Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/337

Rh ARISTOTELES. 342) we find the philosopher accepting an invita- tion from Philip of Macedonia, who summoned him to his court to undertake the instruction and education of his son Alexander, then thirteen years of age. (Plut. Alex. 5; Quintil. i. 1.) Here Aristotle was treated with the most marked re- spect. His native city, Stageira, was rebuilt at his request,* and Pliilip caused a gymnasium (called Nymphaeum) to be built there in a pleasant grove expressly for Aristotle and his pupils. In the time of Plutarch, the shady walks {irepliraToi) and stone seats of Aristotle were still shewn to the traveller. (Plut I.e. 5.) Here, in quiet retirement from the intrigues of the court at Pella, the future conqueror of the world ripened into manhood. Plutarch in- forms us that several other noble youths enjoyed the Instruction of Aristotle with him. (Apophih. Reg. vol. V. p. 683, ed. Reiske.) Among this number •we may mention Cassander, the son of Antipater (Plut. Alex. 74), Marsyas of Pella (brother of Antigonus, afterwards king), who subsequently wrote a work on the education of Alexander ; Callisthenes, a relation of Aristotle, and afterwards the historian of Alexander, and Theophrastus of Eresus (in Lesbos). Nearchus, Ptolemy, and Harpalus also, the three most intimate friends of Alexander's youth, were probably his fellow pupils. (Plut. Alex. 10.) Alexander attached himself with such ardent affection to the philosopher, that the youth, whom no one yet had been able to manage, soon valued his instructor above his own father. Aristotle spent seven years in Macedonia ; but Alexander enjoyed his instruction without in- terruption for only four. But with such a pupil even this short period was sufficient for a teacher like Aristotle to fulfil the highest purposes of education, to aid the development of his pupil's faculties in every direction, to awaken susceptibility and lively inclination for every art and science, and to create in him that sense of the noble and great, which distinguishes Alexander from all those conquerors who have only swept like a hurricane through the world. According to the usual mode of Grecian education, a knowledge of the poets, eloquence, and philosophy, were the principal sub- lects into which Aristotle initiated his royal pupil. Thus we are even informed that he prepared a new recension of the Iliad for him (77 e/c rov i'ope7jKos,Wolf, Proleg. p. clxxxi.), that he instructed him in ethics and politics (Plut. Alex. 7), and dis- closed to him the abstrusities of his own speculations, of the publication of which by his writings Alex- ander afterwards complained. (Gell. xx. 5.) Alex- ander's love of the science of medicine and every branch of physics, as well as the lively interest which he took in literature and philosophy generally (Plut. Alex. 8), were awakened and fostered by this instruction. Nor can the views communicated by Aristotle to his pupil on politics have failed to exercise the most important influence on his sub- sequent plans ; although the aim of Alexander, to unite all the nations under his sway into one kingdom, without due regard to their individual peculiarities (Plut. de Virt. Alex. i. 6, vol. ix. pp. 38, 42, ed. Hutten), was not (as Joh. v. Miiller maintains) founded on the advice of Aristotle, but, on the contrary', was opposed to the views of the philosopher, as Plutaix^h {I. c. p. 88) expressly re- ARISTOTELES. 319 totle drew up a new code of laws for the city. marks, and as a closer consideration of the po- litics of Aristotle is of itself sufficient to prove. (Comp. Polit. iii. 9, vii. 6, i. 1.) On the other hand, this connexion had likewise important consequences as regards Aristotle himself. Living in what was then the centre and source of political activity, his survey of the relations of life and of states, as well as his knowledge of men, was extended. The position in which he stood to Alexander occasioned and favoured several studies and literary works. In his extended researches into natural science, and particularly in his zoological investigations, he received not only from Philip, but in still larger measure from Alexander, the most liberal support, a support which stands unrivalled in the history of civilisation. (Aelian, V. II. v. 19; Athen. ix. p. 398, e.; Plin. i^. A^. viii. 17.) In the year b. c. 340, Alexander, then scarcely seventeen years of age, was appointed regent by his father, who was about to make an expedition against Byzantium. From that time Aristotle's instruction of the young prince was chiefly re- stricted to advice and suggestion, which may very possibly have been carried on by means of epis- tolary correspondence. In the year B. c. 335, soon after Alexander ascended the throne, Aristotle quitted Macedonia for ever, and returned to Athens*, after an absence of twelve years, whither, as it appears, he had already been invited. Here he found his friend Xenocrates president of the Academy. He him- self had the Lyceum, a gymnasium in the neighbourhood of the temple of Apollo Lykeios, assigned to him by the state. He soon assembled round him a large number of distinguished scholars out of all the Hellenic cities of Europe and Asia, to whom, in the shady walks {wepiiraToi) which surrounded the Lyceum, while walking up and down, he delivered lectures on philosophy. From one or other of these circumstances the name Peri- patetic is derived, which was afterwards given to his school. It appears, however, most correct to derive the name (with Jonsius, Dissert, de Hist. Perip. i. 1, pp. 419 — 425, ed. Elswich) from the place where Aristotle taught, which was called at Athens par excellence^ 6 irepiiraTos, as is proved also by the wills of Iheophrastus and Lycon. His lectures, which, according to an old account pre- served by Gellius (xx. 5), he delivered in the morning (duOivos irepliraTos) to a narrower circle of chosen and confidential (esoteric) hearers, and which were called acroamatic or acroatic^ embraced subjects connected with the more abstruse philoso- phy (theology), physics, and dialectics. Those which he delivered in the afternoon (ScjAifos inpi- iraros) and intended for a more promiscuous circle (which accordingly he called exoteric), extended to rhetoric, sophistics, and politics. Such a separa- tion of his more intimate disciples and more pro- found lectures, from the main body of his other hearers and the popular discourses intended for them, is also found among other Greek philosophers. (Plat. T/ieaet. p. 152, c, Phaedon, p. 62, b.) As regards the external form of delivery, he appears to have taught not so much in the way of conver- sation, as in regular lectures. Some notices have ander on his expeditions, which we meet with in later writers, as e. g. in David ad Categ. i. p. 24, a., 33, ed. Brand., is fobulous.
 * According to Diogenes Laertius (v. 4), Aris-
 * The story that Aristotle accompanied Alex-