Aristotle 23 



his History of Animals'^ Aelian, on the other hand, who lived 

 at a period a little anterior to Athenaeus, tells us that it was 

 ' Philip of Macedon who so esteemed learning that he supplied 

 Aristotle with ample funds ' adding that he similarly honoured 

 both Plato and Theophrastus. 2 



Now in all Aristotle's works there is not a single sentence in 

 praise of Alexander and there is some evidence that the two 

 had become estranged. In support of this we may quote 

 Plutarch (c. A. D. 100) who gives a detailed description of 

 a conspiracy in 327 B. c. against Alexander by Callisthenes, 

 a pupil of Aristotle who appears to have kept up a correspon- 

 dence with his master. 3 Alexander himself wrote of Callisthenes, 

 according to Plutarch : ' I will punish this sophist, together 

 with those who sent him to me and those who harbour in their 

 cities men who conspire against my life ' and Plutarch adds that 

 Alexander c directly reveals in these words a hostility to 

 Aristotle in whose house Callisthenes . . . had been reared, 

 being a son of Hero who was a niece of Aristotle '. 4 Yet 

 the Alexandrian conquests, bringing Greece into closer con- 

 tact with a wider world and extending Greek knowledge of the 

 Orient, must have had their influence in stimulating interest 

 in rare and curious creatures and in a general extension of 

 natural knowledge. That the interest in these topics extended 

 beyond the circle of the Peripatetics is shown by the fact that 

 Speusippus, the pupil of Plato and his successor as leader of 

 his school, occupied himself with natural history and wrote 

 works on biological topics and especially on fish. 



Nevertheless, remarkable as is Aristotle's acquaintance with 



1 Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, ix. 58. 



2 Aelian, Variae bistortae, iv. 19. 



3 The statement of the relation of Callisthenes to Aristotle rests on the 

 somewhat unsatisfactory evidence of Simplicius (sixth century) who states 

 that Callisthenes sent Aristotle certain astronomical observations from 

 Babylon. Simplicius, Commentarii (Karsten), p. 226. 



4 Plutarch, Alexander, Iv. 



