1897); and authorities under Roman Empire, Later. On the early campaigns against the Arabs see J. B. Bury, in Journ. Hell. Stud. xxix., 1909, pt. i.
THEOPHRASTUS, the successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic school, a native of Eresus in Lesbos, was born c. 372 B.C. His original name was Tyrtamus, but he later became known by the nickname "Theophrastus," given to him, it is said, by Aristotle to indicate the grace of his conversation. After receiving his first introduction to philosophy in Lesbos from one Leucippus or Alcippus, he proceeded to Athens, and became a member of the Platonic circle. After Plato’s death he attached himself to Aristotle, and in all probability accompanied him to Stagira. The intimate friendship of Theophrastus with Callisthenes, the fellow-pupil of Alexander the Great, the mention made in his will of an estate belonging to him at Stagira, and the repeated notices of the town and its museum in the History of Plants, are facts which point to this conclusion. Aristotle in his will made him guardian of his children, bequeathed to him his library and the originals of his works, and designated him as his successor at the Lyceum on his own removal to Chalcis. Eudemus of Rhodes also had some claims to this position, and Aristoxenus is said to have resented Aristotle’s choice. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-five years, and died in 287 B.C. Under his guidance the school flourished greatly—there were at one period more than 2000 students—and at his death he bequeathed to it his garden with house and colonnades as a permanent seat of instruction. Menander was among his pupils. His popularity was shown in the regard paid to him by Philip, Cassander and Ptolemy, and by the complete failure of a charge of impiety brought against him. He was honoured with a public funeral, and "the whole population of Athens, honouring him greatly, followed him to the grave" (Diog. Laërt.).
From the lists of the ancients it appears that the activity of Theophrastus extended over the whole field of contemporary knowledge. His writing probably differed little from the Aristotelian treatment of the same themes, though supplementary in details (see Peripatetics). He served his age mainly as a great popularizer of science. The most important of his books are two large botanical treatises, On the History of Plants, in nine books (originally ten), and On the Causes of Plants, in six books (originally eight), which constitute the most important contribution to botanical science during antiquity and the middle ages. We also possess in fragments a History of Physics, a treatise On Stones, and a work On Sensation, and certain metaphysical Ἀπορίαι, which probably once formed art of a systematic treatise. Various smaller scientific fragments have been collected in the editions of J. G. Schneider (1818–21) and F. Wimmer (1842–62) and in Usener’s Analecta Theophrastea.
The Ethical Characters (Ἠθικοὶ χαρακτῆρες) deserves a separate mention. The work consists of brief, vigorous and trenchant delineations of moral types, which contain a most valuable picture of the life of his time. They form the first recorded attempt at systematic character writing. The book has been regarded by some as an independent work; others incline to the view that the sketches were written from time to time by Theophrastus, and collected and edited after his death; others, again, regard the Characters as part of a larger systematic work, but the style of the book is against this. Theophrastus has found many imitators in this kind of writing, notably Hall (1608), Sir Thomas Overbury (1614–16), Bishop Earle (1628) and La Bruyère (1688), who also translated the Characters.
Bibliography.—A good account of Theophrastus is found in Zeller, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics (Eng. trans. by B. F. C. Costelloe and J. H. Muirhead, vol. ii., chap. 18, 1897). For his astronomical work see Astronomy (Historical Section), and for the botanical works, Dr J. Berendes, Die Pharmacie bei den alten Culturvölken (vol. i., 1891). The Ethical Characters was edited by Casaubon in 1592 and translated by La Bruyère (1688–89); the best modern translation (with introduction and notes) is that of Sir R. C. Jebb (1870; new ed. J. E. Sandys, 1909); recent editions are that of J. M. Edmonds and G. E. V. Austen (1904), containing text, notes and illustrations (intended for schools), and that of C. E. Bennett and W. A. Hammond (1902), a translation, with an introduction. The work has been translated into nearly all European languages (see Baldwin’s Dict. of Philos. and Psych., vol. iii. pt. i.). (E. Wh.)
THEOPHYLACT (d. c. 1110), biblical commentator, was born most probably at Euripus, in Euboea, about the middle of the 11th century. He became a deacon at Constantinople, attained a high reputation as a scholar, and became the tutor of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, son of the Emperor Michael VII., for whom he wrote The Education of Princes (Παιδεία βασιλική). About 1078 he went into Bulgaria as archbishop of Achrida. In his letters he complains much of the rude manners of the Bulgarians, and he sought to be relieved of his office, but apparently without success. His death took place after 1107.
His commentaries on the Gospels, Acts, the Pauline epistles and the Minor Prophets are founded on those of Chrysostom, but deserve the considerable place they hold in exegetical literature for their appositeness, sobriety, accuracy and judiciousness. His other extant works include 130 letters and various homilies and orations and other minor pieces. A careful edition of nearly all his writings, in Greek and Latin, with a preliminary dissertation, was published in 1754–63 by J. F. B. M. de Rossi (4 vols. fol., Venice).
See Krumbacher, Byzantinische Litteraturgeschichte (2nd ed. 1897), pp. 132, 463.
THEOPOMPUS (b. c. 380), Greek historian and rhetorician, was born at Chios about 380 B.C. In early youth he seems to have spent some time at Athens, along with his father, who had been exiled on account of his Laconian sympathies. Here he became a pupil of Isocrates, and rapidly made great progress in rhetoric; we are told that Isocrates used to say that Ephorus required the spur but Theopompus the bit (Cicero, Brutus, 204). At first he appears to have composed epideictic speeches, in which he attained to such proficiency that in 352–351 he gained the prize of oratory given by Artemisia (q.v.) in honour of her husband, although Isocrates was himself among the competitors. It is said to have been the advice of his teacher that finally determined his career as an historian—a career for which he was peculiarly qualified owing to his abundant patrimony and his wide knowledge of men and places. Through the influence of Alexander, he was restored to Chios about 333, and figured for some time as one of the leaders of the aristocratic party in his native town. After Alexander’s death he was again expelled, and took refuge with Ptolemy in Egypt, where he appears to have met with a somewhat cold reception. The date of his death is unknown.
The works of Theopompus were chiefly historical, and are much quoted by later writers. They included an Epitome of Herodotus’s History (the genuineness of which is doubted), the Hellenics (Ἑλληνικά, Ἑλληνικαὶ ἱστορίαι), the History of Philip (Φιλιππικά), and several panegyrics and hortatory addresses, the chief of which was the Letter to Alexander. The Hellenics treated of the history of Greece, in twelve books, from 411 (where Thucydides breaks off) to 394—the date of the battle of Cnidus (cf. Diod. Sic., xiii. 42, with xiv. 84). Of this work only a few fragments were known up till 1907. The papyrus fragment of a Greek historian of the 4th century B.C., discovered by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, and published by them in Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. v. (1908), has been recognized by Ed. Meyer, U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and G. Busolt as a portion of the Hellenics. This identification has been disputed, however, by F. Blass, J. B. Bury, E. M. Walker and others, most of whom attribute the fragment, which deals with the events of the year 395 B.C. and is of considerable extent, to Cratippus (q.v.). A far more elaborate work was the Φιλιππικά in 58 books. In this Theopompus narrated the history of Philip’s reign (360–336), with digressions on the names and customs of the various races and countries of which he had occasion to speak, which were so numerous that Philip V. of Macedon reduced the bulk of the history from 58 to 16 books by cutting out those parts which had no connexion with Macedonia. It was from this history that Trogus Pompeius (of whose Historiae Philippicae we possess the epitome by Justin) derived much of his material. Fifty-three books were extant in the time of Photius (9th century), who read them, and has left us an epitome of the 12th book. Several fragments, chiefly anecdotes and strictures of various kinds upon the character of nations and individuals, are preserved by Athenaeus, Plutarch and others. Of the Letter to Alexander we possess one or two fragments cited by Athenaeus, animadverting severely upon the immorality and dissipation’s of Harpalus. The Attack upon Plato, and the treatise On Piety, which are sometimes referred to as separate works, were perhaps only two of the many digressions in the history of Philip; some writers have doubted their authenticity. The libellous attack (Τρικάρανος, the "three-headed") on the three cities—Athens, Sparta and Thebes—was published under the name of Theopompus by his enemy Anaximenes of Lampsacus. The nature of the extant fragments fully bears out the divergent criticisms of antiquity upon Theopompus. Their style is clear and pure, full of choice and pointed expressions, but lacking in weight and dignity. The artistic unity of his work suffered severely from the frequent and lengthy digressions already referred to. The most important was
