See J.A. Ambrosch, De Charonte Etrusco (1837), a learned and exhaustive monograph; B. Schmidt, Volksleben der Neugriechen (1871), i. 222-251; O. Waser, Charon, Charun, Charos, mythologisch-archaologische Monographie (1898); S. Rocco, “Sull’ origine del Mito di Caronte,” in Rivista di storia antica, ii. (1897), who considers Charon to be an old name for the sun-god Helios embarking during the night for the East.
CHARONDAS, a celebrated lawgiver of Catina in Sicily. His date is uncertain. Some make him a pupil of Pythagoras (c. 580-504 B.C.); but all that can be said is that he was earlier than Anaxilaus of Rhegium (494-476), since his laws were in use amongst the Rhegians until they were abolished by that tyrant. His laws, originally written in verse, were adopted by the other Chalcidic colonies in Sicily and Italy. According to Aristotle there was nothing special about these laws, except that Charondas introduced actions for perjury; but he speaks highly of the precision with which they were drawn up (Politics, ii. 12). The story that Charondas killed himself because he entered the public assembly wearing a sword, which was a violation of his own law, is also told of Diocles and Zaleucus (Diod. Sic. xii. 11-19). The fragments of laws attributed to him by Stobaeus and Diodorus are of late (neo-Pythagorean) origin.
See Bentley, On Phalaris, which (according to B. Niese s.v. in Pauly, Realencyclopadie) contains what is even now the best account of Charondas; A. Holm, Geschichte Siciliens, i.; F.D. Gerlach, Zaleukos, Charondas, und Pythagoras (1858); also art. [Greek Law].
CHARPENTIER, FRANÇOIS (1620-1702), French archaeologist and man of letters, was born in Paris on the 15th of February 1620. He was intended for the bar, but was employed by Colbert, who had determined on the foundation of a French East India Company, to draw up an explanatory account of the project for Louis XIV. Charpentier regarded as absurd the use of Latin in monumental inscriptions, and to him was entrusted the task of supplying the paintings of Lebrun in the Versailles Gallery with appropriate legends. His verses were so indifferent that they had to be replaced by others, the work of Racine and Boileau, both enemies of his. Charpentier in his Excellence de la langue française (1683) had anticipated Perrault in the famous academical dispute concerning the relative merit of the ancients and moderns. He is credited with a share in the production of the magnificent series of medals that commemorate the principal events of the age of Louis XIV. Charpentier, who was long in receipt of a pension of 1200 livres from Colbert, was erudite and ingenious, but he was always heavy and commonplace. His other works include a Vie de Socrate (1650), a translation of the Cyropaedia of Xenophon (1658), and the Traité de la peinture parlante (1684).
CHARRIÈRE, AGNÈS ISABELLE ÉMILIE DE (1740-1805), Swiss author, was Dutch by birth, her maiden name being van Tuyll van Seeroskerken van Zuylen. She married in 1771 her brother’s tutor, M. de Charrière, and settled with him at Colombier, near Lausanne. She made her name by the publication of her Lettres neuchâteloises (Amsterdam, 1784), offering a simple and attractive picture of French manners. This, with Caliste, ou lettres écrites de Lausanne (2 vols. Geneva, 1785-1788), was analysed and highly praised by Sainte-Beuve in his Portraits de femmes and in vol. in of his Portraits littéraires. She wrote a number of other novels, and some political tracts; but is perhaps best remembered by her liaison with Benjamin Constant between 1787 and 1796.
Her letters to Constant were printed in the Revue suisse (April 1844), her Lettres-Mémoires by E.H. Gaullieur in the same review in 1857, and all the available material is utilized in a monograph on her and her work by P. Godet, Madame de Charrière et ses amis (2 vols., Geneva, 1906).