poets of the Pleiad in all the lists except that of Tzetzes.
The remains of his works consist of two lines from his Ἄθλιος (Stob. Serm. li. 23), and a considerable fragment of twenty-four lines from his Δάφνις or Λιτυέρσας, which appears to have been a drama pastoral in its scene, and in its form and character very similar to the old satyric dramas of the Attic tragedians. (Schol. ap. Casaub. ad Theocr. c. 12; comp. Ath. x. p. 415, b; Tzetz. Chil. ii. 595; Schol. ad Theocr. x. 41.) By some of the above authorities the name Sosibius is wrongly given instead of Sositheus. Another error, into which some writers have been led by the character of the Δάφνις of Sositheus, is that of making him a comic poet. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 322, 323, comp. p. 495; Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. s. aa. 278, 259, pp. 501, 502; Welcker, Griech. Trag. p. 1052; Wagner, Frag. Trag. Graec. in Didot's Bibliotheca, pp. 149—152.)
[P. S.]
SO'SIUS. 1. C. Sosius, was quaestor of M'. Lepidus, consul b. c. 66. He was praetor in b. c. 49, on the breaking out of the civil war, and, like most of the other magistrates of that year, belonged to the Pompeian party. He did not, however, remain with this party long; for instead of going to Brundusium to cross the sea with Pompey, he returned to Rome with Lupus and openly united himself to Caesar (Cic. ad Att. viii. 6, ix. 1). After the death of Caesar he followed the fortunes of Antony, whom he accompanied to the East, and by whom he was appointed in b. c. 38 governor of Syria and Cilicia in the place of Ventidius. Like his predecessor in the government, he carried on the military operations in his province with great success. He was commanded by Antony to give vigorous support to Herod against Antigonus, the representative of the Asmonaean line of princes, who was in possession of Jerusalem, and had hitherto successfully resisted the efforts of Herod to subdue him. Sosius obtained possession of the island and town of Aradus off the coast of Phoenicia, towards the end of b. c. 38. In the following year, b. c. 37, he advanced against Jerusalem along with Herod, and after hard fighting became master of the city, and placed Herod upon the throne. (Dion Cass. xlix. 22; Joseph. Ant. xiv. 15, 16, B. J. i. 17—18; Tac. Hist. v. 9; Plut. Ant. 34.) [Herodes.] In return for these services, Antony obtained for Sosius the honour of a triumph in b. c. 34, and the consulship along with Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus in b. c. 32. In the latter year the quarrels and misunderstandings between Octavian and Antony broke out into open hostilities. Sosius warmly espoused the cause of his patron, and in an assembly of the senate on the 1st of January ventured to attack Octavian, and uphold the cause of Antony. Octavian was absent from Rome at the time, and on his return to the city Sosius found it necessary to quit Italy and betake himself to Antony. In the following year, b. c. 31, he commanded a squadron of Antony's fleet; and during the absence of Agrippa, who had the supreme command of the fleet of Octavian, he attacked the squadron of L. Arruntius and put it to flight; but while engaged in the pursuit, he fell in with M. Agrippa, who wrested the victory from him, killed his ally Tarcondimotus, the king of Cilicia, and compelled Sosius himself to seek safety in flight. It is erroneously stated by Dion Cassius (l. 14) that Sosius fell in this engagement. In the decisive battle of Actium, Sosius commanded the left wing. He escaped from the battle and fled to a place of concealment, but was detected and brought to Octavian. The conqueror pardoned him, however, at the intercession of L. Arruntius (Suet. Aug. 17; Appian, B. C. v. 73; Dion Cass. xlix. 41, l. 2, 14, li. 2, lvi. 38; Vell. Pat. ii. 85, 86). There are several coins of this C. Sosius extant. The specimen annexed has on the obverse the head of Antony, and on the reverse an eagle standing on a thunderbolt, with a caduceus before it, and the legend c. sosivs q. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 314.)
coin of c. sosius.
2. Sosii, the name of two brothers, booksellers at Rome in the time of Horace (Ep. i. 20. 2, Art. Poët. 345). They were probably freedmen, perhaps of the Sosius mentioned above.
SO'SIUS FALCO. [Falco.]
SO'SIUS PAPPUS, was honoured with a statue by Trajan, and is mentioned among the friends of Hadrian. (Dion Cass. lxviii. 16; Spartian. Hadr. 4.)
SO'SIUS SENE'CIO. [Senecio.]
SOSIUS, an artist, whose name is given by Müller (Archäol. § 308, n. 4) on the authority of a passage in Pliny (H. N. xiii. 5. s. 11). "Cedrinus est Romae in delubro Apollo Sosianus, Seleucia advectus;" but it cannot be pronounced with certainty, from this passage, whether the artist's name was Sosius, which is only found as a Roman name, or Sosias, Sosis, or Sosus, all three of which are genuine Greek names. (See Pape, Wörterbuch d. Griech. Eigennamen.) Nothing is known of the artist's age; for it by no means follows necessarily from the statue being of wood, that he lived at a very early period. Statues of divinities were frequently made out of the finer and more durable woods, at every period of Greek art. (Siebelis, ad Paus. v. 17. § 2; Amalthea, vol. ii. p. 259.)
[P. S.]
SO'SPITA, that is, the "saving goddess," was a surname of Juno at Lanuvium and at Rome, in both of which places she had a temple. Her worship was very ancient in Latium and was transplanted from Lanuvium to Rome. (Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 29, De Div. i. 2; Liv. viii. 14, xxiv. 10, xxvii. 3, xxix. 14, xxxi. 12, xxxii. 30, xl. 19; Ov. Fast. ii. 56; Sil. Ital. viii. 362, xiii. 346.) The name is connected with the verb σώζειν, but the ancient Romans called her Sispita, and so her name appears in inscriptions, just as Jupiter also is called Sispes instead of Sospes. (Fest. p. 343, ed. Müller.)
[L. S.]
SO'STHENES (Σωσθένης), a Macedonian officer of noble birth, but unconnected with the royal family, who obtained the supreme direction of affairs during the period of confusion which followed the invasion of the Gauls. After the death of Ptolemy Ceraunus (b. c. 280), and the short-lived sovereignty of his brother Meleager,
