(Θέογνις).
1. Of Megara, an ancient elegiac and gnomic poet, whose reputed works form the most extensive collection of gnomic poetry, that has come down to us under any one name; but, unfortunately, the form in which these remains exist is altogether unsatisfactory. Most of our information respecting the poet's life is derived from his writings.
He was a native of Megara, the capital of Megaris (Harpocrat. s.v. Suid. s. v.), not of Megara Hyblaea, in Sicily; as Harpocration (l.c.) justly argues from a line of his poetry (5.783), in which he speaks of his going to Sicily, evidently as to a country which was not his native land, and as appears also from other passages of his writings. (See especially vv. 773, toll.) Harpocration is, however, in error, when he charges Plato with having fallen into a mistake, in making Theognis a citizen of Megara in Sicily (Leg. i. p. 630a.); for we can have no hesitation in accepting the explanation of the Scholiast on Plato, that Theognis was a native of Megara in Greece, but received also the citizenship as an honour from the people of Megara Hyblaea, whom he is known to have visited, and for whom one of his elegies was composed, as is proved by internal evidence. From his own poems also we learn that, besides Sicily, he visited Euboea and Lacedaemon, and that in all these places he was hospitably received (vv. 783, foll.). The circumstances which led him to wander from his native city will presently appear.
The time at which Theognis flourished is expressly stated by several writers as the 58th or 59th Olympiad, B. C. 548 or 544. (Cyrill. ad v. Julian. i. p. 13a., vii. p. 225c.; Euseb. Chron. ; Suid. s. v.). It is evident, from passages in his poems, that he lived till after the commencement of the Persian wars, B. C. 490. These statements may be reconciled, by supposing that he was about eighty at the latter date, and that he was born about B. C. 570. (Clinton, F. H. s. a. 544.) Cyril (l.c.) and Suidas (s. v. Φωκνλίδης) make him contemporary with Phocylides of Miletus.