Theuth
deity figure · 2 works · 2 mentions · 2 anchored passages
in the texts
Phaedrus
An ancient Egyptian god credited with inventing arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, games, and especially letters, who presents his inventions to Thamus for approval.
but when they came to the letters, This invention, O king, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories;
But Thamus replied, Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another;
Philebus
Egyptian god or godlike figure, described as 'god or godlike man,' credited in the passage with discovering the kinds of sounds and inventing the science of grammar.
When some one, whether god or godlike man,—there is an Egyptian story that his name was Theuth—observed that sound was infinite, he was the first to notice that the vowel sounds in that infinity were not one, but many, and again that there were other elements which were not vowels but did have a sonant quality, and that these also had a definite number;