Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/315

Rh ARISTEUS. The age and country of A listcides are unknown, but the title of his work is thouglit to favour the conjecture that he was a native of Miletus. Vos- sius (de Hist. Graec. p. 401, ed. Westermann) supposes, that he was the same person as the Aris- leides of Miletus, whose works on Sicilian, Italian, and Persian history (2j/feAtKa, 'iToAtfcci, Ilepa-t/cct) are several times quoted by Plutarch {Parall.)^ and that the author of the historical work mpi Kvihov was also the same person. (Schol. Pind. Pt/ih.in.U.) [P. S.] ARISTEIDES QUINTILIA'NUS {'Apitrrd- Sr}s KoiVTtAtoj'os), the author of a treatise in three books on music {Tlepl Movo-iktjs). Nothing is known of his history, nor is he mentioned by anj- ancient writer. But he must have lived after Cicero, whom he quotes (p. 70), and before Marti- anus Capella, who has made use of this treatise in liis work De Nupiiis Philologiue et Mercurii, lib. 9. It seems probable also that he must be placed be- fore Ptolemy, since he does not mention the dif- ference between that writer and his predecessors with respect to the number of the modes. ( Aristox- enus reckoned 13, his followers 15, but Ptolemy only 7. See Aristeid. pp. '22, 23 ; Ptol.i/aj-m.ii. 9.) The work of Aristeides is perhaps the most A-aluable of all the ancient musical treatises. It embraces, besides the theory of music {apfxoviKr)) in the modern sense, the whole range of subjects com- prehended under fiovaiKri, which latter science contemplated not merely the regulation of sounds, but the hannoiiious disposition of everj'thing in nature. The first book treats of Harmonics and Pliythm ; the former subject being considered under the usual heads of Sounds, Intervals, Systems, Genera, Modes, Transition, and Composition (/ue- AoTToao). The second, of the moral effects and educational powers of music ; and the third of the immerical ratios which define musical intervals, and of their connexion with physical and moral science generally. Aristeides refers (p. 87) to an- other work of his own, Ufpl IloiTjTi/c^j, which is lost. He makes no direct allusion to any of the ancient writers on music, except Aristoxenus. The only edition of Aristeides is that of Mei- bomius. It is printed, along with the latter part of the 9th book of Martianus Capella, in his col- lection entitled Antuiuae Miisicue Aiidoves Septeni^ Amst. 1652. A new edition of all these, and of several other ancient musical writers, is announced l)y Dr. J. Franzius of Berlin. (Fabric. BiLL Graec. vol. ii. p. 259.) [W. F. D.] ARISTEIDES, of Samos, a writer mentioned by Varro in his work entitled "• Hebdomades," as an authority for the opinion, that the moon com- pleted her circuit in twenty-eight days exactly. (Aul. Gell. A^^i. iii. 10.) [P. S.] ARISTE'NUS ALE'XIUS. [Alexius A ris- TKNUS.] ^ ARISTEUS ('Ap*<rT6«Js), or ARISTEAS ('Aptcr- Tfos, Herod.). 1. A Corinthian, son of Adeimantus, commanded the troops sent by Corinth to maintain Potidaea in its revolt, b. c. 432. With Potidaea he was connected, and of the troops the greater number were volunteers, serving chiefly from at- tachment to him. Appointed on his arrival com- mander-in-chief of the allied infantry, he encoun- tered the Athenian Callias, but was outmanoeuvred and defeated. With his own division he was suc- cessful, and with it on returning from the pursuit he found himself cut off, but by a bold course made ARISTION. 297 his way with slight loss into the town. This whh now blockaded, and Aristeus, seeing no hope, bid them leave himself with a garrison of 500, and the rest make their way to sea. This escape was efl'ected, and he himself induced to join in it ; after which he was occupied in petty warfare in Chalci- dice, and negotiations for aid from Peloponnesus. Finally, not long before the surrender of Potidaea, in the second year of the vvai", B. c. 430, he set out with other ambassadors from Peloponnesus for the court of Persia ; but visiting Sitalces the Odrysian in their way, they were given to Athenian ambas- sadors there by Sadocus, his son, and sent to Athens; and at Athens, paitly from fear of the energy and ability of Aristeus, partly in retaliation for the cruelties practised by Sparta, he was imme- diately put to death. (Thuc. i. GO — 65, ii. 67 ; Herod, vii. 137; Thirl wall's Greece^ iii. pp. 102 —4, 162, 3.) [A. H. C] 2. A Corinthian, son of Pellichus, one of the commanders of the Corinthian fleet sent against Epidanmus, B. c. 436. (Thuc. i. 29.) 3. A Spai-tan commander, b. c. 423. (Thuc. iv. 132.) 4. An Argive, the son Cheimon, conquered in the Dolichos at the Olympic games. (Paus. vi. 9. § 1.) ARl'STIAS ('Apio-Ttas), a dramatic poet, the son of Pratinas, whose tomb Pausanias (ii. 13. § 5) saw at Phlius, and whose Satyric dramas, with those of his father, were surpassed only by those of Aeschylus. (Paus. /. c.) Aristias is mentioned in the life of Sophocles as one of the poets wiih whom the latter contended. Besides two dramas, which were undoubtedly Satyric, viz. the Kripis and Cyclops, Aiistias wrote three others, viz. Antaeus, Orpheus, and Atalante, which may have been tragedies. (Comp. Athen. xv. p. 686, a; Pollux, vii. 31 ; Welcker, Die Griech. Trayodien^ p. QQiJ.) ARl'STION {"ApiaTluv), a philosopher either of the Epicurean or Peripatetic school, who made himself tyrant of Athens, and was besieged there by Sulla, B. c. 87, in the first Mithridatic war. His early history is preserved by Athenaeus (v. p. 211, Acc), on the authority of Posidonius of Apameia, the instructor of Cicero. By him he is called Athenion, whereas Pausanias, Appian, and j Plutarch agree in giving him the name of Aristion. I Casaubon on Athenaeus (/. c.) conjectures that his I tme name was Athenion, but that on enrolling him- I self as a citizen of Athens, he changed it to Aristion, a supposition confirmed by the case of one Sosias mentioned by Theophrastus, whose name wiis altered to Sosistratus under the same circumstances. Athenion or Aiistion was the illegitimate son of a Peripatetic, also named Athenion, to whose pro- perty he succeeded, and so became an Athenian citizen. He married early, and began at the siune time to teach philosophy, which he did with great success at Messene and Larissa. On returning to Athens with a considerable fortune, he was named ambassador to Mithridates, king of Pontus, then at war with Rome, and became one of the most I intimate friends and counsellors of that monarch. His letters to Athens represented the power of his patron in such glowing colours, that his country- men began to conceive hopes of throwing oft' the Roman yoke. Mithridates then sent him to Athens, where he soon contiived, through the king's pjitronage, to assume the tyranny. His go- vernment seems to have been of the most cniel cha-