There are treatises on Eumenius by B. Kilian (Würzburg, 1869), S. Brandt (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1882), and H. Sachs (Halle, 1885); see also Gaston Boissier, “Les Rhéteurs gaulois du IVe siècle,” in Journal des savants (1884).
EUMOLPUS (“sweet singer”), in Greek mythology, son of
Poseidon and Chione, the daughter of Boreas, legendary priest,
poet and warrior. He finally settled in Thrace, where he became
king. During a war between the Eleusinians and Athenians
under Erechtheus, he went to the assistance of the former, who
on a previous occasion had shown him hospitality, but was slain
with his two sons, Phorbas and Immaradus. According to another
tradition, Erechtheus and Immaradus lost their lives; the Eleusinians
then submitted to Athens on condition that they alone
should celebrate the mysteries, and that Eumolpus and the
daughters of Celeus should perform the sacrifices. It is asserted
by others that Eumolpus with a colony of Thracians laid claim
to Attica as having belonged to his father Poseidon (Isocrates,
Panath. 193). The Eleusinian mysteries were generally considered
to have been founded by Eumolpus, the first priest of
Demeter, but, according to some, by Eumolpus the son of
Musaeus, Eumolpus the Thracian being the father of Keryx,
the ancestor of the priestly family of the Kerykes. As priest,
Eumolpus purifies Heracles from the murder of the Centaurs;
as musician, he instructs him (as well as Linus and Orpheus) in
playing the lyre, and is the reputed inventor of vocal accompaniments
to the flute. Suidas reckons him one of the early poets
and a writer of hymns of consecration, and Diodorus Siculus
quotes a line from a Dionysiac hymn attributed to Eumolpus.
He is also said to have been the first priest of Dionysus, and to
have introduced the cultivation of the vine and fruit trees (Pliny,
Nat. Hist. vii. 199). His grave was shown at Athens and Eleusis.
His descendants, called Eumolpidae, together with the Kerykes,
were the hereditary guardians of the mysteries (q.v.).
See Apollodorus ii. 5, iii. 15; Pausanias i. 38. 2; Hyginus, Fab. 273; Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 476; Strabo vii. p. 321; Diod. Sic. i. 11; article “Eumolpidai,” by J. A. Hild in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités.
EUNAPIUS, Greek sophist and historian, was born at Sardis,
A.D. 347. In his native city he studied under his relative the
sophist Chrysanthius, and while still a youth went to Athens,
where he became a favourite pupil of Proaeresius the rhetorician.
He possessed a considerable knowledge of medicine. In his later
years he seems to have resided at Athens, teaching rhetoric.
Initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, he was admitted into
the college of the Eumolpidae and became hierophant. There is
evidence that he was still living in the reign of the younger
Theodosius (408–450). Eunapius was the author of two works,
one entitled Lives of the Sophists (Βίοι φιλοσόφων καὶ σοφιστῶν),
and the other consisting of a continuation of the history of
Dexippus (q.v.). The former work is still extant; of the latter
only excerpts remain, but the facts are largely incorporated in
the work of Zosimus. It embraced the history of events from
A.D. 270–404. The Lives of the Sophists, which deals chiefly
with the contemporaries of the author, is valuable as the only
source for the history of the neo-Platonism of that period.
The style of both works is bad, and they are marked by a spirit of
bitter hostility to Christianity. Photius (cod. 77) had before
him a “new edition” of the history in which the passages most
offensive to the Christians were omitted.
Edition of the Lives by J. F. Boissonade (1822), with notes by D. Wyttenbach; history fragments in C. W. Müller, Fragmenta Hist. Graecorum, iv.; V. Cousin, Fragments philosophiques (1865).
EUNOMIUS (d. c. 393), one of the leaders of the extreme or
“anomoean” Arians, who are sometimes accordingly called
Eunomians, was born at Dacora in Cappadocia early in the 4th
century. He studied theology at Alexandria under Aetius, and
afterwards came under the influence of Eudoxius of Antioch,
where he was ordained deacon. On the recommendation of
Eudoxius he was appointed bishop of Cyzicus in 360. Here
his free utterance of extreme Arian views led to popular complaints,
and Eudoxius was compelled, by command of the
emperor, Constantius II., to depose him from the bishopric
within a year of his elevation to it. During the reigns of Julian
and Jovian, Eunomius resided in Constantinople in close intercourse
with Aetius, consolidating an heretical party and consecrating
schismatical bishops. He then went to live at Chalcedon,
whence in 367 he was banished to Mauretania for harbouring
the rebel Procopius. He was recalled, however, before he
reached his destination. In 383 the emperor Theodosius, who
had demanded a declaration of faith from all party leaders,
punished Eunomius for continuing to teach his distinctive
doctrines, by banishing him to Halmyris in Moesia. He afterwards
resided at Chalcedon and at Caesarea in Cappadocia, from
which he was expelled by the inhabitants for writing against their
bishop Basil. His last days were spent at Dacora his birthplace,
where he died about 393. His writings were held in high
reputation by his party, and their influence was so much dreaded
by the orthodox, that more than one imperial edict was issued
for their destruction (Cod. Theod. xvi. 34). Consequently
his commentary on the epistle to the Romans, mentioned by
the historian Socrates, and his epistles, mentioned by Philostorgius
and Photius, are no longer extant. His first apologetical
work (Ἀπολογητικός), written probably about 360 or 365, has
been entirely recovered from the celebrated refutation of it by
Basil, and may be found in J. A. Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. viii.
pp. 262-305. A second apology, written before 379 (Ὑπὲρ ἀπολογίας ἀπολογία),
exists only in the quotations given from
it in a refutation by Gregory of Nyssa. The exposition of faith
(Ἔκθεσις τῆς πίστεως), called forth by the demand of Theodosius,
is still extant, and has been edited by Valesius in his notes to
Socrates, and by Ch. H. G. Rettberg in his Marcelliana.
The teaching of the Anomoean school, led by Aetius and Eunomius, starting from the conception of God as ὁ ἀγέννητος, argued that between the ἀγέννητος and γέννητος there could be no essential, but at best only a moral, resemblance. “As the Unbegotten, God is an absolutely simple being; an act of generation would involve a contradiction of His essence by introducing duality into the Godhead.” According to Socrates (v. 24), Eunomius carried his views to a practical issue by altering the baptismal formula. Instead of baptizing in the name of the Trinity, he baptized in the name of the Creator and into the death of Christ. This alteration was regarded by the orthodox as so serious that Eunomians on returning to the church were rebaptized, though the Arians were not. The Eunomian heresy was formally condemned by the council of Constantinople in 381. The sect maintained a separate existence for some time, but gradually fell away owing to internal divisions.
See C. R. W. Klose, Geschichte und Lehre des Eumonius (Kiel, 1833); F. Loofs in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyk. für prot. Theol.; Whiston’s Eunomianismus redivivus contains an English translation of the first apology. See also Arius.
EUNUCH (Gr.εὐνοῦχος), an emasculated male. From remote
antiquity among the Orientals, as also at a later period in Greece,
eunuchs were employed to take charge of the women, or generally
as chamberlains—whence the name οἱ τὴν εὐνὴν ἔχοντες,
i.e. those who have charge of the bed-chamber. Their confidential
position in the harems of princes frequently enabled
them to exercise an important influence over their royal masters,
and even to raise themselves to stations of great trust and
power (see Harem). Hence the term eunuch came to be applied
in Egypt to any court officer, whether a castratus or not. The
common idea that eunuchs are necessarily deficient in courage
and in intellectual vigour is amply refuted by history. We are
told, for example, by Herodotus that in Persia they were especially
prized for their fidelity; and they were frequently promoted
to the highest offices. Narses, the famous general under Justinian,
was a eunuch, as was also Hermias, governor of Atarnea in
Mysia, to whose manes the great Aristotle offered sacrifices,
besides celebrating the praises of his patron and friend in a
poem (still extant) addressed to Virtue (see Lucian’s dialogue
entitled Eunuchus). The capacity of eunuchs for public affairs
is strikingly illustrated by the histories of Persia, India and
China; and considerable power was exercised by the eunuchs
under the later Roman emperors. The hideous trade of castrating
boys to be sold as eunuchs for Moslem harems has continued
