Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1034

1020 MELETIUS. John, on account of his pertinacious support of Nestorius, he induced many persons to secede from the church, and, forming them into separate com- munities, continued to exercise the priestly office among them. This being regarded as an aggra- vation of his oifence, he was banished by the em- peror's order, issued at John's instigation, to Melitene in Armenia Minor, and placed in the charge of Acacius, bishop of that city, from whom he endured much hard usage. In this exile Meletius died, re- taining his zeal for the cause of Nestorius till the last. Various epistles of Meletius were published in a Latin version, in the Ad Ephesinum Concilium Variorzim Fatrum Epistolae of Christianus Lupus of Ypres, 4to. Louvain, 1682 ; and were re-pub- lished by Baluzius, in his Nova Condlior. Collection by Gamier, in his Auctanuvi Theodoreti^ fol. Paris, 1 684, and by Schulze, in his edition of Theodoret, 5 vols. 8vo., Halae, 1769—1774. From these letters of Meletuis, and from other letters in the same collection, the foregoing facts of his history are derived. The letters of Meletius are contained in Cap. sen Epist. 92 (not 82, as Cave has it), 119, 124, 141, 145, 155, 158, 163, 171, 174, and 177, in the work of Lupus. The memorandum of his death is in Cap. 190. In the editions of Gamier and Schulze they are Epist. 76, 101, 105, 121, 125, 133, 136, 141, 149, 152, 155. The memorandum of Meletius' death is inserted after Epist. 164. (Cave, Hist. Lift, ad ann. 428, vol. i. p. 414 ; Le Quien, Onens Christianus, yoi ii. col. 891 ; Fabric. Biblioth. Grraec. vol. ix. p. 305, vol. x. p. 348 ; Tillemont, Mtmoires, vol. xiv.) 8. Philosophus. [See below.] 9. ScRiPTOR DE AzYMis. There are extant two short treatises, Ilepi tuv d^u/xwv, De Azymis, one of them being a compendium or abridgment of the other, which in the MSS. are ascribed to Joannes Damascenus [Damascenus], and are con- sequently inserted by Le Quien in his edition of the works of that father {Opera Damasceni, fol. Paris, 1712, vol. i. p. 647.) But Le Quien has ob- served that they are not his : they distinctly deny the general tradition of the fathers, that our Lord celebrated the passover with his disciples the day before the regular time, which tradition Damascenus certainly held. But this is not the only evidence ; an anonymous preface to the larger tract states, that it was written by "one Meletius, a pious man (Beocpopos), and a diligent student of the Scriptures," and was addressed to one Syncellus, who had asked his opinion on the subject. Of the time or place where this Meletius lived nothing is known. (Fabric. Biblioth. Graec. vol. ix. p. 307.) 10. OfTiBERioPOLis. [See below.] [J. CM.] MELE'TIUS (MeAeVtos), the author of a short Greek work, entitled Uepl ttjs toD *Av6p(vTrov Ko- raaKivrjs, De Natura (or Fabrica) Homiuis. He appears from the inscription at the beginning of the work to have been a Christian and a monk, and to have belonged to the city of Tiberiopolis in Phrygia Magna. The time at which he lived is unknown, but he probably cannot be placed earlier than the sixth or seventh century after Christ. His work (the subject-matter of which is sufficiently indi- cated by the title) is interesting, and evidently written by a religious man, but is of no particular value in a physiological point of view. It was first published in a Latin translation by Nicolaus Pe- treius, Venet. 1552, 4to. The Greek text, though eidsting in MS. in several European libraries, re- MELETUS. mained unpublished till 1836, when Dr. Cramer in- serted it in the third volume of his " Anecdota Graeca," 8vo. Oxon. It is badly edited, and the text contains numerous errors, some arising from the editor's evident ignorance of the subject-matter of the treatise, and others apparently from haste and carelessness. The beginning of the work was pub- lished by Fred. Ritschel, Vratislav. 4to. 1837 ; and there is an essay by L. E. Bachmann, entitled '• Quaestio de Meletio Graece inedito, ejusque La- tino Interprete Nic. Petreio," Rostoch. 4to. 1833. It is uncertain whether this is the same person who wrote a commentary on the Aphorisms of Hip- pocrates, some extracts from which are inserted by Dietz in the second volume of his " Scholia in Hip- pocratem et Galenum," Regim. Pruss. 8vo. 1834. It is indeed doubtful whether the commentary is the work of Meletius or Stephanus Atheniensis. One of the letters of St. Basil, dated a. d. 375 {Epist. 193, vol. iii. p. 285, ed. Bened.) is ad- dressed to a physician named Meletius, who is called by the title Archiaier, but of whom no par- ticulars are known. [W. A. G.] MELE'TUS (McAtjtos), an obscure tragic poet, but notorious as one of the accusers of Socrates, was an Athenian, of the Pitthean demus (Plat. Euthijph. p. 2, b.). At the time of the accusation of Socrates, he is spoken of by Plato (I. c.) as young and obscure (comp. Apol. p. 25, d., 26, e.). But the fact that he was mentioned by Aristophanes in the rewpyot, gives rise to a difficulty (Schol. in Flat. Apol. p. 330, Bekker). For the Teo^pyoi was evidently acted during the life of Nicias (Plut. Nic. 8) ; and not only so, but the passage cited by Plutarch seems to have been rightly understood by him, as referring to the affair of Sphacteria, and on this and other grounds Meineke assigns the play to the year B. c. 425 {Frag. Com. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 983 — 985). Supposing Meletus to have been only twenty at this time, he must have been upwards of forty-five when he accused Socrates. Meineke attempts to get rid of the difficulty, by a slight change in the text of the scholiast, which would then imply that Meletus was still a boy when alluded to in the Tew^yof {Frag. Com, •Graec. vol. ii. p. 993). At all events, if the Me- letus thus referred to was really the same person as the accuser of Socrates, he must at the latter period have been between thirty and forty ; and in that case he might still have been called veos by Socrates. In fact, though the attack upon Socrates was his first essay as a public politician, and was indeed made, as Plato insinuates, in order to bring himself into some notoriety {Euihyph. pp. 2, 3, Apol. p. 25, d.), yet it is clear from Plato himself that Meletus was already known as a poet ; for he imputes to Meletus, as another motive for the accusation, the resentment felt by him and the other poets for the strictures made upon them by Socrates {Apol. p. 23, e. ; Diog. Laert. ii. 39). Besides, when Plato calls him dyvcis, he perhaps refers rather to his being a man of no merit than to his being altogether unknown in the city. With respect to his tra- gedies, we are informed by the scholiast on Plato (/.6-.), on the authority of Aristotle in the Didas- caliae, that Meletus brought out his OiSjTrJSfta in the same year in which Aristophanes brought out his TieKapyoi, but we know nothing of the date of that play. His Scolia are referred to in the Frogs (1302), B. c. 405 ; and in the T-npvra^-ns, which was probably acted a few years after the Frogs, to