MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
21 
beyond the river Strymon to the confines of Mount 
Rhodope. The town possessed a harbour with a 
small island, named Kapros ; and, like Rome 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, tvas 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 iEseulapius, 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 
waiting 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 
