Charis, a goddess among the Greeks, surrounded with pleasures, graces, and delight. She was the wife of Vulcan. Homer, Iliad, bk. 18, li. 382.
Charisia, a town of Arcadia. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 3.——A festival in honour of the Graces, with dances which continued all night. He who continued awake the longest was rewarded with a cake.
Charisius, an orator at Athens. Cicero, Brutus, ch. 83.
Charistia, festivals at Rome celebrated on the 20th of February, by the distribution of mutual presents, with the intention of reconciling friends and relations. Valerius Maximus, bk. 2, ch. 1.—Ovid, Fasti, bk. 2.
Charĭtes and Gratiæ, the Graces, daughters of Venus by Jupiter or Bacchus, are three in number—Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne. They were the constant attendants of Venus, and they were represented as three young, beautiful, and modest virgins, all holding one another by the hand. They presided over kindness, and all good offices, and their worship was the same as that of the nine muses, with whom they had a temple in common. They were generally represented naked, because kindness ought to be done with sincerity and candour. The moderns explain the allegory of their holding their hands joined, by observing that there ought to be a perpetual and never-ceasing intercourse of kindness and benevolence among friends. Their youth denotes the constant remembrance that we ought ever to have of kindnesses received; and their virgin purity and innocence teach us that acts of benevolence ought to be done without any expectation of restoration, and that we ought never to suffer others or ourselves to be guilty of base or impure favours. Homer speaks only of two Graces.
Charĭton, a writer of Aphrodisium, at the latter end of the fourth century. He composed a Greek romance called The Loves of Chæreas and Callirhoe, which has been much admired for its elegance, and the originality of the characters it describes. There is a very learned edition of Chariton, by Reiske, with D’Orville’s notes, 2 vols., 4to, Amsterdam, 1750.
Charmădas, a philosopher of uncommon memory. Pliny, bk. 7, ch. 24.
Charme and Carme, the mother of Britomartis by Jupiter.
Charmides, a Lacedæmonian, sent by the king to quell a sedition in Crete. Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 2.——A boxer. Pausanias, bk. 6, ch. 7.——A philosopher of the third academy, B.C. 95.
Charmīnus, an Athenian general, who defeated the Peloponnesians. Thucydides, bk. 8, ch. 42.