Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/12

ARISTOPHANES. a critical edition of the Homeric poems, and made extensive study of Plato, Aristotle, Alcseus, Pindar, and the comic and tragic poets. He is said to have introduced into the Greek language the use of accents. ARISTOPHANES,. A name applied to (q.v.), who lashed the manners and people of his age with a coarse but irresistible wit. ARISTOPHANES, The French. An appellation, though hardly a happy one, given to Molière for his genial wit, the object of which was the vice and affectation of his day. ARISTOPHANES'S APOLOGY. The sequel to Browning's Balaustion's Adventure, published in 1875. It is a long poem in blank verse, supposed to commemorate the defense made by Aristophanes for his comic art, on learning from the venerable Sophocles of the death of the tragedian Euripides. ARTSTOTE'LIA.See. AR'ISTOTLE (Gk. 'AptaTOTeh/c. Aristoteles) ( 384-322). A Greek philosopher, born at Stagira, a Greek town of the Chaleidice, on the Strymonic Gulf, the present Stavro. He came of a family in which the practice of medicine was hereditary, and his father, Nicomachus, was physician-in-ordinary to the Macedonian king, Aniyntas II. From his father Aristotle undoubtedly inherited his love for natural science, and through him came into relation with the royal house of Macedonia. Nicomachus died while Aristotle was still young; the son was brought up in Stagira by a family friend, Pro.xenus, of Atarneus in Mysia, whose memory he held so dear that in after life he erected a statue to him at Delphi, and after his death educated and adopted his son Nieanor. Aristotle doubtless received the usual education enjoyed by the son of a well-to-do family, and probably was trained also for his ancestral profession. When seventeen years old, he went to Athens and associated himself with the Academy. Put its head, Plato, was then absent on his second journey to Syracuse, where he acted as adviser to the two despots in succession, Dionysius the elder and Dionysius the younger. For nearly twenty years Aristotle enjoyed the teaching and association of Plato, and in spite of the idifferent natures of master and pupil, it needs no argument to show that the relation between the two was close. Plato is said to have called liim the reader and intellect of his school, and, because of his zeal, to have likened him to a colt that needs the bit more than the spur. During this period of discipleship, Aristotle seems to have begun to lecture to small circles of listeners, chiefly on the subject of rhetoric; at the same time he trained himself to a high degree of perfection in the practice of oratory. His superior gcniiis was so well recognized by his contemporaries that his elders, like Heraclides Ponticus, who was Plato's representative in D.c. 301, were ready to yield to him, and voungor men like Theophrastus were glad to he his followers. At Plato's death in 348-347, Speusippus became head of the Academy, and Aristotle had no longer any bonds to bind him to the school. He was now in his thirty-eighth year, had enjoyed long intimacy with the best thinkers in Greece, and had undoubtedly already developed to a considerable degree an independent philosophical position. With Xenocrates of Chalcedon, who likewise withdrew from his old associates, Aristotle went to Mysia, and presently accepted an invitation from a former fellow-pupil in the Academy, Hermeas, headman of Atarneus, to take up his residence with him. Here he remained three years, until Hermeas was, through treachery, captured by the Persians, and put to death by Artaxer.xes III. Aristotle sought refuge in Mytilene, taking with him the niece and sister of Hermeas: he afterwards married the latter, w-ho died something more than ten years later in JIacedonia. On the basis of certain allusions in the opening of Isocrates's Panalhenu'icus it has been conjectured that the following two years Aristotle spent again in Athens, teaching in company with others in the Lj'ceum; this conjecture, however, has a very uncertain basis.

During the many years spent at Athens and in Asia Minor, Aristotle's hereditary relation with the Macedonian court seems to have been unbroken; for in B.C. 343-42 in response to a call from Philip to educate his son Alexander, then fourteen years old, lie removed with his family and Theophrastus to Pella, the Macedonian capital. He acted as tutor to the Prince for three 5'ears. The plan of the education attempted by him is unknown to us; but it is most probable that the philosopher added to the ordinary education of the day in rhetoric and philosophy some instruction in at least history, geography, and politics suited to a future ruler. How far his pu])il absorbed teaching is also uncertain, although we know that his later plans for conquest w-ere in opposition to Aristotle's views. Yet Aristotle was held in high esteem by both Philip and Alexander: during his residence at court he was able to obtain the restoration, at the public expense, of his native city, which had suffered severely in B.C. 348 when Philip conquered the district about the Strwion: later he was able to secure from Alexander protection for Eresus, in Lesbos, the home of his friend Theophrastus. The greatest favors he received, however, were in the way of support and material for his scientific investig.ations; and his years of residence at the JIacedonian court, where he could observe at close range the rule of an aggressive monarch, must have been of the greatest importance in developing his political ideas.

After Alexander mounted the throne and undertook his Eastern conquests, Aristotle returned to Athens in his fiftieth year, to carry out a plan, no doubt long cherished, of opening a school of his own. This he established in the Lyceum, in a building called "The Walk"

(TTEpiTraTof ), where he lectured. We hear from an untrustworthy tradition that he gave two kinds of instruction: in the morning to a narrow circle of advanced pupils (his esoteric doctrine), and in the evening, more popular lectures (exoteric teaching) to a larger body of listeners. The name Peripatetic, applied to the school and its philosophy, cannot be traced earlier than B.C. 200. Of the equipment of the school, in books and material, we know nothing. Aristotle continued to teach for twelve years, until Alexander's death, in B.C. 323, made his position in Athens dangerous. He was charged with impiety, but fled to Chalcis, as he said, to save the Athenians from a second sin against