ARISTOTLE. 143 



narratives of Ptolemy and Aristobulus, says of the charge of poison- 

 ing, which he afterwards mentions, that he has alluded to it merely to 

 show that he has heard of it, not that he considers it to deserve any 

 credit. In fact, the sole source of the story in its details appears to 

 have been one Hagnothemis (an individual of whom nothing else is 

 known), who is reported to have said that he had heard it told by king 

 Antigonns. 1 But its piquancy was a strong recommendation to later 

 writers ; and it is instructive and amusing to observe how their state- 

 ments of it increase in positiveness, about in proportion as they recede Itsgradual 

 from the time in which the facts of the case could be known. Dio- rowth - 

 dorus Siculus and Vitruvius, living in the time of the two first Ca3sars, 

 merely mention the rumour that Alexander's death was occasioned by 

 poison through the agency of Antipater, but do not pretend to assert 

 its credibility. Quintus Curtius, writing under Vespasian, considers 

 the authorities on that side to preponderate. The epitomizer of a 

 degenerate age, Justin, flourishing in the reign of Antoninus Pius, 

 slightly alludes to the intemperance which he allows had been as- 

 signed as the cause of Alexander's death, but adds that, in fact, he died 

 from treason, and that the disgraceful truth was suppressed by the in- 

 fluence of his successors. And finally Orosius, in the fifth century, 

 states broadly and briefly that he died from poison administered by an 

 attendant, without so much as hinting that any different belief had 

 ever even partially obtained. 2 But it is remarkable that, of all these 

 writers, not one mixes up Aristotle's name with the story ; and it is 

 probable that the foolish charge against him, mentioned (and discoun- 

 tenanced) by Plutarch and Arrian, fell into discredit very soon after 

 it arose, and perhaps was only remembered as a curious piece of scan- 

 dalous history, until the half-lunatic Caracalla thought proper to revive 

 it, in order to gratify at once the tyrant's natural hatred for wisdom and 

 virtue, and his own morbid passion for idolizing the memory of Alex- 

 ander. It is recorded of him that he persecuted the Aristotelian sect 

 of philosophers with singular hatred, abolishing the social meetings of 

 their body, which appear to have taken place in Alexandria, confis- 

 cating certain funds which they possessed, and even entertaining the 



1 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. loc. cit. 



2 Diodorus, xvii. 117; Vitruvius, viii. 3; Q. Curtius, x. 10; Justin, xii. 14; 

 Orosius, iii. 20. It is possible that some readers may quote Tacitus (Annal. ii. 

 73) as opposing the view we have given in the text of the gradual progression of 

 credulity. But the exception is only apparent. Tacitus does not give his own 

 view, but merely that of those who chose to draw a parallel between the circum- 

 stances of Germanicus's life and those of Alexander ; for which purpose this ver- 

 sion of the death of the latter was necessary, and, perhaps, to this it owed much of 

 its subsequent popularity. With respect, too, to the silence respecting Aristotle, 

 it is to be remarked that the expressions of Pliny (" magn& Aristotelis infamia 

 excogitatum," Hist. Nat. xxx. M^.), if they are genuine, do not imply a belief, 

 either on his own part or that of people in general, that the philosopher was guilty 

 of abetting Antipater. But they seem more likely to be a marginal note, implying 

 that " the story of the poisoning by such water was a figment that had done Aris- 

 totle's character much harm." 



