Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1108

1096 THERAMENES. xiii. 98, 101 ; Thirlwall's Greece, vol. iv. p. 138.) From this time certainly up to the establishment of the thirty tyrants, we find him the unscrupulous confederate of the oligarchs, and from Lysias (c. Agor. p. 130), we learn that the people on one oc- casion rejected him from the office of general on the ground of his being no friend to the democratic government. This would probably be early in B. c. 40.5, when three new commanders were appointed (Xen. Hell. ii. 1. § 16) as colleas^ues to Conon, Adeimantus,and Philocles. But during the siege of Athens by Lysander in the same year, and after the failure of the Athenian embassy, which had proposed to capitulate on condition of keeping their walls and the Peiraeeus, Theraraenes offered to go himself to Lysander and learn the re'al in- tentions of the Lacedaemonians, promising at the same time to obtain peace without the necessity of giving hostages, or demolishing the fortifications, or surrendering the ships ; while he held out vague and mysterious hopes besides of some further favour to be obtained from the enemy by his means. His offer, after some considerable oppo- sition, was accepted, and he set forth on his mis- sion, determined not to return till his countrymen «liould be so weakened by famine as to be ready to assent to any terras that might be imposed on them. After an absence accordingly of three months in the Lacedaemonian camp, he again pre- sented himself in Athens, and declared that Ly- sander, having detained liim so long, had at length desired him to go to Sparta with his proposals, as he himself had no authority to settle any thing. To Sparta therefore the traitor was sent, with nine colleagues, and the terms which they brought back with them, and which the Athenians had now no alternative but to accept, were such as to lay their country prostrate at the feet of Lacedae- mon (Xen. Hdl. ii. 2. §§ 16, &c.; Lys. c. Erat. p. 126, c. Agor. pp. 130, 131 ; Plut. Lys. 14). In the following year, b. c. 404, Theramenes took the foremost part in obtaining the decree of the as- sembly for the destruction of the old constitution and the establishment of the Thirty, in the num- ber of whom he was himself included. The measure indeed was not carried without opposition, but this was overborne by the threats of Lysander, whose presence Theramenes had taken care to secure. The whole transaction is grossly mis- represented by Diodorus, who, choosing to be the panegyrist of Theramenes, informs us that he pro- tested against the innovation in the government, but was obliged to give way to the menaces of Lysander, and that the people then elected him one of the Thirty, in the hope that he would check the violence of his colleagues (Xen. Hell. ii. 3. §§ 1, 2; Lys. c. Erat. pp. 126, 127, c. Agor. p. 131 ; Plut. Lys. 15 ; Diod. xiv. 3, 4). As a matter of fact, indeed, he did endeavour to do so ; for, if not virtuous enough to abhor the reign of terror which they introduced, he had sufficient sagacity to perceive that their volence would be fatal to the permanence of their power. His re- monstrances, however, and his opposition to their tyrannical proceedings had no effect in restraining them, but only induced the desire to rid themselves of so troublesome an associate, whose former con- duct moreover had shown that no political party could depend on him, and who had earned, by his trimming, the nickname of Kc^flopvos, — a boot which might be worn on either foot. He was THEIUCLES. therefore accused by Critias before the council as a traitor, and an enemy of the oligarchy, and when his nominal judges, favourably impressed by his able defence, exhibited an evident disposition to acquit him, Critias introduced into the chamber a number of men armed with daggers, and declared that, as all who were not included in the privileged Three Thousand might be put to death by the sole authority of the Thirty, he struck the name of Theramenes out of that list, and condemned him with the consent of all his colleagues. Theramenes then rushed to the altar, which stood in the council- chamber, but was dragged from it and carried off to execution. When he had drunk tlie hemlock, he dashed out the last drops from the cup as if he were playing the game of the Ko'TTagoy, exclaim- ing, " This to the health of the lovely Critias ! " Diodorus tells us that Theramenes was a disciple of Socrates, and that the latter strove to prevent the eleven from dragging him away to death, which seems to be merely a different version of the story in the Pseudo-Plutarch ( Vit. X. Or. Isocr. ad iniL), that Isocrates, who was a pupil of Thera- menes in rhetoric, was the only person who stood up to help him in his extremity, and desisted only on Theramenes saying that it would increase his distress, should any of his friends involve them- selves in his calamity. Both Xenophon and Cicero express their admiration of the equanimity which he displayed in his last hour ; but surely such a feeling is sadly out of place when directed to such a man. (Xen. Hell. ii. 3 ; Diod. xiv. 4, 5 ; Cic. Tusc. Quaest. i. 40 ; Arist. Ba?i. 541, 965— 96n ; Suid. s. V. &7]paiJ.4vT]s ; Val. Max. iii. 2. Ext. 6 ; Hinrichs, de T/ieram. Grit- et Thrasyb. rebus et in- genio.) [E. E.J THERAPNE (0fpc£7n/rj), a daughter of Lelex and Peridia, from which the town of Therapne in Laconia derived its name. (Paus. iii. 19. § 9; Schol. ad Eurip. OresL 615.) [L. S.] THERAS (©Tjpaj), a son of Autesion, grand- son of Tisamenus, who led Lacedaemonians and Minyans of Lemnos {i. e. descendants of the Argo- nauts by Lemnian women) from Sparta to the island of Thera, which had before been called Callisto, but was now named after him Thera. (Herod, iv. 147 ; Paus. iii. 1. § 6, iv. 3. $ 3, vii. 2. § 2 ; Apollon. Rhod. iv. 1764 ; Schol. ad Find. Pyth. iv. 88.) [L. S.j THE'RICLES (07jptKA.7)s) was, according to Athenaeus (xi. pp.470 — 472), Lucian {Leodph. 7), Pliny (//. N. xvi. 40. s. 76), and the lexicographers {Etym. Mag,, Suid., s. v. ©TjptKAejoi'), a Corinthian potter, whose works obtained such celebrity that they became known throughout Greece by the name of &r]piK€ia (sc. iror-npta) or kuAikss &7}pi- Kheiai (or -ai ), and these names were applied^ not only to cups of earthenware, but also to those of wood, glass, gold, and silver. Athenaeus quotes numerous passages from the Athenian comic poets, in which these " Thericleian works" are men- tioned ; and these, with the other testimonies on the subject, have been most elaborately discussed by Bentley, in his Dissertations on Fhalaris, and by Welcker, in the Rhcinisclics Museum for 183.9, vol. vi. pp. 404, foil. These two great scholars, however, come to widely different results, the former fixing the date of Thericles at the time of Aristophanes ; the latter denying the existence of Thericles altogether, and contending that the nan)e of these vases is a descriptive one, derived from