Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/316

Rh 298 ARISTIPPUS. racter, so that he is spnken of with abhorrence by Phitarch {Fraecept. gcr. Reip. p. 809), and classed by him with Nabis and Catiline. He sent Apelli- con of Teos to plunder the sacred treasury of Delos, [Apellicon], though Appian {Mithrid. p. 189) says, that this had already been done for him by Mithridates, and adds, that it was by means of the money resulting from this robbery that Aristion was enabled to obtain the supreme power. Meantime Sulla landed in Greece, and immediately laid siege to Athens and the Peiraeus, the latter of which was occupied by Archelaus, the general of Mithridates. The sufferings within the city from famine were so dreadful, that men are said to have even devoured the dead bodies of their companions. At last Athens was taken by storm, and Sulla gave orders to spare neither sex nor age. Aristion fled to the Acropolis, having first burnt the Odeum, lest Sulla should use the wood- work of that building for battering-rams and other instruments of attack. The Acropolis, however, was soon taken, and Aristion dragged to execution from the altar of iMinervJi. To the divine vengeance for this im- piety Pausanias (i. 20. § 4) attributes the loath- some disease which afterwards terminated Sulla's Ufe. [G. E. L. C] ARI'STION ('Aptarfwi'), a surgeon, probably belonging to the Alexandrian school, was the son of Pasicrates,* who belonged to tlie same profes- sion. (Oribas. De Afachinam. cc. 24, 26. pp. 1 80, 183.) Nothing is known of the events of his life ; with respect to his date, he may be conjec- tured to have lived in the second or first century B. c, as he lived after Nymphodorus (Oribas. ibid. p. 180), and before Heliodorus (p. 161). [W.A.G.] ARISTIPPUS ('Apro-TtTTTTos). 1. OfLarissa, in Thessaly, an Aleuad, received lessons from Gorgias when he visited Thessaly. Aristippus ob- tained money and troops from the younger Cyrus to resist a faction opposed to him, and placed Menon, with whom he lived in a disreputable manner, over these forces. (Xen. Anah. L 1. § 10, ii. 6. § 28 ; Plat. Meiion, init.) 2. An Argive, who obtained the supreme power Rt Argos through the aid of Antigonus Gonatas, about B. c. 272. (Plut. Fyrrh. 30.) 3. An Argive, a different person from the preceding, who also became tyrant of Argos after the murder of Aristomachus I., in the time of Aratus. He is described by Plutarch as a perfect tyrant in our sense of the word, Aratus made many attempts to deprive him of the tj^ranny, but at first without success ; but Aristippus at length fell in a battle against Aratus, and was succeeded in the tyranny by Aristomachus II. (Plut. Aral. 25, &c.) ARISTI'US FUSCUS. [Fuscus.] ARISTIPPUS ('ApItrTtTTTTos), son of Aritades, born at Cyrene, and founder of tlie Cyrenaic School of Philosophy, came over to Greece to be present at the Olympic games, where he fell in with Ischomachus the agriculturist (whose praises are the subject of Xenophon's Oeconomicus), and by his description was filled with so ardent a desire to see Socrates, that he went to Athens Mai in the fourth volume of his Classici Aiustores e Vaticanis Codicibus Editi, Rom. 8vo., 1831, we should read vtou instead of narepa in p. 152, 1. 23, and 'ApKTTiuu instead of 'kpriuv in p. 158, 1. 10, ARISTIPPUS. for the purpose (Plut. de Curios. 2), and remained with him almost up to the time of his execution, B. c. 399. Diodorus (xv. 76) gives b. c. 366 as the date of Aristippus, which agrees very well with the focts which we know about him, and with the statement (Schol. ad Aristoph. Plut. 179), that Lais, the courtezan with whom he was intimate, was bom b, c, 421. Though a disciple of Socrates, he wandered both in principle and practice very far from the teaching and example of his great master. He was luxuri- ous in his mode of living ; he indulged in sensual gratifications, and the society of the notorious Lais ; he took money for his teaching (being the first of the disciples of Socrates who did so, Diog. Laert. ii. 65), and avowed to his instructor that he resided in a foreign land in order to escape the trouble of mixing in the politics of his native city. (Xen. Mem. ii. 1.) He passed part of his life at the court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, and is also said to have been taken prisoner by Arta- phemes, the satrap Avho drove the Spartans from Rhodes B, c. 396. (Diod. Sic. xiv. 79 ; see Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. 2, 3.) He appears, however, at last to have returned to Cyrene, and there he spent his old age. The anecdotes which are told of him, and of which we find a most tedious number in Diogenes Laertius (ii, 65, &c.), by no means give us the notion of a person who was the mere slave of his passions, but rather of one who took a pride in extracting enjojnnent from all circumstances of every kind, and in controlHng adversity and pros- perity alike. They illustrate and confirm the two statements of Horace (Ep. i. 1. 18), that to observe the precepts of Aristippus is " mihi res, non me rebus subjungere,^'' and (i. 17. 23) that, " omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res. Thus when reproached for his love of bodily indulgences, he answered, that there was no shame in enjoying them, but that it would be disgraceful if he could not at any time give them up. When Dionysius, provoked at some of his remarks, ordered him to take the lowest place at table, he said, " You wish to dignify the seat." Whether he was pri- soner to a satrap, or grossly insulted and even spit upon by a tyrant, or enjoying the pleasures of a banquet, or reviled for faithlessness to Socrates by his fellow-pupils, he maintained the same calm temper. To Xenophon and Plato he was very ob- noxious, as we see from the Memorabilia {I. c), where he maintains an odious discussion against Socrates in defence of voluptuous enjoyment, and from the Phaedo (p, 59, c), where his absence at the death of Socrates, though he was only at Aegina, 200 stadia from Athens, is doubtless men- tioned as a reproach, (See Stallbaum's note.) Aristotle, too, calls him a sophist {Metaphys. ii. 2), and notices a story of Plato speaking to him with rather undue vehemence, and of his replying with calmness. {Rhet. ii. 23.) He unparted his doctrine to his daughter Arete, by whom it was communicated to her son, the younger Aristippus (hence called /x7jTpoS(5a/cToj), and by him it is said to have been reduced to a system. Laertius, on the authority of Sotion (b. c, 205) and Panae- tius (b. c. 143), gives a long list of books whose authorship is ascribed to Aristippus, though he also says that Sosicrates of Rhodes (b. c. 2.55) states, that he wrote nothing. Among these are treatises riepi riatSet'oy, riept 'Aper^s, Ilepl Tt/'xT?y, and many others. Some epistles attributed to him are
 * In the extract from Oribasius, given by A.