Euthydemus

(Εὐθύδημος), an Athenian commander in the Peloponnesian war, was, at the close of its eighteenth year, B. C. 414, raised from a particular to a general command in the army besieging Syracuse. The object was to meet the urgent entreaty of Nicias for immediate relief from the burden of the sole superintendence, without making him wait for the arrival of the second armament. This position he appears to have occupied to the end, though probably subordinate as well to Demosthenes and Eurymedon as to Nicias. Whether he as well as his colleague Menander took part in the night attack on Epipolae appears doubtful. He is expressly named by Thucydides only once again, as united, in the last desperate engagement in the harbour, with Demosthenes and Menander in command of the ships. Diodorus names him in the previous sea-fight, as opposed on the left wing to the Syracusan Sicanus. Plutarch, who mentions his appointment with Menander, ascribes the occurrence of the second sea-fight, in which the Athenians received their first defeat, to the eagerness of the two new commanders to display their abilities. But this looks very like a late conjecture, such as Ephorus was fond of making, and is further inconsistent with the language of Thucydides, who represents the Syracusans as acting on the offensive, and shews in Nicias's letter that they had it in their power to force an engagement. Of his ultimate fate we are ignorant: his name (it is probably his) occurs as far back as the eighteenth year of the war, B. C. 422, among the signatures to the Lacedaemonan treaties. (Thuc. 5.19, 24, 7.16, 69; Diod. 13.13; Plut. Nicias, 100.20.) [A.H.C]

(Εὐθύδημος).

1. A sophist, was born at Chios, and migrated with his brother Dionysodorus to Thurii in Italy. Being exiled thence, they came to Athens, where they resided many years. The pretensions of Euthydemus and his brother are exposed by Plato in the dialogue which bears the name of the former. A sophism of Euthydemus, as illustrating the " fallacy of composition," is mentioned by Aristotle. (Plat. Euthydemus, Cratyl. p. 386; Arist. Rhet. 2.24.3, Soph. El. 20; Ath. xi. p. 506b; Sext. Emp. ad v. Math. 7.13.)

2. Son of Cephalus of Syracuse, and brother to Lysias the orator. (Plat. Rep. i. p. 328; see vol. i. p. 668a.)

3. Son of Diocles, and a disciple of Socrates, whom Xenophon represents as rebuking him, after his peculiar fashion, for imagining himself to know more than he did. (Plat. Conv. p. 222; Xen. Mem. 1.2.29, 4.2.)

4. A man of Sicyon, who made himself tyrant of the city, together with Timocleidas. On their deposition, according to Pausanias, the supreme power was committed to Cleinias, the father of Aratus. [Cleinias, No. 4.]

5. A writer on cookery, referred to by Athenaeus, who quotes certain verses of his on salted fish, set forth by him in joke as a genuine fragment of Hesiod. (Athen. 3.116a. xii. p. 516c.) [E.E]

(Εὐθύδημος), king of Bactria, was a native of Magnesia. (Plb. 11.34.) We know nothing of the circumstances attending his elevation to the sovereignty of Bactria, but he seems to have taken advantage of dissensions among the descendants of those who had first established the independenceof that country, and to have wrested the sovereign power either from Diodotus II. or some of his family. He then extended his power over the neighbouring provinces, so as to become the founder of the greatness of the Bactrian monarchy, though not the actual founder of the kingdom, as has been erroneously inferred from a passage in Strabo. (Strab. xi. p.515; Plb. 11.34; Wilson's Ariana, p. 220.) Antiochus the Great, after his expedition against Parthia in B. C. 212, proceeded to invade the territories of the Bactrian king. Euthydemus met him on the banks of the Arius, but was defeated and compelled to fall back upon Zariaspa, the capital of Bactria. (Plb. 10.49.) From hence he entered into negotiations with Antiochus, who appears to have despaired of effecting his subjugation by force, as he was readily induced to come to terms, by which he confirmed Euthydemus in the regal dignity, and gave one of his own daughters in marriage to his son Demetrius. In return for this, Euthydemus lent him his support in his Indian expedition. (Plb. 11.34.) The commencement of the reign of Euthydemus may be referred with mach probability to about B. C. 220. (Wilson's Ariana, p. 221.) Silver coins of this prince, of Greek style of workmanship and bearing Greek inscriptions, have been found in considerable numbers at Bokhara, Balkh, and other places within the limits of Bactria, thus attesting the exteat to which Greek civilization had been introduced into those remote regions. (Ibid. p. 222.)

[E.H.B]

(Εὐθύδημος). A sophist of Chios, who, with his brother Dionysodorus, migrated to Thurii in Italy. He gives its name to one of the dialogues of Plato, in which the philosophical pretensions of Euthydemus and his brother are ridiculed.

• Paus. 2.8.2