A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

CHAEREAS.
was successfully advocated by Demosthenes in Bn.c.
355. (Plunt. Phoc. 6, 7; Dem. c. Lept. pp. 479 -483.) Pausanias (i. 29) speaks of the tomb of
Chabrias as lying between those of Pericles and
Phormion on the way from the city to the Academy. [E. E.]
CHAE'REA, C. CA'SSIUS, the slayer of the
emperor Caligula, was tribune of the praetorian
cohort. He is said to have been incited to conspire against the emperor partly by his noble
spirit and love of liberty, partly by his disgust at
the cruelties which he was employed to execute,
partly by his suspicion that the confidence and
favour of Caligula was the forerunner of his destruction, and most of all by the insults of the emperor, who used himself to ridicule him as if he
were an effeminate person, and to hold him up to
ridicule to his fellow-soldiers, by giving through
him such watchwords as Venus and Priapus. Having formed a conspiracy with Cornelius Sabinus
and other noble Romans, he fixed on the Palatine
games in honour of Augustus for the time of action. On the fourth day of the games, as the emperor was going from the theatre to his palace, the
conspirators attacked him in a narrow passage, and
killed him with many wounds, Chaerea striking
the first blow. (Jan. 24, A. r1. 41.) In the confusion which ensued, some of the conspirators were
killed by the German guards of Caligula; but
others, among whom was Chaerea, escaped into the
palace. Chaerea next sent and put to death Caligula's wife Caesonia and her daughter. He warmly
supported the scheme, which the senators at first
adopted, of restoring the republic, and received
from the consuls the watchword for the night,Liberty. But the next day Claudius was made
emperor by the soldiers, and his first act was to
put Chaerea and the other conspirators to death.
Chaerea met his fate with the greatest fortitude,
the executioner using, at Chaerea's own desire, the
sword with which he had wounded Caligula. A
few days afterwards, many of the people made offerings to his manes. (Josephus, Ant. Jud. xix.
]-4; Sueton. Calig. 56-58, Claud. 11; Dion Cass.
lix. 29; Zonaras, xi. 7; Seneca, de Const. 18;
Aurel. Vict. Caes. 3.) [P. S.]
CHAE'REAS (Xmpe'as). 1. An Athenian, son
of Archestratus, was sent by the people of Samos
and the Athenian armament there stationed (who
were ignorant of the overthrow of the democracy at
Athens by the Four Hundred) to report the defeat
of a late attempt at an oligarchical revolution in
the island, B. c. 411. The crew of the ship were
arrested, on their arrival at Athens, by the new
government; but Chaereas himself escaping, returned to Samos, and, by his exaggerated accounts
of the tyranny of the oligarchs, led to the strong
measures which ensued in favour of democracy
under Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. (Thuc. viii.
74, 86.)
2. A historian, so miscalled, of whom Polybius,
speaking of his account of the proceedings at Rome
when the news arrived of the capture of Saguntum
in B. c. 219, says that his writings contained, not
history, but gossip fit for barbers' shops, Kovpeaorcs
ical 7rav3'lov Armias. (Polyb. iii. 20.) We find
no record either of the place of his birth or of the
exact period at which he flourished. A writer of
this name is mentioned by Athenaeus also (i. p.
32, d.), but whether he is the same person as the
preceding cannot be determined. [E. E.]

OHAEREMON. 677
CHAE'REAS, artists. 1. A statuary in
bronze, who made statues of Alexander the Great
and his father Philip. (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8.
s. 19. ~ 14.)
2. A goldsmith. Xaipeas 4 Xpvo'orE'rTw 6 tcard
v'WTOU iromiAos. (Lucian, Lexiph. xxxiv. 9.) [L. S.]
CHAE'REAS, C. FA'NNIUS, seems from his
name to have been of Greek extraction, and was
perhaps a freedman of some C. Fannius. He had
a slave whom he entrusted to Roscius the actor for
instruction in his art, and it was agreed that any
profits the man might acquire should be shared
between them. The slave was murdered by one
Q. Flavius, against whom accordingly an action
was brought by Chaereas and Roscius for damages.
Roscius obtained a farm for himself from the defendant by way of composition, and was sued by
Chaereas, who insisted that he had received it for
both the plaintiffs. The matter was at first referred
to arbitration, but further disputes arose, and the
transaction ultimately gave occasion to the action
of Chaereas against Roscius, in which the latter
was defended by Cicero in a speech (pro Q.Roscio)
partially extant. We must form but a low opinion
of the respectability of Chaereas if we trust the
testimony of Cicero, who certainly indulges himself
in the full license of an advocate, and spares neither
the character nor the personal appearance of the
plaintiff. (See especially c. 7.) [E. E.]
CHAERE'CRATES (Xatpespdcrs), a disciple
of Socrates, is honourably recorded (Xen. Mem. i.
2. ~ 48) as one of those who attended his instructions with the sincere desire of deriving moral advantage from them, and who did not disgrace by
their practice the lessons they had received. An
inveterate quarrel between himself and his elder
brother Chaerephon serves in Xenophon as the occasion of a good lecture on the subject of brotherly
love from Socrates, who appears to have succeeded
in reconciling them. (Xen. Mem. ii. 3.) [E. E.]
CHAERE'MON (Xaipsuawv). 1. An Athenian
tragic poet of considerable eminence. We have no
precise information about the time at which he
lived, but he must certainly be placed later than
Aristophanes, since, though his style was remarkably calculated to expose him to the ridicule of a
comoedian, he is nowhere mentioned by that poet,
not even in the Frogs. On the other hand, he was
attacked by the comic poets, Eubulus (Athen. ii.
p. 43, c.) and Ephippus, of whom the latter, at
least, seems to speak of him as of a contemporary.
(Athen. xi. p. 482, b.) Aristotle frequently mentions him in a manner which, in the opinion of
some critics, implies that Chaeremon was alive.
(Rhet. ii. 23, 24, iii. 12; Problem. iii. 16; Poet. i.
9, xxiv. 6.) The writers also who call him a comic
poet (see below) assign him. to the middle comedy
For these and other reasons, the time when Chaeremon flourished may be fixed about B. c. 380.
Nothing is known of his life. It may be assumed
that he lived at Athens, and the fragments of his
poetry which remain afford abundant proofs, that
he was trained in the loose morality which marked
Athenian society at that period, and that his taste
was formed after the model of that debased and
florid poetry which Euripides first introduced by
his innovations on the drama of Aeschylus and
Sophocles, and which was carried to its height by
the dithyrambic poets of the age. Accordingly,
the fragments and even some of the titles of Chaeremon's plays shew, that he seldom aimed at the