MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 21 



beyond the river Stryinon to the confines of Mount 

 Rhodope. The town possessed a harbour with a 

 small island, named Kapros ; and, like some of the 

 neighbouring cities, enjoyed the precarious dignity 

 of an independent government. In the Peloponne- 

 sian war, it was the ally of Athens, and afterwards 

 became subject to the commonwealth of Olynthus, 

 which, in its turn, was attacked by Philip ; and, with 

 all its dependencies, reduced by the arms or arts of 

 that ambitious prince, in the first year of the 108th 

 Olympiad. That the resistance of Stagira was obsti- 

 nate, may be inferred from the severity of its pu- 

 nishment, for the conqueror, as we learn from Plu- 

 tarch, ordered it to be razed to the ground. 



The parentage of Aristotle was highly respectable. 

 His father Nicomachus was descended in direct line 

 from Machaon, whose skill in physic is celebrated 

 by Homer, and who was son to ^Esculapius, the 

 companion of the Argonauts, exalted after his death 

 to a place among the gods as the tutelary deity of 

 the healing art. Nicomachus followed the profes- 

 sion of his father and his ancestors, and even im- 

 proved that branch of hereditary knowledge, by 

 writing six books on medicine, and one on natural 

 philosophy. He was the physician and friend of 

 Amyntas, King of Macedon, who held him in pecu- 

 liar esteem. The circumstance of this medical pe- 

 digree has led one writer, Tzetzes, to allege that Aris- 

 totle was called an JEsculapian figuratively, and not 

 by descent ; but there seems no reason to call in 

 question the common account of his genealogy. His 



