Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/140

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104 A E T I O N. cloak, who appears like a young bafhful bridegroom, and pre- fent him to his miftrefs : he lays his crown at her feet, being accompanied by Epheftion, who holds a torch in his hand, and leans upon a youth, who reprefents Hymen. Several other little Cupids are reprefented, playing with his arms ; fome carry his lance, {looping under fo heavy a weight; others bear along his buckler, upon which one of them is feated, whom the reft carry in triumph ; another lies it) ambuih in his amour, waiting to frighten the reft as they pafs by. This picture gained Aetion fo much reputation, that the prefident of the games gave him his daughter in marriage. /ETIUS. an ancient phyfician, was born at Amida, a (own Fabric. Bibl. of Mefopocamia; but at what time he lived medical hiftorians _, r ' ' <VlC 'are not agreed. Some place him in the year 350, others in 437, and others in 455 : to which laft opinion Merklin feems Linden. Re. to (ubfcribe. But Dr. Freind will have him to be much later : novat. p.iS-he fays, " it is plain, even from his own books, that he did j? c l{ p fP I hy "* t not write till the very end of the fifth, or the beginning of 4.' '*' the fixth century; for he refers not only to St. Cyril,

  • ' Archbiihop of Alexandria, who died in 444, but to Petrus"

" Archiater, who was phyfician to Theodoric, and therefore < mull have lived ftill later." He fludied at Alexandria, and in feveral places of his works agrees with the pharmacy of the ^Egyptians. His " Tetrabiblos," as it is called, is a collection from the writings of thofe phyticians who went be- fore him, chiefly from Galen ; but contains neverthelefs fomc new things, for which we are entirely indebted to this author. His work confifis of fixteen books, eight of which were pub- lifhed in Greek only at Venice, 1534, in folio; but Janus Cornarius, a phyfician of Frankfort, made a Lstin verfion of the whole, and published it with the Greek at Bafil, 1542, in folio. Henry Stephens afterwards printed it among his " Medici Principes" at Geneva, 1567, in folio. Fu r cb, AFER (DoMiTius), a famous orator, born at Nifmes; Chron, pj e 3 OU [ifhed under Tiberius and the three fucceeding empe- m ' zoo 'rors. He was elected to the Prsetorfhip ; but not being after- wards promoted according to his ambitious expectations, and defirous at any rate to advance himfelf, he turned informer Tacit, aoainft Claudia Pulchra, coufm of A^rippina, and pleaded A 1 I * t.

  • himfelf in that affair. Having jrained this caufe, he was

i. cap. <*, ... . e r c ,, , . , thereupon ranked amonglt the nrit orators, and got into fa- vour with Tiberius, who had a mortal hatred to Agrippina: but this princefs. was fo far from ihuiking Domitius the au- thor