Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/894

882 SOSICRATES. The inscription is of the following form, CcoClKAH, ® where the meaning of the sign (^ below the name has never been satisfactorily explained. We owe to the same writer the publication of a discovery by which the artist's name again appears. This is a plinth to which adhere the two feet and one leg of the statue of a man, which it once sup- ported. The execution of these remaining portions is said by R. Rochette to correspond to that of the Amazon.' The plinth bears the following inscrip- tion, in large characters, C.'OCIKA . . . The frag- ment was discovered at Tusculum, in 1842, in the course of the excavations undertaken by M. Canina, at the expense of the queen dowager of Sardinia ; and it was to form (and now, we suppose, forms) a part of the collection of ancient marbles found at Tusculum, and preserved in the Villa della Rufi- nella. (R. Rochette, Lettre a M. Schorn, p. 403, 2d ed.) 2. Gem engraver. [Sosthenes,] [P. S.] SOSI'CRATES (2co(rtft:paTr?9), a vice-general of the Achaeans in their war against the Romans (B.C. 147), was the chief mover of the resolution, taken by an assembly held at Corinth, to endeavour to treat" with Meteflus ; for which act, upon the arrival of Diaeus at Corinth, he was condemned to death ; and, in the hope of extorting a confession from him, he was subjected to the severest tortures, under which he expired. This cruel deed so dis- gusted the people, that Diaeus did not venture to carry out his intention of putting to death the am- bassadors who had been sent to Metellus. (Polyb. xl. 5 ; Thirlwall, Hist, of Chxece, vol. viii. p. 451.) [P. S.] SOSrCRATES (Swo-iKrparrjs), literary. 1. A comic poet, whose time is unknown. Pollux quotes twice from his play entitled UapaKaraOTjKTj (Poll. ix. 57, iv. 173 ; in both passages the name is cor- rupted ; in the former into 'l-jnroKpdTrjs, in the latter into Kparrj? ; but in the latter passage a manuscript has SworjKpctTrjs). His ^iKddeA(poi also is cited by Athenaeus (xi. p. 474, a.) ; and there 9,re some other quotations from unknown plays of his. (Ath. i. p. 31, e. ; Stob. Flor. xxiii. 2 ; Maxim, Conf. p. 198, Gesner.) From the titles of his plays, Meineke thinks it more probable that he belonged to the New Comedy than to the Middle. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 498, 499, vol. iv. pp. 591, 592 ; Fabric. BiU. Graec. vol. ii. p. 495.) 2. Of Rhodes, an historical writer, who is quoted by Diogenes Laertius (ii. 84) as an authority for the statement, that Aristippus wrote nothing. It is therefore inferred, with much probability, that he is the same as the Sosicrates whose work upon the Succession of the Philosophers is quoted by Athenaeus (iv. p. 163, f, 'ZcaaiKpar-ns eV rpircfj (pioff^6<pwv SiaSox^s). He also wrote a work on the history of Crete, Kp^Ti/ca, which is frequently quoted. (Strab. x. p. 474 ; Ath. vi, p. 261, e, et alib.) He flourished after Hermippus and before Apollodorus, and therefore between B. c 200 and B.C. 128. (Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 565.) There appear to have been other writers of the name ; such as Sosicrates Phanagorites. whose 'Holoi is quoted by Athenaeus (xiii. p. 590, b.) ; and a certain Sosicrates quoted by Fnlgentius Planciades {s. v. Nefrcndes). The passage of a Sosicrates of Cyzicus, cited by Fnlgentius (JWi/fh. SOSIGENES. ii. 13), is evidently copied from a quotation made by Diogenes Laertius from the Sttccession of J'hi- losophers. The name is sometimes confounded with Socrates. (Vossiiis, de Hist. Graec. p. 500, ed. Westerniann ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 873, vol. vi. p. 138.) IP. S.] SOSI'GENES (2«(rt7^v7js). 1, An officer who commanded the Phoenician fleet, which had been assembled by Eumenes to make head against his rivals in B.C. 318. The fleet had arrived at Rhosus, where it was detained by contrary winds, when that of Antigonus suddenly arrived, adorned with garlands and other triumphal ornaments, from its recent victory at the Hellespont. Sosigenes himself was on shore, and was unable to restrain the crews, who immediately declared in favour of Antigonus, and joined the hostile fleet. (Polyaen. iv. 6. § 9.) 2. (Perhaps identical with the preceding.) A friend of Demetrius Poliorcetes, who was one of the few that still remained with him in his retreat and wanderings after his last defeat by Seleucus, B. c. 286. He had preserved 400 pieces of gold, which he now offered to Demetrius as a last resource, and with this supply the king endea- voured to reach the coast, but was intercepted by the detachments of Seleucus, and compelled to sur- render at discretion. (Plut. Demetr. 49.) 3. A Rhodian by birth, but who appears to have held a magistracy among the Achaeans, whom he persuaded to pass a decree abolishing all the honours which had been paid to Eumenes, king of Pergamus. (Polyb. xxviii. 7 ; and Schweigh. ad loc.) [E. H. B.] SOSI'GENES {"Zwaiyh-ns), the peripatetic, the astronomer employed by Julius Caesar to super- intend the correction of the calendar (b. c. 46), is called an Egyptian, but may be supposed to have been an Alexandrian Greek. With the exception of certain allusions to him by name, which simply confirm the fact that he was considered a skilful astronomer, nothing can be found concerning him. The most definite of them is that of Simplicius, who says he wrote on astronomy, A sentence of Pliny {H. N. ii. 8) is interpreted by Weidler as implying that Sosigenes maintained the motion of Mercury round the sun. Riccioli and others represent that he remained at Rome until the time of Augustus, and aided in the final establishment of the calendar according to the intention of Ju- lius. But it must be clear that if Sosigenes had remained at Rome, the Augustan correction never could have been needed : the leap-year would never have been made a triennial intercalation under the eye of the astronomer himself. Nevertheless, Pliny (//. N. xviii. 25) mentions the Augustan correctioii, most probably, as if it had been a correction of the theory of the calendar, arising out of the further investigations of Sosigenes himself : his words are " ea ipsa ratio postea comperto errore correcta est, ita ut duodecim annis continuis non inter- calaretur . . . . et Sosigenes ipse trihus commenta- tionibtis, quanquam diligeniior esset ceteris, 7)on ces- savit tainen addrthitare, ipse semet corrigenda.' According to our view of this passage the tres commentationes are of the three occasions on which, during the time of Augustus, an intercalation had to be omitted : Pliny seems to make each of them a separate interference of Sosigenes (whom he may seem to keep alive at Rome for the purpose) fof the correction of his period. And Weidler, in