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

CHEOPH YLUS.
it on. (Apollod. i. 9. ~ 28; Schol. ad Eurip.
Med. 20.) According to Hyginus (1. c.) Medeia's
present consisted of a crown, and Creon perished
with his daughter, who is there called Creusa.
(Comp. Diod. iv. 54.)
2. A son of Menoecus, and king of Thebes.
After the death of Laius, Creon gave the kingdom
to Oedipus, who had delivered the country from
the Sphinx; but after Oedipus had laid down the
government, Creon resumed it. His tyrannical
conduct towards the Argives, and especially towards Antigone, is well known from the Oedipus
and Antigone of Sophocles. Creon had a son,
Haemon, and two daughters, Henioche and Pyrrha.
(Apollod. iii. 5. ~ 8, 7. ~ 1; Pans. ix. 10. ~ 3.)
A third mythical Creon is mentioned by Apollodorus. (ii. 7. ~ 8.) [L. S.]
CREON (KpCwov), a Greek rhetorician of uncertain date, who is mentioned in three passages
of Suidas (s. vv. EiyceiopavA-jtevos, vndpiPto, and
(<paKi6dAtov) as the author of a work on rhetoric
(praropid), of which the first book is quoted, but
nothing further is known about him. [L. S.]
CREO'PHYLUS (KpeCPvuAos). 1. One of the
earliest epic poets of Greece, whom tradition placed
in direct connexion with Homer, as he is called his
friend or even his son-in-law. (Plat. de Rep. x. p.
600, b; Callim. Epigram. 6; Strab. xiv. p. 638,
&c.; Sext. Empir. adv. Math. i. 2; Eustath. ad
Hiom. 11. ii. 730; Suidas, s. v.) Creophylus is
said to have received Homer into his house, and
to have been a native of Chios, though other accounts describe him as a native of Samos or los.
The epic poem OiXaAha or OiXaias a\hwaos, which
is ascribed to him, he is said, in some traditions,
to have received from Homer as a present or as a
dowry with his wife. (Proclus, ap. Hephaest. p.
466, ed. Gaisford; Schol. ad Plat. p. 421, ed.
Bekker; Suidas, s. v.) Tradition thus seems to
point to Creophylus as one of the most ancient
Homeridae, and as the first link connecting Homer
himself with the subsequent history of the Homeric poems; for he preserved and taught the
Homeric poems, and handed them down to his
descendants, from whom Lycurgus, the Spartan
lawgiver, is said to have received them. (Plut.
Lyc. 4; Heracleid. Pont. Polit. Fragm. 2; lamblich. Vit. Pythag. ii. 9; Strab. xiv. p. 639.) His
poem OlXaxia contained the contest which Heracles, for the sake of Iole, undertook with Eurytus,
and the final capture of Oechalia. This poem,
from which Panyasis is said to have copied (Clem.
Alex. Strom. iv. p. 266), is often referred to, both
with and without its author's name, but we possess only a few statements derived from it. (Phot.
Lex. p. 177, ed. Porson; Tzetz. Chil. xiii. 659;
Cramer, Anecd. ii. p. 327; Schol. ad Soph. Trachi.
"266; Bekker, Anecd. p. 728.) Pausanias (iv. 2.
~ 3) mentions a poem 'HpaKrhia by Creophylus,
but this seems to be only a different name for the
OiXaiaa. (Comp. Schol. ad Eurip. Med. 276.)
The Heracleia which the Scholiast on Apollonius
Rhodius (i. 1357) ascribes to Cinaethon, is likewise supposed by some to be a mistake, and to
allude to the OlXaAia of Creophylus. (Welcker,
Der Episch. Cyclus, p. 219, &c.; Willner, De
Cycl. Epic. p. 52, &c.; K. W. Muller, De Cycl.
Graec. Epic. p. 62, &c.)
2. The author of Annals of Ephesus (Spot
'Epso'iwv), to which Athenaeus (viii. p. 361)
refers. [L. S.]

CRESILAS. 889
CREPEREIUS, the name of a Roman equestrian family, which was distingaished for the strict
discipline of its members, but of which otherwise
only very little is known. Among the judges in
the case of Verres, one M. Crepereius is mentioned
by Cicero (in Verr. i. 10), and it is added, that as
he was tribunus militaris designalus, he would not
be able to take a part in the proceedings after the
1st of January of B. c. 69.
There are several coins on which we read the
name Q. Ceerepereius. F. Rocus, and from the
representations of Venus and Neptune which appear on those coins, it has been inferred, that this
person had some connexion with Corinth, perhaps
after its restoration by J. Caesar, since those divinities were the principal gods of Corinth. (Havercamp, in Mllorell. Thesaur. Numism. p. 145, &c.)
In the reign of Nero we meet with one Crepereius
Gallus, a friend of Agrippina, who perished in
the ship by means of which Agrippina was to be
destroyed. (Tac. Ann. xiv. 5.) [L. S.]
CREPEREIUS CALPURNIA'NUS (KpE-r'pyos KahTrovpvtavds), a native of Pompeiopolis, is
mentioned by Lucian (Quota. Hist. conscrib. 15)
as the author of a history of the wars between the
Romans and Parthians, but nothing further is
known about him. [L. S.]
CRES (Kpl's), a son of Zeus by a nymph of
mount Ida, from whom the island of Crete was
believed to have derived its name. (Steph. Byz.
s. v. Kpsr-j; Pans. viii. 53. ~ 3.) According to
Diodorus (v. 64), Cres was an Eteocretan, that is,
a Cretan autochthon. [L. S.]
CRESCENS, a Cynic of Megalopolis, (probably
the city in Arcadia, though some believe that
Rome is meant by that appellation,) who lived in
the middle of the second century after Christ,
contemporary with Justin Martyr. The Christian writers speak of his character as perfectly infamous. By Tatian (Or. adv. Graec. p. 157, &c.)
he is accused of the most flagrant enormities, and
is described as a person who was not prevented by
his cynical profession from being " wholly enslaved
to the love of money." He attacked the Christians with great acrimony, calling them Atheists;
but his charges were refuted by Justin, who tells
us, that, in consequence of the refutation, he was
apprehensive lest Crescens should plot his death.
But whether he was really the cause of Justin's
martyrdom or not is uncertain; for, although he is
accused of this crime by Eusebius, yet the charge
is only made to rest on a statement of Tatian,
which however merely is, that " he who advised
others to despise death, was himself so much in
dread of death, that he plotted death for Justin
as a very great evil," without a word as to the
success of his intrigues. (Justin, Apolog. ii.;
Euseb. H. E. iv. 16; Neander, Kirchengesch. i.
p. 1131.) [G. E. L. C.]
CRESCO'NIUS. [CORIPPUS.]
CRE'SILAS (Kpeoi-as), an Athenian sculptor,
a contemporary of Phidias and Polycletus. Pliny
(H. N. xxxiv. 19), in narrating a competition of
five most distinguished artists, and among them
Phidias and Polycletus, as to who should make
the best Amazon for the temple at Ephesus, mentions Cresilas as the one who obtained the third
prize. But as this is an uncommon name, it has
been changed by modern editors into Ctesilas or
Ctesilaus; and in the same chapter (~ 15) an artist,
"Desilaus," whose wounded Amazon was a cele