Theopompus

“ From a historiography which is the slave of formal rhetoric, the modern historian has nothing to learn except how not to write history, and his regret that Ephorus and Theopompus are known principally in the citations of later compilers is tempered by the remembrance of the kind fortune which has brought Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon down to him in their entirety. ”

“ He was admired through all Greece, the king of Persia courted him, and by Philip himself he was more esteemed than all the other orators. His very enemies were forced to confess that they had to do with a man of mark; for such a character even Aeschines and Hyperides give him, where they accuse and speak against him. So that I cannot imagine what ground Theopompus had to say, that Demosthenes was of a fickle, unsettled disposition, and could not long continue firm either to the same men or the same affairs ”

“ Theopompus answered a stranger who talked much of his affection to the Lacedæmonians, and said that his countrymen called him Philolacon (a lover of the Lacedæmonians) , that it had been more for his honor if they had called him Philopolites (a lover of his own countrymen) . And Plistoanax, the son of Pausanias, when an orator of Athens said the Lacedæmonians had no learning, told him, "You say true, Sir; we alone of all the Greeks have learned none of your bad qualities." One asked Archidamidas what number there might be of the Spartans; he answered, "Enough, Sir, to keep out wicked men." ”

“ The handsomest of the three travellers, in whom of course our readers recognize their three young friends, Darius, Bartja and Zopyrus, spoke to one of the harbor police and asked for the house of Theopompus the Milesian, to whom they were bound on a visit.
Polite and ready to do a service, like all the Greeks, the police functionary at once led the way across the market-place,—where the opening of business had just been announced by the sound of a bell,—to a handsome house, the property of the Milesian, Theopompus, one of the most important and respected men in Naukratis. ”

“ While Theopompus was still king in Sparta there also took place the struggle of the Lacedemonians with the Argives for what is called the Thyreatid district. Theopompus personally took no part in the affair, chiefly because of old age and sorrow, for while he was yet alive Archidamus died.
3.7.6 Nevertheless Archidamus did not die childless, but left a son Zeuxidamus, whose son Anaxidamus succeeded to the throne. In his reign the Messenians were expelled from the Peloponnesus, being vanquished for the second time by the Spartans. Anaxidamus begat Archidamus, and Archidamus begat Agesicles. ”

“ Pherecydes, the son of Babys, and a native of Syros according to Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers, was a pupil of Pittacus. Theopompus tells us that he was the first who wrote in Greek on nature and the gods. ”

“ In order to succeed in this, Theopompus says that he bribed the Spartan ephors into laying aside opposition, but most writers say that he outwitted them by proceeding to Sparta nominally on an embassy. Then when the Spartans complained to him that Athens was being fortified, and when Poliarchus came expressly from Aegina to charge him with it, he denied it, and bade them send commissioners to Athens to see whether it was true, wishing both to obtain time for the fortifications to be built, and also to place these commissioners in the hands of the Athenians, as hostages for his own safety. ”

“ If then the extended political power of the ephors did not belong to the constitution of Lycurgus, neither can we suppose that it originated in the time of Theopompus. For the statement is worthy of credit, that Theopompus and Polydorus added the following words to the rhetra above quoted: “If however the people should follow a crooked opinion, the councillors and princes shall dissent.” Now in the first place, the ephors are here wholly omitted, although in the Peloponnesian war they put the vote to the people, and frequently made proposals in the assembly ”

“ Theopompus says of Philip, “Everything considered, Europe has never produced a man that could equal the son of Amyntas.” Yet the work that he had set as the aim of his existence was not accomplished by the scheming, resolute, tenacious king. He may have used this aspiration, it having root in the very nature of Greece’s history and culture, to bring into union the whole Greek world ”

“ Theopompus was the disciple of Socrates, and the author of an epitome of the history of Herodotus, of a history of Greece, of a history of Philip, father of Alexander the Great, and of other works. He was of the aristocratic or Macedonian party. Theocritus, his contemporary, was a poet, orator, and historian; he was of the democratic party. To these, among illustrious natives of Chios, may be added Œnopides the astronomer and mathematician, who was the discoverer of the obliquity of the ecliptic and the cycle of 59 years, for bringing the lunar and solar years into accordance ”

“ However, the powers of the orator, as Theopompus tells us, rekindled their courage and ambition so effectually that all other objects were disregarded. They lost sight of fear, of caution, of every prior attachment, and, through the force of his eloquence, fell with enthusiastic transports into the path of honour.
So powerful, indeed, were the efforts of the orator that Philip immediately sent ambassadors to Athens to apply for peace. Greece recovered her spirits, whilst she stood waiting for the event ”

“ Of his writings, which were in the Ionic dialect, little has survived.
Theopompus (probably 378-304 B.C.) is also worthy of mention as an historian. He wrote a History of Greece from 411 to 394 B.C., and “Philippica,” in fifty-eight books, in which he sketched the character of Philip of Macedon. Of the latter [Pg 234] work numerous fragments remain. Ancient critics give him credit for general accuracy, though he took rather too rose-colored views of his hero Philip as the promoter of Grecian civilization. ”

“ And in the same treatise, Theopompus further alleges that "Phayllus, the tyrant of Phocis, was extremely addicted to women; but that Onomarchus used to select boys as his favourites: and that he had a favourite, the son of Pythodorus the Sicyonian, to whom, when he came to Delphi to devote his hair to the god (and he was a youth of great beauty) , Onomarchus gave the offerings of the Sybarites—four golden combs. ”

“ For when the Egyptians were being smitten in the anger of God with hail and storms, it was only to be expected that certain parts of the earth should suffer with them; and, in especial, it was but to be expected that the Athenians should participate in such calamity with the Egyptians, since they were supposed to be a colony from them, as Theopompus alleges in his Tricarenus, and others besides him. ”

“ Theopompus [2] says that, according to the sages, one god is to overpower, and the other to be overpowered, each in turn for the space of three thousand years, and afterward for another three thousand years they shall fight and war, and the one shall undo the works of the other, and finally Hades shall pass away; then shall the people be happy, and neither shall they need to have food nor shall they cast any shadow. ”

“ The words of encouragement addressed by Theopompus to the Lacedemonians were few, according to their native custom. He reminded them of their oath against the Messenians, and said how noble was their ambition, to prove themselves to have done a deed more glorious than their fathers, who subdued the neighboring peoples, and to have won a more fortunate land. Euphaes spoke at greater length than the Spartan, but no more than he saw the occasion admitted. ”

“ And, in true Homeric fashion, he did not hesitate to cater to the reigning taste by the embellishment or even the invention of detail. He sacrificed truth to rhetorical effect. And yet he achieved an immense popularity, and established what has been called "the Vulgate of Greek history." One might be tempted to call his contemporary and rival, Theopompus of Chios, the Thucydides of this rhetorical period, as Ephorus was its Herodotus ”

“ According to Theopompus there was a Western people who actually called the spring Proserpine. As wife of Pluto, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men. The lake of Avernus, as an entrance to the infernal regions, was sacred to her. From the head of a dying person Proserpine was supposed to cut a lock of hair which had been kept sacred and unshorn through life. ”

“ Elatus and his colleagues were the first who had this dignity conferred upon them, in the reign of king Theopompus, who, when his queen upbraided him one day that he would leave the regal power to his children less than he had received it from his ancestors, said, in answer, "No, greater; for it will last longer." ”

“ Now the Thebans, in their consultations, were well enough aware what suited best with their own interest, but everyone had before his eyes the terrors of war, and their losses in the Phocian troubles were still recent: but such was the force and power of the orator, fanning up, as Theopompus says, their courage, and firing their emulation, that casting away every thought of prudence, fear, or obligation, in a sort of divine possession, they chose the path of honor, to which his words invited them. ”

“ And Polemo, in his treatise on the Inscriptions to be found in Cities, speaking of the Eleans, produces this epigram:—
Elis is always drunk, and always lying:
As is each single house, so is the city.
60. And Theopompus, in his twenty-second book, speaking of the Chalcidians in Thrace, says: "For they disregarded all the most excellent habits, rushing readily with great eagerness to drinking and laziness, and every sort of intemperance. ”

“ Illustrious natives of Cnidus were, first, Eudoxus the mathematician, a disciple of Plato’s; Agatharchides, the Peripatetic philosopher and historian; Theopompus, one of the most powerful of the friends of divus Cæsar, and his son Artemidorus. Ctesias also, the physician of Artaxerxes, was a native of this place. ”

“ The poverty also of Lysander being discovered by his death, made his merit more manifest, since from so much wealth and power, from all the homage of the cities, and of the Persian kingdom, he had not in the least degree, so far as money goes, sought any private aggrandizement, as Theopompus in his history relates, whom any one may rather give credit to when he commends, than when he finds fault, as it is more agreeable to him to blame than to praise. ”

“ And, therefore, those men are only to be laughed at, who say that the Naucratite garland is the wreath made of what is called by the [Pg 1080] Egyptians biblus, quoting the statement of Theopompus, in the third book of his History of Greece, where he says, "That when Agesilaus the Lacedæmonian arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians sent him many presents, and among them the papyrus, which is used for making garlands." ”

“ The comic poet Theopompus therefore appears to talk at random when he compares the Lacedæmonians to tavern-keepers, because they at first poured out for the Greeks a most sweet draught of liberty and afterwards made it bitter; whereas in truth the taste of their rule was bitter from the beginning, as Lysander would not allow the people to have any voice in the [Pg 297] government, and placed all the power in each city in the hands of the most daring and ambitious men of the oligarchical party. ”

“ Demosthenes, the father of Demosthenes, was a citizen of good rank and quality, as Theopompus informs us, surnamed the Sword-maker, because he had a large workhouse, and kept servants skillful in that art at work. But of that which Aeschines, the orator, said of his mother, that she was descended of one Gylon, who fled his country upon an accusation of treason, and of a barbarian woman, I can affirm nothing, whether he spoke true, or slandered and maligned her. ”

“ Themistocles, being affrighted hereat, got access to his wives and concubines, by presents of money to whom, he appeased the fury of the governor; and afterwards behaved with more reserve and circumspection, fearing the envy of the Persians, and did not, as Theopompus writes, continue to travel about Asia, but lived quietly in his own house in Magnesia, where for a long time he passed his days in great security, being courted by all, and enjoying rich presents, and honored equally with the greatest persons in the Persian empire ”

“ Livius affirms that these things were so.
XLVIII. Cæsar after giving the Thessalians their liberty [543] in consideration of his victory, pursued Pompeius. On reaching Asia [544] he made the Cnidians free to please Theopompus, [545] the collector of mythi, and he remitted to all the inhabitants of Asia the third of their taxes. Arriving at Alexandria [546] after the death of Pompeius, he turned away from Theodotus who brought him the head of Pompeius, but he received his seal ring [547] and shed tears over it. ”

“ And Theopompus, in his Ulysses, says—
Well said Euripides, "It is not bad
For a rich man to dine at other's cost."
59. And when all laughed at this, Ulpian said, Whence do the voluptuaries who talk so loosely get all their elegance of expression? And Cynulcus replied, But, O you well-seasoned little pig, Phrynichus the Cynic poet, in his Ephialtes, mentions "the elegant speaker" in these terms:—
It is the hardest work of all to guard against such men ”