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

550 PROSPER. PROTAGORAS.
the same time, that the existence of this second published at Mayence, 4to. 1494, as " Epigrammata
Prosper as a personage distinct from the antagonist Sancti Prosperi episcopi regiensis de Vitiis et Virof the Semipelagians, has never been clearly de- tutibus ex dictis Augustini," and reprinted by
rumonstrated, and consequently all statements re- Aldus, 4to. Venet. 1501, along with other Chrisgarding him must be received with caution and tian poems. Next appeared the treatise De Graltia
distrust. Dei, printed by Schoeffer at Mayence, 4to. 1524,
3. Labbe, in his Nova Bibliotheca MSS. Libro- as "S. Prosperi Presbyteri Aquitanici Libellus adrum, fol. Paris, 1657, published the Chronicon Con- versus inimicos Gratiae Dei contra Collatorem," in
sulare, with another chronicle prefixed, commencing a volume containing the epistle of Aurelius, bishop
with Adam, and reaching down to the point where of Carthage, the epistle of Pope Coelestinus, and
the Consulare begins. This was pronounced by other authorities upon the same subject. Then
Labbe to be the complete work as it issued from followed the Epistola ad Rufinumn and the Responthe hands of Prosper, the portion previously known siones ad Excesptca, &c. 8vo. Venet. 1538, and
having been, upon this supposition, detached from soon after Gryphius published at Leyden, fbl.
the rest, for the sake of being tacked as a supple- 1539, the first edition of the collected works, carement to the chronicle of Jerome. The form and fully corrected by the collation of MSS. The
style, however, of the earlier section are so com- edition of Olivarius, 8vo. Duaci, 1577, was long
pletely different from the remainder, that the opi- regarded as the standard, but far superior to all
nion of Labbe has found little favour with critics. others is the Benedictine, fol. Paris, 1711, superFor full information with regard to these chro- intended by Le Brun de Marette and D. Mannicles, and the various opinions which have been geaut.
broached as to their origin, we may refer to Ron- Full information with regard to the interminable
calli, Ve!ust. Lat. Script. Chronicorem, 4to. Patav. controversies arising out of the works of Prosper is
i787; Rbsler, Chronica l Medii Aevi, Tubing. 1798; contained in the notes and dissertations of the
Graevius, Tlhesczur. Antiq. Ronm. vol. xi. Benedictines, in the dissertations of Quesnel and
III. POETICAL. Among the works of the the Ballerini in their respective editions of the
Christian poets which form the fifth volume of the works of Leo the Great, and in a rare volume " De
"'Collectio Pisaurensis" (4to. Pisaur. 1766), the veris Operibus SS. Patrum Leonis Magni et Prosfollowing are attributed to Prosper Aquitanicus, peri Aquitani Dissertationes criticae. &c." 4to.
but we must premise that they have been Paris, 1689, by Josephus Antelmius, to which
collected from many different sources, that they Quesnel put forth a reply in the Ephemerides Paunquestionably are not all from the same pen, and risienses, viii. and xv. August, 1689, and Antelthat it is very difficult to decide whether we are mius a duply in two Epistolae duabus _Epistolae
to regard Prosper Aquitanicus and Prosper Tiro, P. Quesnelli partibus responsoriae, 4to. Paris, 1690.
the latter name being prefixed to several of these (See the works on the Semipelagian heresy repieces in the MSS., as the same or as distinct in- ferred to at the end of the articles CASSIANuS and
divideuals. PELAGIUS.) [W. R.]
1. Exsententiis S. Augustini fEpigramee2aium iTher PROSTA'TIUS, a Roman artist in mosaic, of
vnus, a series of one hundred and six epigrams ill the time of the emperors, whose name is inscribed
elegiac verse, on various topics connected with on a mosaic pavement found at Aventicum (Avenspeculative, dogmatical, and practical theology, and ches) in Switzerland. (Schmidt, Antiq. de la Suisse,
with morals. Thus the third is De Essentia Dei- pp. 17, 19, 24; R. Rochette, Lettre a MIf. Schorn,
tatis, the thirty-ninth De Jastitia et Gratia, the p. 394.) [P. S.]
twenty-second De diligendo Deum, the hundred PROTA'GORAS (IpcorTayoepas), was born at
and fifth De cohibenda Ira. Abdera, according to the concurrent testimony of
2. Carmen de Ingratis, in dactylic hexameters, Plato and several other writers. (Protcq. p. 309, c.,
divided into four parts and forty-five chapters. Al De Rep. x. p. 606, c.; Heracleides Pont. ap. Diog.
introduction is prefixed in five elegiac couplets, of Laert. ix. 55; Cicero, de Nat. Deor. i. 23, &c.) By
which the first two explain the nature and extent the comic poet Eupolis (op. Diog. Laiirt. ix. 50),
of the poem. he is called a Teian (TO4os), probably with referUnde voluntatis sanctae subsistat origo, ence to the Teian origin of that city (Herod. i.
Unde naeimis pietas iccsit, et unde fides. 168, &c.), just as Hecataeus the Abderite is by
Adversum ingrats falsa et virtte superbo Strabo. (See Ed. Geist in a programme of the
Adversum ingratos, falsa et virtute superbos,
Centenis decies versibus excolui. Paedagogium at Giessen, 1827; comp. Fr. Hermann
in the Schulzeitung, 1830, ii. p. 509.) In the
3. In Obtrectatorem S. Augustini Epigramma, in manifestly corrupted text of the Psectdo-Galen us
five elegiac couplets. 4. Another, on the same (de Philos. Hist. c. 8), he is termed ail Elean (coinsubject, in six elegiac couplets. 5. Eitaphiucz pare J. Frei, Qeaestiones Protgaoreae, Bonnae,
Nestorianae et Pelagianae haereseon, in eleven 1845, p. 5). By the one his father is called Arelegiac couplets, in which " Nestoriana Haeresis temon, by the others Maeandrius or Maleander
loquitur." Written after the condemnation of the (Diog. Laiirt. ix. 50, ib. Interp.), whom Philostratels
Nestorians by the council of Ephesus in A. D. 431. (p. 494), probably confounding him with tie
6. Uxorem hortatur ut se totam Deo dedicet, in father of Democritus, describes as very rich; Diofifty-three elegiac couplets, with an introduction in genes Lairtius (ib. 53) as miserably poor. The
sixteen Iambic Dimeters Catalectic (Anacreon- well-known story, however, that Protagoras was
tics). Besides the above there is a Carmen de once a poor porter, and that the skill with which
Providen/ha divina, in some editions of Prosper, he had fastened together, and poised upon his
which is rejected by Antelmius, and made over by shoulders, a large bundle of wood, attracted the
some scholars to Hilarius. attention of Democritus, who conceived a liking
The first among the works ascribed to Prosper for him, took him under his care, and instructed
which issued from the press was the Epigrammata him (Epicurus in Diog. LaSrt. x. 8, ix. 53.; Aul.