critical dissertations on the life and writings of Ephorus.

2. Of Cumae, called the Younger, was likewise an historian, but he is mentioned only by Suidas, according to whom he wrote a history of Galienus in twenty-seven books, a work on Corinth, one on the Aleuadae, and a few others. The name

|

Galienus in this account, it should be observed, is only a correction of Volaterranus, for the common reading in Suidas is Taλnvoû. (Comp. Marx, Ephor. Fraym. p. 7.) [L. S.] E'PHORUS, an Ephesian painter, and teacher of APELLES. (Suid. s. v. 'Aπeλλîs.) [P.S.] EPHRAEM. The name is variously written Ephraem, Ephraemus, Ephraim, Ephraimius, Ephrem, Ephremus, and Euphraimius: it belongs to several ecclesiastical writers of the Greek and Oriental churches.

1. EPHREMUS. To a writer so called, and to whose name no distinctive epithet can be attached, is ascribed the account of Saints Abram and Mary (Acta SS. Abramii et Mariae) in the Acta Sanctorum Martii, vol. ii. p. 436, &c. Papebroche, in his introduction to the account, conjectures that the writer lived about the middle of the sixth cen tury. The account, of which he is the author, is sometimes ascribed (as in the Catalogue of the King's Library at Paris A. D. 1740) but incorrectly to Ephraem the Syrian. It has also been ascribed, but incorrectly, to Ephrem of Caria and Ephrem of Mylasa. [Nos. 3 and 7 below.]

2. EPHRAIMIUS (Eppaluos), or, as Theophanes writes the name, EUPHRAIMIUS (Evopatμios), patriarch of ANTIOCH, or, as it was then called, Theopolis. If the designation given him by Theophanes (ó 'Auídios) indicates the place of his birth, he was a native of Amida in Armenia, near the source of the Tigris. His first employments were civil: and in the reign of the emperor Justin I. he attained to the high dignity of Count of the East. While in this office he received, according to a curious story, recorded in the Aeuwvápios, or Pratum Spirituale, written by Joannes Moschus, but erroneously ascribed, by ancient as well as modern writers, to Sophronius patriarch of Jerusalem, an intimation of the ecclesiastical dignity to which he was destined to attain. In the years 525 and 526, Antioch was nearly destroyed by successive shocks of an earthquake, and by a fire which had been occasioned by the overthrow of the buildings. Among the sufferers was Euphrasius the patriarch, who was buried in the ruins of the falling edifices; and the people, grateful for the compassionate care which Ephraimius manifested for them in their distress, chose him successor to the deceased prelate. elevation to the patriarchate generally placed in the year 526, but perhaps did not take place till the year following. His conduct as patriarch is highly eulogized by ecclesiastical writers, who speak especially of his charity to the poor, and of the zeal and firmness with which he opposed heresy. His zeal against heretics was manifested in a curious encounter with an heretical stylite, or pillar-saint, in which the heretic is said to have been converted by the miraculous passing of the patriarch's robes, unconsumed, through the ordeal of fire. He condemned, in a synod at Antioch, those who attempted to revive the obnoxious sentimentsof Origen; and wrote various treatises against the Nestorians, Eutychians, Severians, and Acephali, and in defence of the Council of Chalcedon. But, toward the close of his life, he was obliged by the Emperor Justinian, under a threat of deposition, to subscribe the condemnation of three of the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, which he had hitherto so earnestly supported. Facundus of Hermia, the strenuous advocate of the condemned

His

lished by Edw. Thwaites at Oxford, 1709. There have been several editions of separate works.

Ephraem is also said to be the author of an immense number of songs. He began to write them in opposition to Harmonius, the son and disciple of Bardesanes the heretic, who composed poetry involving many serious errors of doctrine, some of which were not only of an heretical but even of an heathen character, denying the resurrection of the body, and containing views about the nature of the soul extracted from the writings of pagan philosophers. These songs had become great favourites among the common people, and Ephraem, to oppose their evil tendency, wrote other songs in similar metres and adapted to the same music of a pious and Christian character. (Sozomen, l. c.; Theodoret, iv. 27; Cave, Script. Eccl. Hist. Liter. part 1. sec. 4; C. Lengerke, Commentatio Critica de Ephraemo Syrio SS. interprete, qua simul Versionis Syriacae, quam Peschito vocant, Lectiones variae ex Ephraemo Commentariis collectae, exhibentur, Halle, 1828, and De Ephraemi Syri arte hermeneutica liber, 1831.) [G. E. L. C.]

E'PHYRA ('Epúpa), a daughter of Oceanus, from whom Ephyraea, the ancient name of Corinth was derived. (Paus. ii. 1. § 1; Virg. Georg. iv. 343.) [L. S.]

EPIBATE'RIUS ('Embaтhpios), the god who conducts men on board a ship, a surname of Apollo, under which Diomedes on his return from Troy built him a temple at Troezene. (Paus. ii. 32.1.) In the same sense Apollo bore the surname of 'Eu6ários. (Apollon. Rhod. i. 404.) [L. S.] EPICASTE ('ETIKάστη), a daughter of Menoeceus, and wife of Laius, by whom she became the mother of Oedipus, whom she afterwards unwittingly married. She is more commonly called Jocaste. (Hom. Od. xi. 271; Apollod. iii. 5. § 7, &c.; see OEDIPUS.) Respecting Epicaste, the daughter of Calydon, see AGENOR, No. 4; a third Epicaste is mentioned by Apollodorus. (ii. 7. $ 8.)

[L. S.]

EPICELEUSTUS ('EπIKÉλEVOTOS), a native of Crete, who lived probably in the second or first century B. C. He is mentioned by Erotianus (Gloss. Hippocr. p. 8) as having abridged and differently arranged the work by Baccheius on the obsolete words found in the writings of Hippo

crates.

[W. A. G.]

EPI'CHARIS ('Enixapis), a freed woman of bad repute, who was implicated in the conspiracy of Piso against the life of Nero, in a. D. 65, in which the philosopher Seneca also was involved. According to Polyaenus (viii. 62), she was the mistress of a brother of Seneca, and it may be that through this connexion she became acquainted with the plot of the conspirators, though Tacitus says that it was unknown by what means she had acquired her knowledge of it. She endeavoured by all means to stimulate the conspirators to carry their plan into effect. But as they acted slowly and with great hesitation, she at length grew tired, and resolved upon trying to win over the sailors of the fleet of Misenum in Campania, where she was staying. One Volusius Proculus, a chiliarch of the fleet, appears to have been the first that was initiated by her in the secret, but no names were mentioned to him. Proculus had no sooner obtained the information than he betrayed the whole plot to Nero. Epicharis was summoned before the emperor, but as no names had been mentioned, and

as no witnesses had been present at the communi-cation, Epicharis easily refuted the accusation. Shewas, however, kept in custody. Subsequently, when the conspiracy was discovered, Nero ordered her to be tortured because she refused naming any of the accomplices; but neither blows, nor fire, nor the increased fury of her tormentors, could extort any confession from her. When on the second or third day after she was carried in a sedan-chairfor her limbs were already broken—to be tortured. a second time, she strangled herself on her way by her girdle, which she fastened to the chair. She thus acted, as Tacitus says, more nobly than many a noble eques or senator, who without being tortured betrayed their nearest relatives. (Tac. Ann. xv. 51, 57; Dion Cass. Ixii. 27.) [L. S.]

EPICHARMUS ('Eríxapuos), the chief comicpoet among the Dorians, was born in the island of Cos about the 60th Olympiad (B. c. 540). His father, Elothales, was a physician, of the race of the Asclepiads, and the profession of medicine seems to have been followed for some time by Epicharmus himself, as well as by his brother.

At the age of three months he was carried to Megara, in Sicily; or, according to the account preserved by Suidas, he went thither at a much later period, with Cadmus (B. c. 484). Thence he removed to Syracuse, with the other inhabitants of Megara, when the latter city was destroyed by Gelon (5. c. 484 or 483). Here he spent the remainder of his life, which was prolonged throughout the reign of Hieron, at whose court Epicharmus associated with the other great writers of the time, and among them, with Aeschylus, who seems to have had some influence on his dramatic course.. He died at the age of ninety (B. c. 450), or, according to Lucian, ninety-seven (B. C. 443). The city of Syracuse erected a statue to him, the inscription on which is preserved by Diogenes Laërtius. (Diog. Laërt. viii. 78; Suid. s. v. ; Lucian, Macrob. 25; Aelian, V. H. ii. 34; Plut. Moral. pp. 68, a, 175, c.; Marmor Parium, No. 55.)

In order to understand the relation of Epicharmus to the early comic poetry, it must be remembered that Megara, in Sicily, was a colony from Megara on the Isthmus, the inhabitants of which disputed with the Athenians the invention of comedy, and where, at all events, a kind of comedy was known as early as the beginning of the sixth century B. C. [SUSARION.] This comedy (whether it was lyric or also dramatic, which is a doubtful point) was of course found by Epicharmus existing at the Sicilian Megara; and he, together with Phormis, gave it a new form, which Aristotle describes by the words To μveous Toleiv (Poët. 6 or 5, ed. Ritter), a phrase which some take to mean comedies with a regular plot; and others, comedies on mythological subjects. The latter seems to be the better interpretation; but either explanation establishes a clear distinction between the comedy of Epicharmus and that of Megara, which seems to have been little more than a sort of low buffoonery.

With respect to the time when Epicharmus be gan to compose comedies, much confusion has arisen from the statement of Aristotle (or an interpolator), that Epicharmus lived long before Chionides. (Poët. 3; CHIONIDES.) We have, however, the express and concurrent testimonies of the anonymous writer On Comedy (p. xxviii.), that he flourished about the 73rd Olympiad, and of Suidas (s. v.), that he wrote six years before the

Persian war (B. c. 485-4). Thus it appears that, like Cratinus, he was an old man before he began to write comedy; and this agrees well with the fact that his poetry was of a very philosophic character. (Anon. de Com. l. c.) The only one of his plays, the date of which is certainly known, is the Nãool, B. c. 477. (Schol. Pind. Pyth. i. 98; Clinton, sub ann.) We have also express testimony of the fact that Elothales, the father of Epicharmus, formed an acquaintance with Pythagoras, and that Epicharmus himself was a pupil of that great philosopher. (Diog. Laërt. l. c.; Suid. s. v.; Plut. Numa, 8.) We may therefore consider the life of Epicharmus as divisible into two parts, namely, his life at Megara up to B. c. 484, during which he was engaged in the study of philosophy, both physical and metaphysical, and the remainder of his life, which he spent at Syracuse, as a comic poet. The question respecting the identity of Epicharmus the comedian and Epicharmus the Pythagorean philosopher, about which some writers, both ancient and modern, have been in doubt, may now be considered as settled in the affirmative. (Menag. ad Laërt. l. c.; Perizon. ad Aelian. V. H. ii. 34; Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. ii. Introd. P. xxxvi.)

The number of the comedies of Epicharmus is differently stated at 52 or at 35. There are still extant 35 titles, of which 26 are preserved by Athenaeus. The majority of them are on mythological subjects, that is, travesties of the heroic myths, and these plays no doubt very much resembled the satyric drama of the Athenians. The following are their titles:-'AKUwv, "AuUKOS, Вáкχαι, Βούσιρις, Δευκαλίων, Διόνυσοι, Ηβης γάμος, Ηφαιστος ή Κωμασταί, Κύκλωψ, Λόγος και Λογείνα, Οδυσσεὺς αὐτόμολος, Οδυσσεύς ναυαγός, Σειρήνες, Σκίρων, Σφίγξ, Τρώες, Φιλοκτήτης. But besides mythology, Epicharmus wrote on other subjects, political, moral, relating to manners and customs, and, it would seem, even to personal character; those, however, of his comedies which belong to the last head are rather general than individual, and resembled the subjects treated by the writers of the new comedy, so that when the ancient writers enumerated him among the poets of the old comedy, they must be understood as referring rather to his antiquity in point of time than to any close resemblance between his works and those of the old Attic comedians. In fact, we have a proof in the case of CRATES that even among the Athenians, after the establishment of the genuine old comedy by Cratinus, the mythological comedy still maintained its ground. The plays of Epicharmus, which were not on mythological subjects, were the following:-'Aypworîvos (Sicilian Greek for 'Ayрoîkos), 'Aрπаyai, гâ кal Θάλασσα, Δίφιλος, Ελπὶς ἢ Πλοῦτος, Ἑορτὰ καὶ Νάσοι, Ἐπινίκιος, Ηράκλειτος, Θεᾶροι, Μεγαρίς, Μήνες, Ορύα, Περίαλλος, Πέρσαι, Πίθων, Τριακάδες, XopeÚOVTES, XÚrpa. A considerable number of fragments of the above plays are preserved, but those of which we can form the clearest notion from the extant fragments are the Marriage of Hebe, and Hephaestus or the Revellers. Müller has observed that the painted vases of lower Italy often enable us to gain a complete and vivid idea of those theatrical representations of which the plays of Epicharmus are the type.

The style of his plays appears to have been a curious mixture of the broad buffoonery which distinguished the old Megarian comedy, and of the

sententious wisdom of the Pythagorean philosopher His language was remarkably elegant: he was celebrated for his choice of epithets: his plays abounded, as the extant fragments prove, with yvwual, or philosophical and moral maxims, and long speculative discourses, on the instinct of animals for example. Müller observes that "if the elements of his drama, which we have discovered singly, were in his plays combined, he must have set out with an elevated and philosophical view, which enabled him to satirize mankind without disturbing the calmness and tranquillity of his thoughts; while at the same time his scenes of common life were marked with the acute and penetrating genius which characterized the Sicilians." In proof of the high estimate in which he was held by the ancients, it may be enough to refer to the notices of him by Plato (Theaet. p. 152, e.) and Cicero. (Tusc. i. 8, ad Att. i. 19.) It is singular, however, that Epicharmus had no successor in his peculiar style of comedy, except his son or disciple Deinolochus. He had, however, distinguished imitators in other times and countries. writers, making too much of a few words of Aristotle, would trace the origin of the Attic comedy to Epicharmus; but it can hardly be doubted that Crates, at least, was his imitator. That Plautus imitated him is expressly stated by Horace (Epist. ii. 1. 58),—

Some

"Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi." The parasite, who forms so conspicuous a character in the plays of the new comedy, is first found in Epicharmus.

The formal peculiarities of the dramas of Epicharmus cannot be noticed here at any length. His ordinary metre was the lively Trochaic Tetrameter, but he also used the Iambic and Anapaestic metres. The questions respecting his scenes, number of actors, and chorus, are fully treated in the work of Grysar.

Some writers attribute to Epicharmus separate philosophical poems; but there is little doubt that the passages referred to are extracts from his comedies. Some of the ancient writers ascribed to Epicharmus the invention of some or all of those letters of the Greek alphabet, which were usually attributed to Palamedes and Simonides.

The fragments of Epicharmus are printed in the collections of Morellius (Sententiae vet. Comic., Paris, 1553, 8vo.), Hertelius (Collect. Fragm. Comic., Basil. 1560, 8vo.), H. Stephanus (Poesis Philosophica, 1573, 8vo.), and Hugo Grotius (Excerpt. ex Trag. et Comoed., Paris, 1626, 4to.), and separately by H. P. Kruseman, Harlem. 1834. Additions have been made by Welcker (Zeitschrift für die Alterthumswissenschaft, 1835, p. 1123), and others. The most important modern work on Epicharmus is that of Grysar, de Doriensium Comoedia, Colon. 1828; the second volume, containing the fragments, has not yet appeared. (See also Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 298; Harless, de Epicharmo, Essen, 1822; Müller, Dorians, bk. iv. c. 7; Bode, Geschichte d. Hellen. Dichtkunst, vol. iii. part i. p. 36.) [P.S.]

EPICLEIDAS ('Eπikλeldas), brother of Cleomenes III., king of Sparta. According to Pausanias (ii. 9. § 1. 3), Cleomenes poisoned Eurydamidas, his colleague of the house of Proclus, and shared the royal power with his brother Epicleidas. The latter afterwards fell in the battle of Sellasia, B. C. 222. [C. P. M.]