Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/961

SYENNESIS. SYAGER (Siaypos), one of the alleged ante- Homeric poets, is said to have flourished after Or- pheus and Musaeus, and to have been the first who sang the Trojan War. (Ael. V. H. xiv. 21 ; Eustath. ad II. vol. i. p. 3.) He is perhaps the Barae as the Sagaris whom Aristotle mentioned, according to Diogenes Laertius (ii. 46), as con- temporary with Homer, y Fabric. Bihl. Graec. vol. i. pp. 6, 291, 562 ; Bode, Gesch. d. Hellen. Dicht- kund. vol. i. p. 247.) [P. S.] SYCHAEUS or SICHAEUS, a wealthy Phoe- nician and husband of Dido, whose brother Pyg- malion, anxious to secure his treasures, treacher- ously murdered him. {Y'wg. Aen. i. 347, &c., iv. 20, 502, 532, 632, vi. 474 ; Justin, xviii. 4, calls him Acerbas, and represents the matter somewhat differently from the account in Virgil.) [L. S.] SYE'NNESIS (Sveweo-ts), appears to have been a common name of the kings of Cilicia. We find the following mentioned in history. 1. A king of Cilicia, who joined with Labynetus (Nebuchadnezzar) in mediating between Cyaxares and Alyattes, the kings respectively of Media and Lydia, probably in B. c. 610. (Herod, i. 74 ; comp. Grote's Greece^ vol. iii. pp. 311, 312.) 2. Another, contemporarj' with Dareius Hys- taspis, to whom he was tributary. His daughter was married to Pixodarus. [Pixodarus, No. 1.] (Herod, iii. 90, v. 118.) He was perhaps the same prince whom Herodotus mentions (vii. 98) as one of the most distinguished of the subordinate commanders in the fleet of Xerxes. (Comp. Aesch. Pers. 318, &c.) 3. Contemporary with Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon). When Cyrus the younger, marching against Ar- taxerxes, inB. c. 401, arrived at the borders of Cilicia, he found the passes guarded by Syennesis, who, however, withdrew his troops, on receiving intelligence that the force sent forward by Cyrus under Menon had already entered Cilicia, and that the combined fleet of the Lacedaemonians and the prince, under Samius and Tamos, was sailing round from Ionia. When Cyrus reached Tarsus, the Cilician capital, he found that Menon's soldiers had sacked the city, and that Syennesis had fled for refuge to a stronghold among the mountains. He was induced, however, by his wife Epyaxa to obey the summons of Cyrus, and to present himself before him at Tarsus. Here he received gifts of honour from the young prince, whom he supplied in his turn with a large sum of money and a considerable body of troops under the command of one of his sons. At the same time, however, he took care to send his other son to Artaxerxes, to represent this step as having been taken on compulsion, while liis heart all the time was with the king. From the narrative of Xenophon it appears that Syen- nesis at this time, though really a vassal of Persia, afifected the tone of an independent sovereign. (Xen. Hell. iii. 1. § 1, Anab. i. 2. §§ 12, 21—27, 4. § 4, vii. 8. § 25 ; Diod. xiv. 20 ; Wess. ad loc.) [E. E.] SYE'NNESIS (SueWecrts), a physician of Cy- prus, who must have lived in or before the fourth century B. c, as he is mentioned by Aristotle {Hist. Anim. iii. 2. § 3), who quotes from his writings a passage on the origin of the veins. This fragment also forms part of the treatise " De Ossium Natura" in the Hippocratic Collection Vvol. i. p. 507), which is in fact composed en- tirely of passages taken from different ancient SYMEON. 949 writers. (See Littre's Oeuvres d^Hippocr. vol. i. P- 419.) [W. A. G.l SYLLA. [Sulla.] ^ SYLOSON (SuAoo-wi/), the son of Aeaces, as- sisted his brother Polycrates in making himself master of their native island Samos. For a time Polycrates shared the supreme power with Syloson and his other brother Pantagnotus ; but shortly afterwards he put the latter to death, and banished the former. Syloson therefore repaired to Egypt, where Cambyses was at that time with his Persian army. As he was one day walking in Memphis, a scarlet cloak which he wore attracted the notice of Dareius, son of Hystaspes, who was then serving among the guards of the Persian monarch. Dareius offered to buy the cloak ; but a divine inspiration, as Herodotus says, prompted Syloson to reply that he would not sell it, but would give it him, if he must have it. Dareius accepted the present, and there the matter ended for the time. But at length Syloson heard, with surprise, that the un- known Persian to whom he had given the cloak, was now the great king. He accordingly hastened to Susa, and found Dareius willing to remunerate him in a manner worthy of the king of Persia. Syloson refused the gold and silver which were offered him, and prayed that the island of Samos might be handed over to him. His request was complied with, and Otanes was sent with an army to place the island in the power of Syloson. Since the death of Polycrates, the supreme power had been in the hands of Maeandrius. The latter was in no condition to resist the Persians, and he capi- tulated to quit the island with his treasures ; but immediately after he had sailed away, his crazy brother Charilaus, whom he had left in command of the Acropolis, fell upon the unsuspecting Per- sians, and killed many of their officers. [Poly- crates ; Maeandrius ; Charilaus.] The con- sequence of this treacherous conduct was a whole- sale massacre of the inhabitants by Otanes ; and the island was handed over to Syloson, stripped of its male inhabitants. Otanes afterwards repeopled the island, but we are not told from what quarter the new population came. Strabo represents Sylo- son as a cruel tyrant, who depopulated the island, but continued to rule Samos, as a tributary of Persia, till his death, when he was succeeded in the supreme power by his son Aeaces. (Herod, iii. 39, 139—149, vi. 13 ; Strab. xiv. p. 638; Grote, Hist, of Greece, vol. iv. pp. 332—337.) SYLVA'NUS. [Silvanus.J SY'LVIUS. [Silvius.] SYME i^vfiT]), a daughter of lalysus and Dotis, was carried off by Glaucus to an island near Rhodes, off the coast of Caria, which received its name from her. (Athen. vii. p. 296 ; Steph. Bye. s. V.) [L. S.] SY'MEON or SFMEON or SYMEO'NES (^iifxewv sometimes 'S.v^iedvqs), literary and ec- clesiastical. 1. Abbas [No. 16]. 2. AcoEMiTZNsis MoNACHUs. Symcoues, a monk of one of the monasteries of the Acoemitenses at Constantinople, was sent by Cyril, his hegume- nus or abbot, to Pope Felix II. or III. at Rome, to stir him up to the more active support of ortho- doxy, then seriously threatened in the East by the strength of theMonophysite party and the tempo- rising policy of the Emperor Anasiasius, and the patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius. The mission of Syraeon determined the Pope to act more de- 3p 3