A R I 
ARTSTO'MENES, a general of the Me (Tenians, renown¬ 
ed for his valour and virtue. See Messenia. 
ARIS'TON,/! [from a^ira^, to dine.] Dinner; alfo a 
remedy againft a phthifis. 
ARISTO'PH A NES, a celebrated comic poet of Athens, 
He was cotemporary with Plato, Socrates, and Euripides ; 
and mod of his plays were written during the Peloponne- 
fian war. His imagination was warm and lively, and his 
genius particularly turned to raillery. He had alfo great 
ipirit and refolution ; and was a declared enemy to flavery, 
and to all thofe who endeavoured toopprefs their country. 
The Athenians fu fie red themfelves in his time to be go¬ 
verned by men who had no other views than to make them¬ 
felves matters of the commonwealth. Ariftophanes ex- 
poled the defigns of thefe men, with great wit and feverity, 
upon the ftage. Cleo was the firtt whom he attacked, in 
his comedy of the Equites ; and, as there was not one of the 
comedians who would venture to perfonate a. man of his 
great authority, Arittophanes played the character himfelf, 
and with fo much fuccefs, that the Athenians obliged Cleo 
to pay a fine of five talents, which were given to the poet. 
He deferibed the affairs of the Athenians in fo exact a 
manner, that his comedies are a faithful hiftory of that 
people. For this reafon, when Dionyfius defired to learn 
the ttate and language of Athens, Plato fent him the co¬ 
medies of Ariftophanes, telling him thefe were the beft 
reprefentation thereof. He wrote above fifty comedies; 
but there are only eleven extant which are perfedt: thefe 
are, Plutus, the Clouds, the Frogs, Equites, the Acfiar- 
nenfes, the Wafps, Peace, the Birds, the Ecclefiazufie or 
Female Orators, the Thefmophofiazufae or Prieftettes of 
Ceres, and Lyliftrata. The Clouds, which he wrote in 
ridicule of Socrates, is the molt celebrated of all his co¬ 
medies. Madame Dacier tells us, file was fo much charm¬ 
ed with this performance, that after fiie had mandated it, 
and read it over 200 times, it did not become the lead te¬ 
dious to her, which die could not fay of any other piece ; 
and that the pleafure which die received from it was fo 
exqtiifite, that fhe forgot all the contempt and indignation 
which Ariftophanes deferved for employing his wit to ruin 
a man who was wifdom himfelf, and the greateft ornament 
of the city of Athens. Ariftophanes, having conceived 
fome averfion to the poet Euripides, fatirizes him in feve- 
ral of his plays, particularly in his Frogs, and his Thef- 
mophofiazufae. He wrote his Peace in the tenth year of 
the Peloponnefian war, when a treaty for fifty years was 
concluded between the Athenians and the I.acedamionians, 
though it continued but feven years. The Acharnenfes 
was written after the death of Pericles, and the lofs of the 
battle in Sicily, in order to difluade the people from intrud¬ 
ing the fafety of the commonwealth to fuch imprudent 
generals as Lamachus. Soon after, he reprefented his 
Aves or Birds ; by which he admoniflied the Athenians to 
fortify Decelaea, which he calls by a fiflitious name Ne- 
p/ielococcygia. The Vefpte, or Wafps, was written after 
another lofs in Sicily, which the Athenians fuftered from 
the mifeonduift of Chares. He wrote the Lyliftrata when 
all Greece was involved in a war; in which comedy the 
women are introduced debating upon the affairs of the 
commonwealth, when they come to a refolution not to go 
Eobed with their hufbands till a peace fhould be concluded. 
Ariftophanes was greatly admired among the ancients, 
efpecially for the true Attic elegance of his ftyle. The 
time of his death is unknown; but it is certain he was li¬ 
ving after the expulfion of the tyrants by Thrafybulus, 
whom he mentions in his Plutus and other comedies. 
There have been feveral editions and tranfiations of this 
poet; the moll elegant of which is that publifhed by Lu- 
dolphus Kufter, at Amfterdam, in folio, in 1710, dedicated 
to Charles Montague earl of Halifax. 
ARISTOTE'LI A,f. [from the ancient philofopher and 
naturalift Arijlotle .] in botany, a genus of the dodecan- 
dria monogynia clafs. The generic characters are—Ca¬ 
lyx : perianthium one-leafed, five-parted; divifions lan¬ 
ceolate, concave, acute, upright. Corolla ; petals five, 
Fol.ZI. No. 64. 
A R I i6t 
wedg'e-fiiaped, concave, ere£t, lying over each other at the 
fides, fcarcely longer than the calyx. Stamina: filaments 
fifteen, (to each petal three,- one of which is interior, op- 
pofed to the petal,) very (hort; antherae linear, fiiorter 
than the germ. Piftillum; germ ftiperior, roundifh, ra¬ 
ther three-cornered ; ftyle filiform, longer than the corol¬ 
la; ftigmas three, recurved. Pericai pium : berry fubglo- 
bular, obtufely three-cornered, three-celled. Seeds: two, 
or folitary in each cell, angular.— EJaiti&lCharacter. Ca¬ 
lyx, five-leaved ; corolla, five-petalled ; berry, three-cell¬ 
ed ; feeds, two in each ceil. 
There is but one fpecies, Ariftotelia macqui, or fliining- 
leaved ariftotelia. It is a firiall flirub, native of Chili, 
whence it waS'firft fent to Europe by Dembey, and there 
it is known by the name of macqui. The root is woody, 
branching, very full of fibres, and of a brownifh colour. 
Stem upright, and round. Branches and twigs round, 
green or red, with wart-like glands. Leaves oppofite, 
fpreading or hanging down a little, oblong-ovate, fmooth, 
dry, green, flat, three inches long, and from fifteen to 
eighteen lines broad ; the younger leaves are fiiining, bright 
green, and a little vilcid. It flowers in April and May ; 
and was introduced here, about 1773, by Meflrs. Kennedy 
and Lee. The berries areflightly acid, and eatable.. The 
inhabitants of Chili make a wine from them, which they 
give in malignant fevers. Dombey ufed this remedy with 
fuccefs in Chili, againft the plague, in 1782. It is hardy 
enough to bear the open air in general. Severe winters 
will probably kill it, unlels it has the protection of a green- 
houfe. 
Aristotelia, inantiquity, annual feafts celebrated by 
the citizens of Stagyris, in honour of Ariftotle, who was 
born there; and in gratitude for his having procured from 
Alexander the rebuilding and repeopling of that city, 
which had been demolifhed by king Philip. 
ARISTOTE'LI AN, adj. Something that relates to the. 
philofophy of Ariftotle. 
Aristotelian Philosophy, the philofophy taught 
by Ariftotle, and maintained by his followers. The Ariftote- 
lian is otherwife called the Peripatetic Philofophy , which fee, 
ARISTOTE'LIANS, a feCt of philofophers, otherwife 
called the Peripatetics. The Ariftotelians and their dog¬ 
mata prevailed for a long while in the fchools and univer- 
fities; even in fpite of all the efforts of the Cartefians, 
Newtonians, and other corpufcularians. But the fyftems 
of the latter at length gained the pre-eminence; and the 
Newtonian philofophy in particular became generally re¬ 
ceived. The principles of Ariftotle’s philofophy, the 
learned agree, are chiefly laid down in four books deCodo ; 
the eight books of Phyjical Aufcultation, (pvcmir.c 
belonging rather to logics or metaphylies.than to phyfics. 
Inftead of the more ancient fyftems, lie introduced matter, 
form, and privation, as the principles of all things; but 
he does not feem to have derived much benefit'from them 
in natural philofophy. His doCtrines are, for the moft part, 
foobfeurely expreffed, that it has not yet been fatisfaCto- 
rily afeertained what were his fentiments on fome of the 
moft important fubjeCts. The reader will find a diftinCt 
account of the logical part of his philofophy, by Dr. Reid, 
profefior of moral philofophy in the univerfity of Glalgow, 
in the fecond volume of Lord Karnes’s Sketches of the 
Hiftory of Man; and Mr. Harris lias publiflied a fenfible 
commentary on his Categories, under the title of Philojo- 
phical Arrangements. 
A'RISTOTLE, [ fo called of Amirov Tilsoe^fummuTii bonum, 
the chief good, of which he wrote a book.] The chief ot 
the Peripatetic philofophers, born at Stagyra, a fmall city 
in Macedon, in the 99th Olympiad, about 3S4 years be¬ 
fore the birth of Clirift. He was the foil of Nicomachus, 
phyfician to Amyntas the grandfather of Alexander the 
Great. He loft his parents in his infancy; and Proxenus, 
a friend of his father’s, who had the care of his educa¬ 
tion, taking but little notice of him, he quitted his ftudies, 
and gave himfelf up to the follies of youth. After he had 
[pent moft of his patrimony, he entered into the army : 
