STOICS. School of philosophy, so called from the Stoa Poecile, or Painted Porch, at Athens, in which Zeno their founder taught. Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, were the first three heads, starting 310 B.C. Stoicism was a great influence among the Romans, as with the emperor M. Aurelius. Its aim was purely practical, to make man independent of his surroundings. The 'wise man,' who formed his views on pure reason, would recognize that virtue or duty was the only end, and that pleasure and pain, wealth, power, and everything else that did not depend on his own choice, were 'things indifferent.' He would ultimately attain to 'apathy,' and be completely unmoved by the ordinary objects of desire or aversion, being, in whatever external condition, the 'only king,' the 'only happy.' They paid great attention to logic, much reasoning being necessary to establish these paradoxes, whence their reputation for verbal quibbles, and their elaborate technical terms for the relations between sensation and the mental processes. Later Stoics relaxed the severity of the 'indifference' doctrine by dividing _indifferentia_ into _praeposita_ and _rejecta_; e.g. health was to be preferred to sickness, though virtue was consistent with either. This would open the door to the preference of wealth, and account for Lucian's sneer at Stoic usurers. The Stoic physics was a materialistic pantheism. STRATONICE. See ANTIOCHUS. STYX. 'Loathing,' one of the infernal rivers. The oath by it was the only one that could bind the Immortals. TAENARUM. Southern point of Greece, supposed way from earth to Hades. TALENT. Sum of money, about £250. TALOS (1). Nephew of Daedalus, famous artificer, worshipped as a hero at Athens. TALOS (2). A brazen man made by Hephaestus, given to Minos, and employed as a sentinel to walk round Crete thrice daily. TANAGRA. Town in Boeotia, famous for a breed of fighting cocks. TELLUS. See _Charon_ (10). TEREUS. Son of Ares and king of Thrace, committed bigamy with Procne and Philomela, daughters of Pandion. The two wives were changed at their own request to nightingale and swallow, and Tereus became a hoopoe. TEUCER. Step-brother of Ajax Telamonius, and best archer among the Greeks at Troy. THAIS. A famous Athenian courtesan, accompanied Alexander. THAMYRIS. Thracian bard, blinded by the Muses for presuming to challenge them. THEANO (1). Wife of Antenor and priestess of Athene at Troy. THEANO (2). Female philosopher of Pythagoras's school, perhaps his wife. THEBE. A daughter of Prometheus, from whom Thebes had its name. THEMISTOCLES. Saviour of Greece in the Persian war, 480-478 B.C.; he convinced the Athenians that the famous oracle meant by 'wooden walls,' and 'divine Salamis,' to promise a naval victory there if they trusted to their fleet. THEOPHRASTUS. Head of the Peripatetic school after Aristotle. THEOPOMPUS. Of Chios, historian, of the fourth century B.C. THERICLES. A Corinthian potter, of uncertain date.