A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Ναυμάχιος), a Gnomic poet. Of the age in which he lived nothing is known. In addition to the verses which bear his name, there has been conjecturally attributed to him a moral poem, assigned by Gesner to Phocylides, which Brunck thinks inferior to the known productions of Naumachius. There are three fragments of this author in hexameters preserved by Stobaeus. 1. Eleven lines of what seems to be an introduction to a poem on the due management of the marriage state on the part of women; the introduction, however, dissuading from marriage, and recommending celibacy. 2. Fifty-eight lines of what seems to be the poem itself. The instructions are exceedingly comprehensive, including most sensible and prudent directions for the behaviour of a good wife to a wise and to a foolish husband, for the regulation of her household, her choice of companions, and her dress. He disapproves of second marriages, and enjoins cheerfulness and discretion. 3. Four lines and a portion of a fifth, depreciating gold, precious stones, and purple clothing. The first and third fragments have more of poetry than the larger piece, but the language of all is pure, and the style glowing and spirited. It must have been from a seeming allusion in the first to the superiority of celibacy, as introducing to a mystic marriage, where the virgin becomes queen of women, that the suggestion has been made that Naumachius was a Christian writer. If so, however, we could not have failed to detect in the second extract some allusion to the injunctions of Scripture on the subject. But there seems to be no reason to doubt that his notions were purified by an acquaintance with the maxims of Christianity. (Stobaeus, vol. iii. pp. 22, 68, 234, ed. Gaisford; translated by Hugo Grotius in Stobaeus, iv. p. 164, &c. p. 187, &c., 224, ed. Gaisford; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. pp. 721, 726.)

[W.M.G]