Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/92

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74
AGNODICE.
AGON.

Athenaeus (xii. p. 516) mentions one Agis as the author of a work on the art of cooking (ὀψαρτυτικά). [L. S.]


AGLA'IA (Ἀγλαΐα). 1. [CHARITES.]

2. The wife of Charopus and mother of Nireus. who led a small band front the island of Syme against Troy. (Hom. Il. 2.671; Diod. 5.53.) Another Aglaia is mentioned in Apollodorus. (2.7.8.) [L. S.]


AGLAONI'CE. [AGANICE]

AGLAOPHE'ME. [SIRENES.]

AGLA'OPHON (Ἀγλαοφῶν), a painter, born in the island of Thasos, the father and instructor of Polygnotus. (Suidas and Photius, s. v. Πολύγνωτος; Anth. Gr. 9.700.) He had another son named Aristophon. (Plat. Gorg. p. 448. B.) As Polygnotus flourished before the 90th Ol. (Plin. Nat. 35.9. s. 35), Aglaophon probably lived about Ol. 70. Quintilian (12.10.3) praises his paintings, which were distinguished by the simplicity of their colouring, as worthy of admiration on other grounds besides their antiquity. There was an Aglaophon who flourished in the 90th Ol. andmother, who were possessed of great wealth, according to Pliny (Plin. Nat. 35.9. s. 36), and his statement is confirmed by a passage of Athenaeus (xii. p. 543, D.), from which we learn that he painted two pictures, in one of which Olympias and Pythias, as the presiding geniuses of the Olylmpic and Pythian games, were represented crowning Alcibiades; in the other Nemea, the presiding deity of the Nemean games, held Alcibiades on her knees. Alcibiades could not have gained any victories much before Ol. 91. (B. C. 416.) It is therefore exceedingly likely that this artist was the son of Aristophon, and grandson of the older Aglaophon, as among the Greeks the son generally bore the name not of his father but of his grandfather. Plutarch (Plut. Alc. 16) says, that Aristophon was the author of the picture of Nemea and Alcibiades. He may perhaps have assisted his son. This Aglaophon was, according to some, the first who represented Victory with wings. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Birds 573.) [C. P. M.]

AGLAOSTHENES. [AGATHOSTHENES.]

AGLAUROS. [AGRAULOS.]

AGLA'US (Ἀγλαός), a poor citizen of Psophis in Arcadia, whom the Delphic oracle pronounced to be happier than Gyges, king of Lydia, on account of his contentedness, when the king asked the oracle, if any man was happier than he. (V. Max. 7.1.2; Plin. Nat. 7.47.) Pausanias (8.24.7) places Aglaus in the time of Croesus.

AGNAPTUS, an architect mentioned by Pausanias (5.15.4, 6.20.7) as the builder of a porch in the Altis at Olympia, which was called by the Eleans the " porch of Agnaptus." When he lived is uncertain. [C. P. M.]


A'GNIUS (Ἄγνιος), the father of Tiphys, who was the pilot of the ship Argo (Apollod. 1.9.16 ; Orph. Argon. 540), whence Tiphys is called Agniades. [L. S.]


AGNO'DICE (Ἀγνοδίκη), the name of the earliest midwife mentioned among the Greeks. She was a native of Athens, where it was forbidden by law for a woman or a slave to study medicine. According, however, to Hyginus (Hyg. Fab. 274), on whose authority alone the whole story rests, it would appear that Agnodice disguised herself in man's clothes, and so contrived to attend the lectures, of a physician named Hierophilus,--devoting herself chiefly to the study of midwifery and the diseases of women. Afterwards, when she began practice, being very successful in these branches of the profession, she excited the jealousy of several of the other practitioners, by whom she was summoned before the Areiopagus, and accused of corrupting the morals of her patients. Upon her refuting this charge by making known her sex, she was immediately accused of having violated the existing law, which second danger she escaped by the wives of the chief persons in Athens, whom she had attended, coming forward in her behalf, and succeeding at last in getting the obnoxious law abolished. No date whatever is attached to this story, but several persons have, by calling the tutor of Agnodice by the name of Herophilus instead of Hierophilus, placed it in the third or fourth century before Christ. But this emendation, though at first sight very easy and plausible, does not appear altogether free from objections. For, in the first place, if the story is to be believed at all upon the authority of Hyginus, it would seem to belong rather to the fifth or sixth century before Christ than the third or fourth; secondly, we have no reason for thinking that Agnodice was ever at Alexandria, or Herophilus at Athens; and thirdly, it seems hardly probable that Hyginus would have called so celebrated a physician " a certctin leropliilus." (Herophilus quidam.) [W. A. G.]


AGNON, a Greek rhetorician, who wrote a work against rhetoric, which Quintilian (2.17.15) calls " Rhetorices accusatio." Rhunken (Hist. Crit. Orat. Graec. p. xc.) and after him most modern scholars have considered this Agnon to be the same man as Agnonides, the contemporary of Phocion, as the latter is in some MSS. of Corn. Nepos (Phoc. 3) called Agnon. But the manner in which Agnon is mentioned by Quintilian, shews that he is a rhetorician, who lived at a much later period. Whether however he is the same as the academic philosopher mentioned by Athenaeus (xiii. p. 602), cannot be decided. [L. S.]


AGNO'NIDES (Ἀγνωνίδης), an Athenian demagogue and sycophant, a contemporary of Theophrastus and Phocion. The former was accused by Agnonides of impiety, but was acquitted by the Areiopagus, and Theophrastus might have ruined his accuser, had he been less generous. (D. L. 5.37.) Agnonides was opposed to the Macedonian party at Athens, and called Phocion a traitor, for which he was exiled, as soon as Alexander, son of Polysperchon, got possession of Athens. Afterwards, however, he obtained from Antipater permission to return to his country through the mediation of Phocion. (Plut. Phoc. 29.) But the sycophant soon forgot what he owed to his benefactor, and not only continued to oppose the Macedonian party in the most vehement manner, but even induced the Athenians to sentence Phocion to death as a traitor, who had delivered the Peiraeeus into the hands of Nicanor. (Plut. Phoc. 33, 35; Corn. Nep. Phoc. 3.) But the Athenians soon repented of their conduct towards Phocion, and put Agnonides to death to appease his manes. (Plut. Phoc. 38.) [L. S.]

AGON (Ἀγών), a personification of solemn contests (ἀγῶνες). He was represented in a statue at Olympia with ἁλτῆρες in his hands. This statue was a work of Dionysius, and dedicated by Smieythus of Rhegium. (Paus. 5.26.3.) [L. S.]