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

PRAXAGORAS. PRAXIAS 517
were called JpXo7i'acoi, front the large part which heart was the source of the nerves (an opinion
the choral dances bore in their dranlas. which he held with Aristotle), and that the ramii(Casaub. de Satyr. Poes. Graec. lib. i. c. 5; fications of the artery, which he saw issue from
Na.ke, Choeril. p. 12; Muller, Dooier, vol. ii. pp. the heart, were ultimately converted into nerves,
334, 361, 362, 2nd ed., Gesch. d. Griechl. Lit. vol. ii. as they contracted ill diameter (Galen, de Hippocr.
p. 39, Eng. trans. vol. i. p. 295; Ulrici, Gesca. d. et Plat. Decr. i. 6, vol. v. p. 187). * Some parts
itell. Dichtk. vol. ii. pp. 497, f.; Bode, Gescih. d. of his medical practice appear to have been very
Ifell. Dic/htk. vol. iii. pt. i. pp. 79, f.; Welcker, bold, as, for instance, his venturing, in cases of
die Griech. Trac. pp. 17, 18, Nac/ltr. z. Aesc/h. ileus when attended with introsusception, to open
Triloq. p. 276; Kayser, Hist. Crit. Tray. Graec. the abdomen in order to replace the intestine
p. 70.) [P. S.] (Cael. Aurel. de AMorb. Acut. iii. 17. p. 244). lie
PRAXA/GORAS (Ipataydpas), an Athenian, wrote several medical works, of which only the
lived after the time of Constantine the Great, pro- titles and some fragments remain, preserved by
bably under his sons. He wrote at the age of Galen, Caelius Aurelius, and other writers. A
nineteen, two books on the Athenian kings; at fuller account of his opinions may be found in
the age of twenty-two, two books on the history of Sprenlgel's tist. de la Ml3d., and Kuhn's ConLConstantine; and at the age of thirty-one, six rentetuio de Piraxagora Coo, reprinted in the second
books on the history of Alexander the Great. All volume of his Opusculu Accadesica iMledica et Ph/ilothese works were written in the Ionic dialect. oyqica, p. 1281, &c. There is an epigram by CrinaNone of them has come down to us with the ex- goras, in honour of Praxagoras in the Greek
ception of a few extracts made by Photius, from Anthology. (An4t/s. /'lun. 273.) [W. A. G.]
the history of Constantine. In this work Praxa- PRAXASPES (lpadcarsrvs), a Persian, who
goras, though a heathen, placed Constantine before was high in fiavour with king Cambyses, and acted
all other emperors. (Phot. Cod. 62.) as his messenger. By his means Cambyses had
PRAXA'GORAS (rlpaa'yo'pas), a celebrated his brother Simerdis assassinated. In one of his
physician, who was a native of the island of Cos. fits of madness, Cambyses shot the son of Prax(Galen, de Uteri Dissect. c. 10, vol. ii. p. 905, et aspes with an arrow through the heart, in the
alibi.) His father's name was Nicarchus* (Galen, presence of his father. When the news of the
loco cit.; de Facult. Nat. ii. 9, vol. ii. p. 141, de usurpation of Smerdis reached Cambyses, he naTremore, c. 1, vol. vii. p. 584), and he belonged to turally suspected Praxaspes of not having fulfilled
the family of the Asclepiadae (id. de Mleth. Med. his directions. The latter, however, succeeded in
i. 3, vol. x. p. 28). He was the tutor of Philoti- clearing himself. After the death of Cambyses,
amus (id. loco cit.; de Aliment. Facult. i. 12, vol. vi. the Magians deemed it advisable to elndeavour to
p. 509), Plistonicus (Cels. de M1Ied. i. praef. p. 6), secure the co-operation of Praxaspes, as he was
and Herophilus (Galen, de Differ. Puls. iv. 3, the only person who could certify the death of
vol. viii. p. 723, de Slethi. Med. i. 3, vol. x. Smerdis, having murdered him with his ownI
p. 28, de Tremore, c. 1, vol. vii. p. 585); and as hands. lie at first assented to their proposals,
lie was a contemporary of Chrysippus, and lived but having been directed by them to proclaim to
shortly after Diocles Carystius (Cels. de illed. i. the assembled Persians that the pretender was
praef., p. 5; Pliny, 11. N., xxvi. 6), he may be really the son of Cyrus, he, on the contrary, desafely placed in the fourth century B. c. He be- clared the stratagem that was being practised,
longed to the medical sect of the Dogmatici (Galen, and then threw himself headlong from the tower
Introd. c. 4, vol. xiv. p. 683), and was celebrated on which he was standing, and so perished. (Herod.
for his knowledge of medical science in general, iii. 30, 33, 34, 62, 66, 74.) [C. P. M.]
and especially for his attainments in anatomy and PRA'XIAS (npaitas), artists. 1. An Athenian
physiology. He was one of the chief defenders sculptor of the age of Pheidias, but of the more
of the humoral pathology, who placed the seat of archaic school of Calamis, commenced the execution
all diseases in the humours of the body (id. ibid. of the statues in the pediments of the great temple of
c. 9, p. 699). He is supposed by Sprengel (Hist. de Apollo at Delphi, but died while he was still enla Meid., vol. i. p. 422, 3), Hecker (Gesch. der Heilk. gaged upon the work, which was completed by
vol. i. p. 219), and others, to have been the first another Athenian artist, Androsthenes, the disciple
person who pointed out the distinction between of Eucadmus. (Paus. x. 19. ~ 3. s. 4.)
the veins and the arteries; but this idea is con- The date of Praxias may be safely placed about
troverted (and apparently with success) by M. 01. 83, B.c. 448, and onwards. His master CalaLittri ((Euvres d'llippocr. vol. i. p. 202, &c.), who ntis flourished about B. c. 467, and belonged to the
shows that the distinction in question is alluded to last period of the archaic school, which immediately
by Aristotle (if the treatise deSpiritu be genuine), preceded Pheidias. [See PHEIDluS, P. 245, b.]
Hippocrates (or at least the author of the treatise Moreover, the indications which we have of the
de Articulis, who was anterior to Praxagoras), time when the temple at Delphi was decorated by
Diogenes Apolloniates, and Euryphon. Many of a number of Athenian artists, point to the period
his anatomical opinions have been preserved, which between a. c. 448 and 430, and go to show that
show that he was in advance of his contemporaries the works were executed at about the very time
ill this branch of medical knowledge. On the
other hand, several curious and capital errors have * As the word ve6pom sometimes signifies a ligabeen attributed to him, as, for instance, that the ment, as well as a nerve, in the ancient writers (see
note to the Oxford edition of Theophilus de Corp.
* In Galen, Coamient. in Hippocr. "Aphor." Hum. Falbr. p. 204, 1. 5), Sprengel and others have
i. 12, vol. xvii. pt. ii. p. 400. NmKacvspovl must be supposed that the word bears this meaning in the
a mistake for N.ca'pXov. In some modern works passage referred to, but Kiih, with more probability
his father is called Nl.ea-clshs, but perhaps without considers that the more common signification of the
any ancient authority. word is the true one (Oupsc. vol. ii. p. 140).
LL 3