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

EPICHARIS. EPICHARMUS. 29
lished by:Edw. Thwaites at Oxford, 1709.' There as no witnesses had been present at the communihave been several editions of separate works. cation, Epicharis easily refuted the accusation. She
Ephraem is also said to be the author of an was, however, kept in custody. Subsequently,
immense number of songs. He began to write when the conspiracy was discovered, Nero ordered
them in opposition to Harmonius, the son and her to be tortured because she refused naming any
disciple of Bardesanes the heretic, who composed of the accomplices; but neither blows, nor fire, nor
poetry involving many serious errors of doctrine, the increased fury of her tormentors, could extort
some of which were not only of an heretical but any confession from her. When on the second or
even of an heathen character, denying the resurrec- third day after she was carried in a sedan-chair —tion of the body, and containing views about the for her limbs were already broken-to be tortured
nature of the soul extracted from the writings of a second time, she strangled herself on her way by
pagan philosophers. These songs had become great her girdle, which she fastened to the chair. She
favourites among the common people, and Ephraem, thus acted, as Tacitus says, more nobly than many
to oppose their evil tendency, wrote other songs in a noble eques or senator, who without being tortured
similar metres and adapted to the same music of a betrayed their nearest relatives. (Tac. Ann. xv.
pious and Christian character. (Sozomen, I. c.; 51, 57; Dion Cass. lxii. 27.) [L. S.]
Theodoret, iv. 27; Cave, Script. Eccl. Hist. Liter. EPICHARMUS ('E7riXapuos), the chief comic
part 1. sec. 4; C. Lengerke, Commentatio Critica poet among the Dorians, was born in the island of
de Ephraemo Syrio SS. interprete, qua simul Ver- Cos about the 60th Olympiad (B. c. 540). His
sionis Syriacae, quam Peschito vocant, Lectiones father, Elothales, was a physician, of the race of
variae ex.phraemo Commentariis collectae, exhiben- the Asclepiads, and the profession of medicine
tur, Halle, 1828, and De Ephraemi Syri arte seems to have been followed for some time by Epihermeneutica liber, 1831.) [ [G. E. L. C.] charmus himself, as well as by his brother.
E'PHYRA ('E~ppa), a daughter of Oceanus, At the age of three months he was carried to
from whom Ephyraea, the ancient name of Cor- Megara, in Sicily; or, according to the account
inth was derived. (Paus. ii. 1. ~ 1; Virg. Geoyq. preserved by Suidas, he went thither at a much
iv. 343.) [L. S.] later period, with Cadmus (a. c. 484). Thence he
EPIBATE'RIUS ('E7rLCaTr4nos), the god who removed to Syracuse, with the other inhabitants
conducts men on board a ship, a surname of of Megara, when the latter city was destroyed by
Apollo, under which Diomedes on his return from Gelon (B. C. 484 or 483). Here he spent the reTroy built him a temple at Troezene. (Paus. ii. mainder of his life, which was prolonged through32. ~ 1.) In. the same sense Apollo bore the sur- out the reign of Hieron, at whose court Epicharmus
name of'EuCdraios. (Apollon. Rhod. i. 404.) [L. S.] associated with the other great writers of the time,
EPICASTE ('ErtKdalr77), a daughter of Menoe- and among them, with Aeschylus, who seems to
ceus, and wife of Laius, by whom she became the have had some influence on his dramatic course.
mother of Oedipus, whom she afterwards un- He died at the age of ninety (B. c. 450), or, acwittingly married. She is more commonly called cording to Lucian, ninety-seven (B. c. 443). The
Jocaste. (Horn. Od. xi. 271; Apollod. iii. 5. ~ 7, city of Syracuse erected a statue to him, the in&c.; see OEDIPUS.) Respecting Epicaste, the scription on which is preserved by Diogenes Laerdaughter of Calydon, see AGENOR, No. 4; a third tius. (Diog. Laiirt. viii. 78; Suid. s. v.; Lucian,
Epicaste is mentioned by Apollodorus. (ii. 7. Macrob. 25; Aelian, V. H. ii. 34; Plut. Moral.
~ 8.) [L. S.] pp. 68, a., 175, c.; MarmorPariumns, No. 55.)
EPICELEUSTUS ('ElriKrevcr0os), a native of In order to understand the relation of EpicharCrete, who lived probably in the second or first mus to the early-comic poetry, it must be rememcentury B. C. He is mentioned by Erotianus bered that Megara, in Sicily, was a colony from
(Gloss. Hippocr. p. 8) as having abridged and Megara on the Isthmus, the inhabitants of which
differently arranged the work by Baccheius on the disputed with the Athenians the invention of
obsolete words found in the writings of Hippo- comedy, and where, at all events, a kind of comedy
crates. _[W. A. G.] was known as early as the beginning of the sixth
EPI'CHARIS ('E7r1Xaps), a freedwoman of century B. C. [SUSARION.] This comedy (whether
bad repute, who was implicated in the conspiracy it was lyric or also dramatic, which is a doubtful
of Piso'against the life of Nero, in A. D. 65, in point) was of course found by Epicharmus existing
which the philosopher Seneca also was involved. at the Sicilian Megara; and he, together with
According to Polyaenus (viii. 62), she was the Phormis, gave it a new form, which Aristotle demistress of a brother of Seneca, and it may be that scribes by the words To u'0ovs 7roieLv (Poet. 6 or
through this connexion she became acquainted with 5, ed. Ritter),' a phrase which some take to mean
the plot of the conspirators, though Tacitus says comedies with a regular plot; and others, comedies
that it was unknown by what means she had ac- on mythological subjects. The latter seems to be
quired her knowledge of-it. She endeavoured by the better interpretation; but either explanation
all means to stimulate the conspirators to carry establishes a clear distinction between the comedy
their plan into effect. But as they acted slowly of Epicharmus and that of Megara, which seems to
and with great hesitation, she at length grew tired, have been little more than a sort of low buffoonery.
and resolved upon trying to win over the sailors of With respect to the time when Epicharmus bethe fleet of Misenum in Campania, where she was gan to compose comedies, much confusion has
staying. One- Volusius Proculus, a chiliarch of arisen from the statement of Aristotle (or an inthe fleet, appears to have been the first that was terpolator), that Epicharmus lived long befbre
initiated by her in the secret, but no names were Chionides. (Poet. 3; CHIONIDES.) We have,
mentioned to him. Proculus had no sooner ob- however, the express and concurrent testimonies of
tained the information than he betrayed the whole the anonymous writer On Comedy (p. xxviii.), that
plot to Nero. Epicharis was summoned before the he flourished about the 73rd Olympiad, and of
emperor, but;as no names had been mentioned, and I Suidas (s. v.), that he wrote six years before the