Charon

• Charon, a ferryman in the Lower World, Cic. N. D. 3, 17, 43; Verg. A. 6, 299; id. Cul. 216; Sen. Herc. Fur. 771. —Hence,
• • B Chărōnēus, a, um, adj., of Charon, of the Lower World: scrobes, deep, Plin. 2, 93, 95, § 208.—
• II A Theban, Nep. Pelop. 2, 5.

(Χάρων), a son of Erebos, the aged and dirty ferryman in the lower world, who conveyed in his boat the shades of the dead--though only of those whose bodies were buried--across the rivers of the lower world. (Verg. A. 6.295, &c.; Senec. Herc. Fur. 764.) For this service he was paid by each shade with an obolus or danace, which coin was placed in the mouth of every dead body previous to its burial. This notion of Charon seems to be of late origin, for it does not occur in any of the early poets of Greece. (Paus. 10.28.1; Juv. 3.267; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1666.) Charon was represented in the Lesche of Delphi by Polygnotus. [L.S]

(Χάρων), a distinguished Theban, who exposed himself to much danger by concealing Pelopidas and his fellow-conspirators in his house, when they returned to Thebes with the view of delivering it from the Spartans and the oligarchical government, B. C. 379. Charon himself took an active part in the enterprise, and, after its success, was made Boeotarch together with Pelopidas and Mellon. (Xen. Hell. 5.4.3; Plut. Pelop. 7-13, de Gen. Soc. passim.) [E.E]

(Χάρων), literary.

1. A historian of Lampsacus, is mentioned by Tertullian (de Anim. 46) as prior to Herodotus, and is said by Suidas (s. v.) according to the common reading, to have flourished (γενόμενος) in the time of Dareius Hystaspis, in the 79th Olympiad (B. C. 464); but, as Dareius died in B. C. 485, it has been proposed to read ξθ́ for οθ́ in Suidas, thus placing the date of Charon in Ol. 69 or B. C. 504. He lived, however, as late as B. C. 464, for he is referred to by Plutarch (Plut. Them. 27) as mentioning the flight of Themistocles to Asia in B. C. 465. Works

We find the following list of his works in Suidas : 1. Αἰθιοπικά 2. Περσικά. 3. Ἑλληνικά. 4. Περὶ Λαμψάκου. 5. Λιβυκά. 6. Ὅροι Λαμψακηνῶν, a work quoted by Athenaeus Athen. 11.475c., where Schweighaeuser proposes to substitute ὧροι comp. Diod. 1.26, thus making its subject to be the annals of Lampsacus. 7. Πρυτάνεις ἢ Ἄρχοντες οἱ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, a chronological work. 8. Κτίσεις πόλεων. 9. Κρητικά. 10. Περίπλους ὁ ἐκτὸς τῶν Ἡρακλείων στηλῶν. Editions

The fragments of Charon, together with those of Hecataeus and Xanthus, have been published by Creuzer, Heidelberg, 1806, and by Car. and Th. Müller, Fragm. Histor. Graec. Paris, 1841. Further Information

Besides the references above given, comp. Plut. de Mul. Virt. s. v. Λαμψάκη; Strab. xiii. p.583 ; Paus. 10.38; Athen. 12.520d.; Ael. V. H. i 15 ; Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. 2.2, 479; Voss. de Hist. Graec. b. 1.100.1; Clint. Fast. sub annis 504, 464.

2. Of Carthage, wrote an account of all the tyrants of Europe and Asia, and also the lives of illustrious men and women. (Suid. s.v. Voss. de Hist. Graec. p. 415, ed. Westermann.)

3. Of Naucratis, was the author of a history of the Alexandrian and Egyptian priests, and of the events which occurred under each; likewise of a treatise on Naucratis, and other works. (Suid. s. v.) The Charon who was a friend of Apollonius Rhodius, and wrote a historical commentary on his Argonaulica, has been identified by some with the historian of Naucratis, by others with the Carthaginian. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. b. 3.100.21; Voss. de Hist. Graec. pp. 20, 138, 144, 415, ed. Westermann ; Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. 2.1054.) [E.E]

• , Χάρων, the ferryman of the Lower World, C., V.

(Χάρων). (1) A deity of the lower world, son of Erebus and Nyx, who conducted the souls of the dead in a boat over the river Acheron to the infernal regions. The sum exacted for this service, from each of the shades ferried over by him, was never less than an obolus, nor could it exceed three. A piece of money, therefore, was generally placed by the ancients under the tongue of the deceased, in order to meet this necessary demand. Such as had not been honoured with a funeral were not permitted to enter Charon 's boat without previously wandering on the shore for one hundred years. If any living person presented himself to cross the river of the dead, he could not be admitted into the bark before he showed Charon a golden bough, obtained from the Cumaean sibyl; and the ferryman was on one occasion imprisoned for an entire year because he had, though against his own will, conveyed Heracles across the stream without first receiving from him this necessary passport. The poets have represented Charon as a robust old man, of a severe though animated countenance, with eyes glowing like flame, a white and bushy head, vestments of a dingy colour, stained with the mire of the stream, and with a pole for the direction of his bark, which last is of a dark rusty hue.

The earliest mention of Charon in Grecian poetry seems to be in the ancient poem of the Minyas, quoted by Pausanias (x. 28). The fable itself is considered by some to be of Egyptian origin, and in support of this opinion they refer to the account of Diodorus Siculus relative to the statements made by the Egyptian priests. The latter asserted, it seems, that Orpheus and Homer had both learned wisdom on the banks of the Nile; and that the Erebus of Greece, and all its parts, personages, and usages, were but transcripts of the mode of burial in Egypt; and here the corpse was, on payment of an obolus, conveyed by a ferryman (named Charon in the language of Egypt) over the Acherusian Lake after it had received its sentence from the judges appointed for that purpose.

(2) One of the earlier Greek historical writers, a native of Lampsacus, supposed to have flourished between the seventy-fifth and seventyeighth Olympiads, about B.C. 464. Charon continued the researches of Hecataeus into Eastern ethnography. He wrote (as was the custom of the historians of his day) separate works upon Persia, Libya, Aethiopia, etc. He also subjoined the history of his own time, and he preceded Herodotus in narrating the events of the Persian War, although Herodotus nowhere mentions him. From the fragments of his writings which remain, it is manifest that his relation to Herodotus was that of a dry chronicler to an historian, under whose hands everything acquires life and character. Charon wrote, besides, a chronicle of his own country, as several of the early historians did, who were thence called “Horographers” (ὧροι, corresponding to the Latin annales, ought not to be confounded with ὅροι, termini, limites). The fragments of Charon have been collected by Kreuzer, in his Historicorum Graecorum Antiquissimorum Fragmenta, p. 89 foll.; and by Müller, Frag. Histor. Graec. (Paris, 1841).

• Paus. 10.28.2, 4

• a Lampsacenian historian: Paus. 10.38.11