sUUBTIDBB. 



ARISTIPPUS. 



Athene, whose ship* at that time were under the command of Ari<- 

 tides : and to hi* moderation lui J probity, and to the favourable opinion 

 tsrt-r***!**'* of the Athenian obaracter mainly through hi* virtues, that 

 transfer of the command U chiefly to be ascribed, and the consequent 

 establishment of what U called by historians the Athenian rule in 

 Greece, which was overthrown seventy-two year* afterwards, at the 

 cod of the Pelopoonesian war. Under thu new arrangement the 

 Qreelu of the west oo*t of Asia Minor, the islands, and Thrace, in 

 conjunction with the Athenian*, engaged to maintain a fleet sufficient 

 to prosecute the war with Persia. Each state was assessed to furnish 

 osrtain sum of money, amounting in the aggregate to 480 talents ; 

 and the difficult task of making the assessment was executed by 

 Arutides with such fairness, that, according to Diodorus (xi. 47), he 

 obtained the blithest pni v> for justice. 



This is the last public office in which wo know Aristides to have 

 been engaged. His death U stated by Nepos to hare occurred in the 

 fourth year after the ostradsm of Themistocles, which fixes it to 

 B.C. 467. PluUroh says that the tomb of ArUtides was in his own 

 time to be seen at Phalerum, erected at the charge of the state, because 

 the patriot died to poor that nothing was found in his house to pay 

 for his burial. He left children a son, Lysimachus, who U one of tho 

 speakers in Plato's dialogue of ' Laches,' and two daughters (Hut, 27) ; 

 all of whom were provided for by the state. Aristides lived and died 

 in poverty, after baring borne the highest offices of Athens, and pos- 

 sessed the most tempting opportunities for peculation of any man in 

 Greece; a voluntary poverty, for he is said to have refused large sums 

 oflered to him by private liberality, saying that " he could better boast 

 of his poverty than others of their riches, which many did use ill, and 

 few well ; and that it was a hard thing to find one man of a noble 

 mind that could away with poverty, and that such only miijht be 

 ashamed of poverty as were poor against their wills." (North's 

 Plutarch.') 



The character of Aristides (so far as we can trust our chief autho- 

 rity, Plutarch, who is supported by the more scanty testimony of 

 Herodotus and Thucydides) is one of the finest in antiquity. To him 

 belongs the rarest of all praises, that of observing justice, not ouly 

 between man and man. but between nation and nation. He wa-t truly 

 a patriot, for he preferred the good of his country to the gratification 

 of hi* own ambition. A candid enemy, an impartial friend, a just 

 administrator of other men's money, an observer of national faith, it 

 seems hardly worth while to add to this catalogue of virtues the more 

 common merit of being a brave and successful general, except that 

 this latter quality completed his character, and fitted it to the stormy 

 times in which he lived, giving to it a lustre and importance in the 

 eyes of the many which his peaceful virtues unassisted might have 

 failed to command. 



(Herodotus; Plutarch; Cornelius Nepos, Lire* of ArittuUt; 

 Ititford. Ac.) 



AKISTI'DES, a native of Thebes, and one of the great Greek 

 painters, is said by Pliny (XXXT. 10) to have been the contemporary of 

 ApeUss. His excellence consisted in giving chancier and expression 

 to his figures, and in the strong delineation of the passions : his 

 colouring was hard. One of his great pictures represented the capture 

 of a city. Among the most striking figures was that of a mother just 

 expiring from a wound ; hrr infant still clings to her breast, and the 

 dying mother seems only anxious that her child should not suck the 

 blood that is streaming from her body. Alexander the Great had this 

 picture removed to Pells in Macedonia. He also painted an engage 

 meat with the Persians : this picture contained one hundred figures, 

 and wa* liberally paid for by Mnason, tyrant of Klatca. The works 

 of Aristides were numerous, and many of them were transferred to 

 Rome with the rest of the plunder of Greece. At the capture of 

 Corinth by L. Mnmmius, Polybius, the Greek biitorian, who was pre- 

 sent on toe occasion, saw with indignation the barbarians of Italy 

 playing at games of chance on the most costly pictures, which they 

 had spread on the ground. (Strabo, p. 381.) Among these were two 

 fine picture, by Aristides. (Atheosras, xiii. 567.) 



AKISTI'DES, jtfLICS, a distinguished rhetorician of the 2nd cen 

 tury, was born at Hadrian! in Bithynia, probably about A.I). 117 ; but, 

 according to other opinions, A.O. 129. He studied at Smyrna under 

 Polemo, and at Athens under Hcrodes Atticus, after which he travelled 

 extensively in Asia and in Egypt ; finally, he settled at Smyrna, where 

 be obtained the priesthood of .tjculapiun. He also opened a lecture- 



M ' ' i ' 



puUtion by his rhetorical prelections, that by 



hie contemporaries be was placed on a level with Demosthenes, the 

 great Athenian orator. In A.D. 178 Smyrna was destroyed by an 

 earthquake, and Aristides. by addressing a letter on the subject, which 

 is still extant, to M. Aurelius, induced the emperor to restore the city. 

 Owing to his services on this occasion, and the high reputation which 

 he enjoyed as a rhetorician, statues were erected to his honour ; one, 

 now in the Vatican (Winckelmann, ii 476, French ed.) bean his 



Of bis fifty-five declamations, one entitled " Against Leptines,' is an 

 imitation of the great oration of Demosthenes, which bears the same 

 name ; and another, the ' Panathenaikos,' was intended to show that 

 he could write in the style of lacerate*, and rival one of the most 

 famous nfwcimtns of that master. Aristides slsn wrote panegyrics on 

 distrafuuhed cities, such as Smyrna, Home, Ac. The latest 



edition of the ' Declamations of Aristides,' together with his two books 

 On Rhetoric,' is by W. Dindorf, Leipzig, 1829, 3 tola, 8vo. 



The statue which we have here assigned to JElius Aristides was 

 found in the ruins of Herculaneum, and is now iu the Museo Borbonioo 

 at Naples. The height is about 6 feet 6 inches. It is called the statue 

 of Aristides the Just by G. Finati, in the work entitled ' Muaeo 15or- 

 bonico;' but from comparing the head with that of /K!iu Aristides 

 iu the Vatican, and from the somewhat affected attitude, and the 

 general character of the figure, we ore convinced it is not the old 

 Aristides. 



AKISTI'DES QUINTILIA'NUS, a Greek writer on music, whose 

 age is uncertain. Some critics are of opinion that he was contempo- 

 rary with Plutarch. His work on Music in three books, is printed in 

 the collection of Meibomius, and is considered one of the most valuable 

 musical works of antiquity. 



AKISTIl'l'US, the son of Aritades, was born at Cyreuo, a < 

 colony on the north coast of Africa, and came to Athens when a young 

 man in order to profit by the lessons of Socrates. Aristippus was a 

 hearer of Socrates for some time ; and as he could not have been very 

 young when he went from Cyrane to the Olympic festival, and was 

 attracted from thence to Athens by a philosopher's fame, we may 

 suppose that ho was at least twenty-five years old at the death of 

 Socrates, B.C. 399; which would make his birth a* early as iu:. 421 

 or 425. 



Although ArUtippus was a disciple of Socrates, his mode of life 

 and his opinions were very different from those of his master. Instead 

 of imitating the chaste, frugal, and temperate habits which distin- 

 guished Socrates, he was a lover of sensual pleasure ; and we learn 

 from a conversation between Aristippus and his master, reported in 

 Xenophon's 'Memorabilia,' that the former deliberately maintained in 

 argument the superiority of his own habits of life and principles of 

 conduct. In this discussion, being pressed by the interrogations of 

 Socrates, he asserts that he does not wish to take any share in public 

 affaire, that his object is to be neither a governor nor a slave, but a 

 private citizen ; and that he lives out of his own country in order to 

 escape from all political duties. (Xen. ' Mem.' ii. 1, 1-18.) He appears 

 to have prided himself on his knowledge of the world, on the popu- 

 larity and versatility of his manners, and the ease with which he 

 could adapt himself to the company of all persons, and to all varieties 

 of fortune : hence Plato is reported to have said of him, that he was 

 the only man who could wear with equal grace both fine clothes and 

 rags. HU principles and conduct made him obnoxious to X<-n<ipli<in, 

 with whom he is stated to have been on bud terms, and to Antiathenes, 

 the head of the Cynic school, whom he is reported to have conxtantly 

 ridiculed for tho austerity of his manners. But Aristippus, although 

 on bad terms with Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Pinto, entertained 

 friendly relations with yKitchines, another disciple of Socrates and 

 recommended him as a teacher of philosophy to Dionysius, the tyrant 

 of Syracuse. (Diog. Laert ii. 60, 82 ; Plutarch, ' De cohibeuda Ira,' 

 L p. 462.) He passed much time at the court of Dionysius of Syra- 

 cuse, and he is stated to have been taken prisoner by a satrap of thu 

 Persian king in Asia Minor. (Diog. I,.-rt. ii. 79.) He probably 

 retired lato in his life to Cyreno, where we find his family and hi-, 

 school after his death. (Diog. Laert. ii. 86.) 



Aristippus differed from Socrates and the genuine Socratia philoso- 

 phers, not only in his mode of life, but also in taking money for his 

 instructions. Aristippus when blamed for teaching for money, 

 d him* If by saying tliat Socrat' -> was provided for by thu 



