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

METON. METROBIUS.< 1069
called out to him to' sing them a song, he answered, these observations of the solstices made by Mleton'" You are right to encourage men to sing and make and Euctemon is thus to be determined (Halma, i.
-merry now while they'can, for when Pyrrhus is 163):-" It is said that this observation was made
arrived we shall have to'lead a very different sort at Athens when Apseudes was archon, on the 21st
of life." By this artifice he produced a great effect of the month Phamenoth, in the morning. Now,
upon the assembly; but the' decree was never- from this solstice to that which was observed by
theless carried. (Plut. Pyrrh. 13; Dion Cass. Aristarchus in the fiftieth year of the first ~period:r. Vat. 45, p. 169, ed. Mai; Dionys. xvii. of Calippus, there have elapsed, as Hipparchus says,
13, 14.) [E. H. B.] 152 years. And since this fiftieth year, -which
METON (MtrTWv). With thename of Meton we was the forty-fourth after the death of Alexander,
join those of PHABINUS (4caflvds) and EUCTEMON to the four hundred and sixty-third, which is that
(EJKT7sLpwv), all of Athens, contemporaries, and, as of my observation, there have elapsed 419 -years.'
to the little which is known of them, inseparable. Such are the data from which, and from the preAs to Phaeinus, he appears nowhere except in a sumed meaning of a passage in Diodorus, Meton's
passage of Theophrastus, who says (de Signis Tern- solstice, the acknowledged epoch of commencement
pest. sub init.) that he observed the solar tropics at of the period, has been placed B. c. 432. But
Athens on Lycabettus; from which Meton learnt we are far from seeing how it has been made out.
the mode of constructing the cycle of nineteen Delambre gives no opinion, but quotes Cassini's,
years. Salmasius has a conjecture which we only which he would not have done -on any point in
mention here because it suggested a reverse con- which care or research could have. given him one of
jecture. There is in Aratus the following line (at his own. But though the particular date of this
the beginning of the Diosemeia):- epoch is not fixed to a year or two, the general'EsveascaisKa cs KKaa 4caetvoO 4eAioto. era of Meton is well fixed, as well by the data
above mentioned as by Aelian ( Far. Hist. xiii. 12),
This, says Salmasius, should be aeLvoV'Hetoo, who states that he feigned insanity to avoid sailing
or the shining sun here mentioned is Phaeinus of for Sicily in the ill-fated expedition of which he is
Elea. The conjecture has been rejected with stated to have had an evil presentiment.
scorn by Petavius, Weidler, &c. May we not go The length of the year, according to Meton, is
further, and ask whether it ought not to be'the stated by Ptolemy as 3654 days and al of a day.
other way? Did any Phaeinus give information This is more than half an hour too long. But then
upon tropics to Meton (a known observer of them) it should be remembered that this length of the:
other than 4aelvos'HHAtos, Apollo himself? It is year is that deduced from assuming that Meton!
worth noting that Phaeinus is a strange adjective, held his own period to be exact. Now it by no
and a strange'form of it, for a proper name; and means follows that in stating the cycle he meant to
that a slight' mistake of Theophrastus (no astro- assert that it was mathematically true. Whether
nomer, as far as is known), or of some one whom he he was himself the inventor of this remarkable
copied, might easily have converted the old epithet period, or whether he found it elsewhere, cannot
of the Sun into an astronomer. And there is now be known.
another astronomer, Philip, contemporary with The number of different persons to whom this
Meton, to whom (with Euctemon) Geminus attri- astronomical period has been attributed'(Fabric.
butes the cycle of nineteen years, to the exclusion Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 9), may furnish some preof Meton. Here is one confusion in which Philip sumption that Meton only brought forward and
bears a part, and there might easily have been made popular a piece of knowledge which he and
another. others had derived from an oriental source: a thing
Much emendation has often been found neces- by no means unlikely in itself.
sary when an ancient writer enumerates those who Of Euctemon, independently of his astronomical
have written on subjects which he had not studied partnership with Meton, nothing is known. Gehimself: witness the passage in Vitruvius (ix.' 7), minus and Ptolemy both frequently refer to him on
in which the older texts and versions join Hippar- the rising and setting of stars, on which is to be
chus and Aratus with'Eudaemon, Callistus, and inferred he had left some work. (Ptolemy, GeMelo, for which we must read Euctemon, Callippus, minus, Weidler, Hist. Astr-on. Delambre, Astron.
and Meton.' Ane..; Petavius, Uranolog. &c.) [A. De M.]
As to Meton, the son of Pausanias, and (on METO'PE (MFTsndr). 1. A daughter of the
either supposition) the follower of Phaeinus, Suidas Arcadian river-god Ladon, was married to Asopus,
calls him AvKovtr6v' (some read AsvKcovlVcs). Pto- and the mother of Thebe. (Apollod. iii. 12. ~ 6
lemy (de Apparent.) says he observed at Athens, Pind. 01. vi. 144, with the Schol.)
in'the Cyclades, in Macedonia, and'in Thrace; 2. A daughter of the river-god Asopus. (Schol.
unless indeed he meant one or two of these places ad Pind. Isthm. viii. 37.)
to be stated of Euctemon. A verse of Phrynichus 3. The wife of the river-god Sangarius and
(preserved by Suidas) describes him as Kpmas mother of Hecabe, the wife of Priam. (Apollod.
aiywv, whence his skill in hydraulics has been in- iii. 12. ~ 5.) [L. S.]
ferred. The discovery of the cycle of nineteen METO'PUS (Me'r'oros), a Pythagorean,. a
years (CALLIPPUS, and Dict. of Aatig., s. v. " Ca- native of Metapontum. A fragment of a work of
lendar, Greek") is referred to by Aelian (Var. his on virtue is still extant. (Stob. Sernm. i. p. 7
-iEst. x. 7), Censorinus (c. 18), Diodorus (xii. Fabric. Bibl. Geaec. vol. i.p. 852.) [C. P. M.]
36), Ptolemy (Synt. iii. 2), all of whom note METRO'BIUS (M7rpof'eos).. 1. One of the
or refer to a column or table erected by Meton at numerous Greek writers on the art of cookery,
Athens, setting forth this cycle and the observa- quoted by Athenaeus, was the author of a work
tions of the solstices which were made shortly entitled nXatcovrroeroficd' av/yyparua. (Athen.
before the epoch of commencement of the cycle. xiv. p. 643, e. f.)
From Ptolemy's words it appears-that the date of 2. An actor, who played women's parts (Avorl