Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/335

Rh ARISTOTELES. 703, De Coroii. Trier, p. 1230) where it is un- certain whether he is speaking of Aristophon the Azenian or the Colytti.in. 3. Archon Eponymus of the year B. c. 330. (Diodor. xvii. 6-2 ; Plut. Demosth. 24.) Theo- phrastus (Charact 8) calls this Aristophon an orator. That this man, who was archon in the same year in which Demosthenes delivered his oration on the crown, was not the same as the Colyttian, "s clear from that oration itself, in which (p. 281) the Colyttian is spoken of as deceased. Whether he was actually an orator, as Theophrastus states, is very doubtful, since it is not mentioned anywhere else, and it is a probable conjecture of Ruhnken's that the word ^TjTwp was inserted by some one who believed that either the Azenian or Colyttian was meant in that passage. (Clinton, F. II. ad ann. 330.) [L. S.] ARI'STOPHON {*Api(TTocf>£u), a comic poet respecting whose life or age nothing is known, but from the titles of whose comedies we must infer, that they belonged to the middle comedy. We know the titles of nine of his plays, viz. 1. na- T(au (Athen. xii, p. 552), 2. ^iXojuiSrjs (Athen. xi. p. 472), 3. Uvdayopi(TTT^s (Diog. Laert. viii. 38 ; Athen. vi, p. 238, iv. p. 161, xili. p. 563), 4. Ba- gias (Stob. Serin. 96. 19), 5. AiSv/jlol rj Uvpavuos (Pollux, ix. 70), 6. 'Iarp6s (Athen. vi. p. 238 ; Stob. Serm. vi. 27), 7. KaAAwj/tSrjs (Athen. xiii. p. 559), 8. UapaKaTadriKV (Stob. Serm. 96. 21), and 9. IleipWovs. (Athen. vii. p. 303.) We pos- sess only a few fragments of these comedies, and two or three ethers of which it is uncertain to which plays they belonged. (Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Or. p. 410, &c.) [L. S.] ARI'STOPHON ('Api(rTO(/)a;;/), a painter of some distinction, the son and pupil of Aglaophon, and the brother of Polygnotus. He was also pro- bably the father of the younger Aglaophon, and born at Thasos. Some of his productions are men- tioned by Pliny (xxxv. 11. s. 40), and Plutarch {de audiend. Poet. 3). It is probably through a mistake that Plutarch {Alcib. 16) makes him the author of a picture representing Alcibiades in the armsofNemea. [See Aglaophon.] [C.P. M.] ARISTO'TELES ('Apio-ToreATjy), was one of the thirty tyrants established at Athens in b. c. 404. (Xen. Hell. ii. 3. § 2.) From an allusion in the speech of Theramenes before his condemnation (Xen. Hell. ii. 3. § 46), Aristoteles appears to have been also one of the Four Hundred, and to have taken an active part in the scheme of fortifying Eetionia and admitting the Spartans into the Peiraeeus, b. c. 411. (Thuc. viii. 90.) In B. c. 405 he was living in banishment, and is mentioned by Xenophon as being with Lysander during the siege of Athens. {Hell. ii. 2. § 18.) Plato intro- duces him as one of the persons in the "Pamie- nides," and as a very young man at the time of the dialogue. [E. E.] ARISTO'TELES ('Apjo-TOTe'Arjs). I. Biogra- phy. — Aristotle was born at Stageira, a sea-port town of some little importance in the district of Chalcidice, in the first year of the 99th Olympiad. (ac. 384.) His father, Nicomachus, an Asclepiad, was physician in ordinary to Amyntas II., king of Macedonia, and the author of several treatises on subjects connected with natural science. (Suidas, s. V. 'ApKTToreKTjs.) His mother, Phaestis (or Phaestias), was descended from a Chalcidian family (Dionys. de Demosth. et Arist. 5); and we find

mention of his brother Arimnestus, and his sister Arimneste. (Diog. Laërt. v. 15; Suid. 4. l. c.) His father, who was a man of scientific culture, soon introduced his son at the court of the king of Macedonia in Pella, where at an early age he became acquainted with the son of Amyntas II., afterwards the celebrated Philip of Macedonia, who was only three years younger than Aristotle himself. The studies and occupation of his father account for the early inclination manifested by Aristotle for the investigation of nature, an inclination which is perceived throughout his whole life. He lost his father before he had attained his seventeenth year (his mother appears to have died earlier), and he was entrusted to the guardianship of one Proxenus of Atarneus in Mysia, who, however, without doubt, was settled in Stageira. This friend of his father provided conscientiously for the education of the young orphan, and secured for himself a lasting remembrance in the heart of his grateful pupil. Afterwards, when his foster-parents died, leaving a son, Nicanor, Aristotle adopted him, and gave him his only daughter, Pythias, in marriage. (Ammon. p. 44, ed. Buhle.)

After the completion of his seventeenth year, his ardent yearning after knowledge led him to Athens, the mother-city of Hellenic culture. (B. c. 367.) Various calumnious reports respecting Aristotle's youthful days, which the hatred and envy of the schools invented, and gossiping anecdote-mongers spread abroad (Athen. viii. p. 354; Aelian. V. H. v.9; Euseb. Praep. Evangel. xv. 2; comp. Appuleius, 4pol. pp. 510, 511, ed. Oudendorp) to the effect that he squandered his hereditary property in a course of dissipation, and was compelled to seek a subsistence first as a soldier, then as a drug-seller (φαρμακοπώλης), have been already amply refuted by the ancients themselves. (Comp. Aristocles, ap. Euseb. l. c''.) When Aristotle arrived at Athens, Plato had just set out upon his Sicilian journey, from which he did not return for three years. This intervening time was employed by Aristotle in preparing himself to be a worthy disciple of the great teacher. His hereditary fortune, which, according to all appearance, was considerable, not merely relieved him from anxiety about the means of subsistence, but enabled him also to support the expense which the purchase of books at that time rendered necessary. He studied the works of the earlier as well as of the contemporary philosophers with indefatigable zeal, and at the same time sought for information and instruction in intercourse with such followers of Socrates and Plato as were living at Athens, among whom we may men. tion Heracleides Ponticus.

So aspiring a mind could not long remain concealed from the observation of Plato, who soon distinguished him above all his other disciples. He named him, on account of his restless industry and his untiring investigations after truth and knowledge, the "intellect of his school" (νοῦς τῆς Θέρσανδρος, Philopon. de Aeternit. Mundi ade. Proclum, vi. 27, ed. Venet. 1535, fol.); his house, the house of the "reader" (αναγνώστης, Ammon. l. c.; Caelius Rhodigin. xvii. 17), who needed a curb,