Chapter 9

Authorities.—Herodotus viii. 79-81, 95; ix. 28; “Constitution of Athens” (Ath. Pol.), 22-24, 41; Plutarch,Aristides; Cornelius Nepos,Vita Aristidis. See also E. Meyer,Geschichte des Altertums(Stuttgart, 1901), iii. pp. 481, 492. In the absence of positive information the 4th-century writers (on whom Plutarch and Nepos mainly rely) seized upon his surname of “Just,” and wove round it a number of anecdotes more picturesque than historical. Herodotus is practically our only trustworthy authority.

(M. O. B. C.)

ARISTIDES,of Miletus, generally regarded as the father of Greek prose romance, flourished 150-100B.C.He wrote six books of eroticMilesian Tales(Μιλησιακὰ), which enjoyed great popularity, and were subsequently translated into Latin by Cornelius Sisenna (119-67B.C.). They are lost, with the exception of a few fragments, but the story of the Ephesian matron in Petronius gives an idea of their nature. They have been compared with the old Frenchfabliauxand the tales of Boccaccio.

Plutarch,Crassus, 32; Ovid,Tristia, ii. 413, 443; Müller,Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, iv.

ARISTIDES,of Thebes, a Greek painter of the 4th centuryB.C.He is said to have excelled in expression. For example, a picture of his representing a dying mother’s fear lest her infant should suck death from her breast was much celebrated. He also painted one of Alexander’s battles. One of his pictures is said to have been bought by King Attalus for 100 talents (more than £20,000).

ARISTIDES, AELIUS,surnamedTheodorus, Greek rhetorician and sophist, son of Eudaemon, a priest of Zeus, was born at Hadriani in Mysia,A.D.117 (or 129). He studied under Herodes Atticus of Athens, Polemon of Smyrna, and Alexander of Cotyaeum, in whose honour he composed a funeral oration still extant. In the practice of his calling he travelled through Greece, Italy, Egypt and Asia, and in many places the inhabitants erected statues to him in recognition of his talents. In 156 he was attacked by an illness which lasted thirteen years, the nature of which has caused considerable speculation. However, it in no way interfered with his studies; in fact, they were prescribed as part of his cure. Aristides’ favourite place of residence was Smyrna. In 178, when it was destroyed by an earthquake, he wrote an account of the disaster to Aurelius, which deeply affected the emperor and induced him to rebuild the city. The grateful inhabitants set up a statue in honour of Aristides, and styled him the “builder” of Smyrna. He refused all honours from them except that of priest of Asclepius, which office he held till his death, about 189. The extant works of Aristides consist of two small rhetorical treatises and fifty-five declamations, some not really speeches at all. The treatises are onpoliticalandsimple speech, in which he takes Demosthenes and Xenophon as models for illustration; some critics attribute these to a later compiler (Spengel,Rhetores Graeci). The sixSacred Discourseshave attracted some attention. They give a full account of his protracted illness, including a mass of superstitious details of visions, dreams and wonderful cures, which the god Asclepius ordered him to record. These cures, from his account, offer similarities to the effects produced by hypnotism. The speeches proper are epideictic or show speeches—on certain gods, panegyrics of the emperor and individual cities (Smyrna, Rome); justificatory—the attack on Plato’sGorgiasin defence of rhetoric and the four statesmen, Thucydides, Miltiades, Pericles, Cimon; symbouleutic or political, the subjects being taken from the past history of free Greece—the Sicilian expedition, peace negotiations with Sparta, the political situation after the battle of Leuctra. ThePanathenaicusandEncomium of Romewere actually delivered, the former imitated from Isocrates. TheLeptinea—the genuineness of which is disputed—contrast unfavourably with the speech of Demosthenes. Aristides’ works were highly esteemed by his contemporaries; they were much used for school instruction, and distinguished rhetoricians wrote commentaries upon them. His style, formed on the best models, is generally clear and correct, though sometimes obscured by rhetorical ornamentation; his subjects being mainly fictitious, the cause possessed no living interest, and his attention was concentrated on form and diction.

Editio princeps (52 declamations only) (1517); Dindorf (1829); Keil (1899); Sandys,Hist. of Class. Schol.i. 312 (ed. 1906).

ARISTIDES, QUINTILIANUS,the author of an ancient treatise on music, who lived probably in the third centuryA.D.According to Meibomius, in whose collection (Antiq. Musicae Auc. Septem, 1652) this work is printed, it contains everything on music that is to be found in antiquity. (See Pauly-Wissowa,Realencyc.ii. 894.)

ARISTIDES, APOLOGY OF. Until 1878 our knowledge of the early Christian writer Aristides was confined to the statement of Eusebius that he was an Athenian philosopher, who presented an apology “concerning the faith” to the emperor Hadrian. In that year, however, the Mechitharists of S. Lazzaro at Venice published a fragment in Armenian1from the beginning of the apology; and in 1889 Dr Rendel Harris found the whole of it in a Syriac version on Mount Sinai. While his edition was passing through the press, it was observed by the present writer that all the while the work had been in our hands in Greek, though in a slightly abbreviated form, as it had been imbedded as a speech in a religious novel written about the 6th century, and entitled “The Life of Barlaam and Josaphat.” The discovery of the Syriac version reopened the question of the date of the work. For although its title there corresponds to that given by the Armenian fragment and by Eusebius, it begins with a formal inscription to “the emperor Titus Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius”; and Dr R. Harris is followed by Harnack and others in supposing that it was only through a careless reading of this inscription that the work was supposed to have been addressed to Hadrian. If this be the case, it must be placed somewhere in the long reign of Antoninus Pius (138-161). There are, however, no internal grounds for rejecting the thrice-attested dedication to Hadrian his predecessor, and the picture of primitive Christian life which is here found points to the earlier rather than to the later date. It is possible that the Apology was read to Hadrian in person when he visited Athens, and that the Syriac inscription was prefixed by a scribe on the analogy of Justin’s Apology, a mistake being made in the amplification of Hadrian’s name.

The Apology opens thus: “I, O king, by the providence of God came into the world; and having beheld the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, the sun and moon, and all besides, Imarvelled at their orderly disposition; and seeing the world and all things in it, that it is moved by compulsion, I understood that He that moveth and governeth it is God. For whatsoever moveth is stronger than that which is moved, and whatsoever governeth is stronger than that which is governed.” Having briefly spoken of the divine nature in the terms of Greek philosophy, Aristides proceeds to ask which of all the races of men have at all partaken of the truth about God. Here we have the first attempt at a systematic comparison of ancient religions. For the purpose of his inquiry he adopts an obvious threefold division into idolaters, Jews and Christians. Idolaters, or, as he more gently terms them in addressing the emperor, “those who worship what among you are said to be gods,” he subdivides into the three great world-civilizations—Chaldeans, Greeks and Egyptians. He chooses this order so as to work up to a climax of error and absurdity in heathen worship. The direct nature-worship of the Chaldeans is shown to be false because its objects are works of the Creator, fashioned for the use of men. They obey fixed laws and have no power over themselves. “The Greeks have erred worse than the Chaldeans ... calling those gods who are no gods, according to their evil lusts, in order that having these as advocates of their wickedness they may commit adultery, and plunder and kill, and do the worst of deeds.” The gods of Olympus are challenged one by one, and shown to be either vile or helpless, or both at once. A heaven of quarrelling divinities cannot inspire a reasonable worship. These gods are not even respectable; how can they be adorable? “The Egyptians have erred worse than all the nations; for they were not content with the worships of the Chaldeans and Greeks, but introduced, moreover, as gods even brute beasts of the dry land and of the waters, and plants and herbs.... Though they see their gods eaten by others and by men, and burned, and slain, and rotting, they do not understand concerning them that they are no gods.”

Throughout the whole of the argument there is strong common-sense and a stern severity unrelieved by conscious humour. Aristides is engaged in a real contest; he strikes hard blows, and gives no quarter. He cannot see, as Justin and Clement see, a striving after truth, a feeling after God, in the older religions, or even in the philosophies of Greece. He has no patience with attempts to find a deeper meaning in the stories of the gods. “Do they say that one nature underlies these diverse forms? Then why does god hate god, or god kill god? Do they say that the histories are mythical? Then the gods themselves are myths, and nothing more.”

The Jews are briefly treated. After a reference to their descent from Abraham and their sojourn in Egypt, Aristides praises them for their worship of the one God, the Almighty Creator; but blames them as worshipping angels, and observing “sabbaths and new moons, and the unleavened bread, and the great fast, and circumcision, and cleanness of meats.” He then proceeds to the description of the Christians. He begins with a statement which, when purged of glosses by a comparison of the three forms in which it survives, reads thus: “Now the Christians reckon their race from the Lord Jesus Christ; and He is confessed to be the Son of God Most High. Having by the Holy Spirit come down from heaven, and having been born of a Hebrew virgin, He took flesh and appeared unto men, to call them back from their error of many gods; and having completed His wonderful dispensation, He was pierced by the Jews, and after three days He revived and went up to heaven. And the glory of His coming thou canst learn, O king, from that which is called among them the evangelic scripture, if thou wilt read it. He bad twelve disciples, who after His ascent into heaven went forth into the provinces of the world and taught His greatness; whence they who at this day believe their preaching are called Christians.” This passage contains striking correspondences with the second section of the Apostles’ Creed. The attribution of the Crucifixion to the Jews appears in several 2nd-century documents; Justin actually uses the words “He was pierced by you” in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew.

“These are they,” he proceeds, “who beyond all the nations of the earth have found the truth: for they know God as Creator and Maker of all things, and they worship no other god beside Him; for they have His commandments graven on their hearts, and these they keep in expectation of the world to come.... Whatsoever they would not should be done unto them, they do not to another.... He that hath supplieth him that hath not without grudging: if they see a stranger they bring him under their roof, and rejoice over him, as over a brother indeed, for they call not one another brethren after the flesh, but after the spirit. They are ready for Christ’s sake to give up their own lives; for His commandments they securely keep, living holily and righteously, according as the Lord their God hath commanded them, giving thanks to Him at all hours, over all their food and drink, and the rest of their good things.” This simple description is fuller in the Syriac, but the additional details must be accepted with caution: for while it is likely that the monk who appropriated the Greek may have cut it down to meet the exigencies of his romance, it is the habit of certain Syriac translators to elaborate their originals. After asserting that “this is the way of truth,” and again referring for further information to “the writings of the Christians,” he says: “And truly this is a new race, and there is something divine mingled with it.” At the close we have a passage which is found only in the Syriac, but which is shown by internal evidence to contain original elements: “The Greeks, because they practise foul things ... turn the ridicule of their foulness upon the Christians.” This is an allusion to the charges of Thyestean banquets and other immoralities, which the early apologists constantly rebut. “But the Christians offer up prayers for them, that they may turn from their error; and when one of them turns, he is ashamed before the Christians of the deeds that were done by him, and he confesses to God saying: ‘In ignorance I did these things’; and he cleanses his heart, and his sins are forgiven him, because he did them in ignorance in former time, when he was blaspheming the true knowledge of the Christians.”

These last words point to the use in the composition of this Apology of a lost apocryphal work of very early date,The Preaching of Peter. This book is known to us chiefly by quotations in Clement of Alexandria: it was widely circulated, and at one time claimed a place within the Canon. It was used by the Gnostic Heracleon and probably by the unknown writer of the epistle to Diognetus. From the fragments which survive we see that it contained: (1) a description of the nature of God, which closely corresponds with Arist. i., followed by (2) a warning not to worship according to the Greeks, with an exposure of various forms of idolatry; (3) a warning not to worship according to the Jews—although they alone think they know the true God—for they worship angels and are superstitious about moons and sabbaths, and feasts, comp. Arist. xiv.; (4) a description of the Christians as being “a third race,” and worshipping God in “a new way” through Christ; (5) a proof of Christianity from Jewish prophecy; (6) a promise of forgiveness to Jews and Gentiles who should turn to Christ, because they had sinned “in ignorance” in the former time. Now all these points, except the proof from Jewish prophecy, are taken up and worked out by Aristides with a frequent use of the actual language ofThe Preaching of Peter. A criterion is thus given us for the reconstruction of the Apology, where the Greek which we have has been abbreviated, and we are enabled to claim with certainty some passages of the Syriac which might otherwise be suspected as interpolations.

The style of the Apology is exceedingly simple. It is curiously misdescribed by Jerome, who never can have seen it, as “Apologeticum pro Christianis contextum philosophorum sententiis.” Its merits are its recognition of the helplessness of the old heathenism to satisfy human aspiration after the divine, and the impressive simplicity with which it presents the unfailing argument of the lives of Christians.

The student may consultThe Apology of Aristides, Syriac text and translation (J.R. Harris), with an appendix containing the Greek text,Texts and Studies, i. 1 (1891), and a critical discussion by R. Seeberg in Zahn’sForschungen, v. 2 (1893); also, briefdiscussions by A. Harnack,Altchristl. Litteratur, i. 96 ff.,Chronologie, i. 271 ff., where references to other writers may be found. TheEpistola ad omnes philosophosand theHomily on the Penitent Thief, ascribed by Armenian tradition to Aristides, are really of 5th-century origin. Trans. ofApologyby W.S. Walford (1909).

(J. A. R.)

1Codex Venet. ann., 981, andCodex Etchmiaz.of the 11th century.

ARISTIPPUS(c.435-356B.C.), Greek philosopher, the founder of the Cyrenaic school, was the son of Aritadas, a merchant of Cyrene. At an early age he came to Athens, and was induced to remain by the fame of Socrates, whose pupil he became. Subsequently he travelled through a number of Grecian cities, and finally settled in Cyrene, where he founded his school. His philosophy was eminently practical (seeCyrenaics). Starting from the two Socratic principles of virtue and happiness, he emphasized the second, and made pleasure the criterion of life. That he held to be good which gives the maximum of pleasure. In pursuance of this he indulged in all forms of external luxury. At the same time he remained thoroughly master of himself and had the self-control to refrain or to enjoy. Diogenes Laertius (ii. 65), quoting Phanias the peripatetic, says that he received money for his teaching, and Aristotle (Met. ii. 2) expressly calls him a sophist. Diogenes further states that he wrote several treatises, but none have survived. The five letters attributed to him are undoubtedly spurious. His daughter Arete, and her son Aristippus (μητροδίδακτος, “pupil of his mother”), carried on the school after his death. A cosmopolitan on principle, and a convinced disbeliever in the ethics of his day, he comes very near to modern empiricism and especially to the modern Hedonist school.

ARISTOorAriston, of Chios (c.250B.C.), a Stoic philosopher and pupil of Zeno. He differed from Zeno on many points, and approximated more closely to the Cynic school. He was eloquent (hence his nickname “the Siren”) but controversial in tone. He despised logic, and rejected the philosophy of nature as beyond the powers of man. Ethics alone he considered worthy of study, and in that only general and theoretical questions. He rejected Zeno’s doctrine of desirable things, intermediate between virtue and vice. There is only one virtue—a clear, intelligent, healthy state of mind (hygeia). Aristo is frequently confounded with another philosopher of the same name, Ariston of Iulis, in Ceos, who, about 230B.C., succeeded Lyco as scholarch of the Peripatetics. (SeeStoics.)

ARISTO,of Pella, a Jewish Christian writer of the middle of the 2nd century, who like Hegesippus (q.v.) represents a school of thought more liberal than that of the Pharisaic and Essene Ebionites to which the decline of Jewish Christianity mainly led. Aristo is cited by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl.iv. 6. 3) for a decree of Hadrian respecting the Jews, but he is best known as the writer of aDialogue(between Papiscus, an Alexandrian Jew, and Jason, who represents the author) on the witness of prophecy to Jesus Christ, which was approvingly defended by Origen against the reproaches of Celsus. The little book was perhaps used by Justin Martyr in his ownDialogue with Trypho, and probably also by Tertullian and Cyprian, but it has not been preserved.

The literature is cited in G. Krüger’sEarly Christian Literature, pp. 104 f.

ARISTOBULUS,of Cassandreia, Greek historian, accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns, of which he wrote an account, mainly geographical and ethnological. His work was largely used by Arrian.

Müller,Historicorum Graecorum Fragmenta; Schöne,De Rerum Alexandri Magni Scriptoribus(1870).

ARISTOBULUS,of Paneas (c.160B.C.), a Jewish philosopher of the Peripatetic school. Gercke places him in the time of Ptolemy X. Philometor (end of 2nd century), Anatolius in that of Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, but the middle of the 2nd century is more probable. He was among the earliest of the Jewish-Alexandrian philosophers whose aim was to reconcile and identify Greek philosophical conceptions with the Jewish religion. Only a few fragments of his work, apparently entitledCommentaries on the Writings of Moses, are quoted by Clement, Eusebius and other theological writers, but they suffice to show its object. He endeavoured to prove that early Greek philosophers had borrowed largely from certain parts of Scripture, and quoted from Linus, Orpheus, Musaeus and others, passages which strongly resemble the Mosaic writings. These passages, however, were obvious forgeries. It is suggested that the name Aristobulus was taken from 2 Macc. i. 10. The hypothesis (Schlatter,Das neugefundene hebräische Stück des Sirach) that it was from Aristobulus that the philosophy ofEcclesiasticuswas derived is not generally accepted.

See E. Schürer,History of the Jewish People(Eng. trans., 1890-1891), ii. 237 seq.; articleAlexandrian School:Philosophy; ands.v.“Aristobulus” inJewish Encyclopedia(Paul Wendland).

ARISTOCRACY(Gr.ἄριστος, best;κρατία, government), etymologically, the “rule of the best,” a form of government variously defined and appreciated at different times and by different authorities. In Greek political philosophy, aristocracy is the government of those who most nearly attain to the ideal of human perfection. Thus Plato in theRepublicadvocates the rule of the “philosopher-king” who, in the social scheme, is analogous to Reason in the intellectual, and alone is qualified to control the active principles,i.e.the fighting population and the artisans or workers. Aristocracy is thus the government by those who are superior both morally and intellectually, and, therefore, govern directly in the interests of the governed, as a good doctor works for the good of his patient. Aristotle classified good governments under three heads—monarchy, aristocracy and commonwealthπολιτεία, to which he opposed the three perverted forms—tyranny or absolutism, oligarchy and democracy or mob-rule. The distinction between aristocracy and oligarchy, which are both necessarily the rule of the few, is that whereas the fewἄριστοιwill govern unselfishly, the oligarchs, being the few wealthy (“plutocracy” in modern terminology), will allow their personal interests to predominate. While Plato’s aristocracy might be the rule of the wise and benevolent despot, Aristotle’s is necessarily the rule of the few.

Historically aristocracy develops from primitive monarchy by the gradual progressive limitation of the regal authority. This process is effected primarily by the nobles who have hitherto formed the council of the king (an excellent example will be found in Athenian politics, seeArchon), whose triple prerogative— religious, military and judicial—is vested,e.g., in a magistracy of three. These are either members of the royal house or the heads of noble families, and are elected for life or periodically by their peers,i.e.by the old royal council (cf. the Areopagus at Athens, the Senate at Rome), now the sovereign power. In practice this council depends primarily on a birth qualification, and thus has always been more or less inferior to the Aristotelian ideal; it is, by definition, an “oligarchy” of birth, and is recruited from the noble families, generally by the addition of emeritus magistrates. From the earliest times, therefore, the word “aristocracy” became practically synonymous with “oligarchy,” and as such it is now generally used in opposition to democracy (which similarly took the place of Aristotle’sπολιτεία), in which the ultimate sovereignty resides in the whole citizen body.

The aristocracy of which we know most in ancient Greece was that of Athens prior to the reforms of Cleisthenes, but all the Greek city-states passed through a period of aristocratic or oligarchic government. Rome, between the regal and the imperial periods, was always more or less under the aristocratic government of the senate, in spite of the gradual growth of democratic institutions (the Lat.optimatesis the equivalent ofἄριστοι). There is, however, one feature which distinguishes these aristocracies from those of modern states, namely, that they were all slave-owning. The original relation of the slave-population, which in many cases outnumbered the free citizens, cannot always be discovered. But in some cases we know that the slaves were the original inhabitants who had been overcome by an influx of racially different invaders (cf. Sparta with its Helots); in others they were captives taken in war. Hence even the most democratic states of antiquity were so far aristocratic that the larger proportion of the inhabitants had no voice in the government. In the second place this relation gave rise to a philosophic doctrine, held even by Aristotle, that there werepeoples who were inferior by nature and adapted to submission (Φύσει δοῦλοι); such people had no “virtue” in the technical civic sense, and were properly occupied in performing the menial functions of society, under the control of theἄριστοι. Thus, combined with the criteria of descent, civic status and the ownership of the land, there was the further idea of intellectual and social superiority. These qualifications were naturally, in course of time, shared by an increasingly large number of the lower class who broke down the barriers of wealth and education. From this stage the transition is easy to the aristocracy of wealth, such as we find at Carthage and later at Venice, in periods when the importance of commerce was paramount and mercantile pursuits had cast off the stigma of inferiority (in Gr.βαναυσία).

It is important at this stage to distinguish between aristocracy and the feudal governments of medieval Europe. In these it is true that certain power was exercised by a small number of families, at the expense of the majority. But under this system each noble governed in a particular area and within strict limitations imposed by his sovereign; no sovereign authority was vested in the nobles collectively.

Under the conditions of the present day the distinction of aristocracy, democracy and monarchy cannot be rigidly maintained from a purely governmental point of view. In no case does the sovereign power in a state reside any longer in an aristocracy, and the word has acquired a social rather than a political sense as practically equivalent to “nobility,” though the distinction is sometimes drawn between the “aristocracy of birth” and the “aristocracy of wealth.” Modern history, however, furnishes many examples of government in the hands of an aristocracy. Such were the aristocratic republics of Venice, Genoa and the Dutch Netherlands, and those of the free imperial cities in Germany. Such, too, in practice though not in theory, was the government of Great Britain from the Revolution of 1689 to the Reform Bill of 1832. The French nobles of theAncien Régime, denounced as “aristocrats” by the Revolutionists, had no share as such in government, but enjoyed exceptional privileges (e.g.exemption from taxation). This privileged position is still enjoyed by the heads of the German mediatized families of the “High Nobility.” In Great Britain, on the other hand, though the aristocratic principle is still represented in the constitution by the House of Lords, the “aristocracy” generally, apart from the peers, has no special privileges.

ARISTODEMUS(8th centuryB.C.), semi-legendary ruler of Messenia in the time of the first Messenian War. Tradition relates that, after some six years’ fighting, the Messenians were forced to retire to the fortified summit of Ithome. The Delphic oracle bade them sacrifice a virgin of the house of Aepytus. Aristodemus offered his own daughter, and when her lover, hoping to save her life, declared that she was no longer a maiden, he slew her with his own hand to prove the assertion false. In the thirteenth year of the war, Euphaes, the Messenian king, died. As he left no children, popular election was resorted to, and Aristodemus was chosen as his successor, though the national soothsayers objected to him as the murderer of his daughter. As a ruler he was mild and conciliatory. He was victorious in the pitched battle fought at the foot of Ithome in the fifth year of his reign, a battle in which the Messenians, reinforced by the entire Arcadian levy and picked contingents from Argos and Sicyon, defeated the combined Spartan and Corinthian forces. Shortly afterwards, however, led by unfavourable omens to despair of final success, he killed himself on his daughter’s tomb. Though little is known of his life and the chronology is uncertain, yet Aristodemus may fairly be regarded as a historical character. His reign is dated 731-724B.C.by Pausanias, and this may be taken as approximately correct, though Duncker (History of Greece, Eng. trans., ii. p. 69) inclines to place it eight years later.

Pausanias iv. 9-13 is practically our only authority. He followed as his chief source the prose history of Myron of Priene, an untrustworthy writer, probably of the 2nd centuryB.C.; hence a good deal of his story must be regarded as fanciful, though we cannot distinguish accurately between the true and the fictitious.

(M. N. T.)

ARISTOLOCHIA(Gr.ἄριστος, best,λοχεία, child-birth, in allusion to its repute in promoting child-birth), a genus of shrubs or herbs of the natural order Aristolochiaceae, often with climbing stems, found chiefly in the tropics. The flower forms a tube inflated at the base.A. Clematitis, birthwort, is a central and southern European species, found sometimes in England apparently wild on ruins and similar places, but not a native.A. Sipho, Dutchman’s pipe, or pipe vine, is a climber, native in the woods of the Atlantic United States, and grown in Europe as a garden plant. The flower is bent like a pipe.

A member of the same order is theasarabacca(Asarum europaeum), a small creeping herb with kidney-shaped leaves and small purplish bell-shaped flowers. It is a native of the woods of Europe and north temperate Asia, and occurs wild in some English counties. It was formerly grown for medicinal purposes, the underground stem having cathartic and emetic properties. An allied species,A. canadense, is the Canadian snake-root, a native of Canada and the Atlantic United States.

ARISTOMENES,of Andania, the semi-legendary hero of the second Messenian war. He was a member of the Aepytid family, the son of Nicomedes (or, according to another version, of Pyrrhus) and Nicoteleia, and took a prominent part in stirring up the revolt against Sparta and securing the co-operation of Argos and Arcadia. He showed such heroism in the first encounter, at Derae, that the crown was offered him, but he would accept only the title of commander-in-chief. His daring is illustrated by the story that he came by night to the temple of Athene “of the Brazen House” at Sparta, and there set up his shield with the inscription, “Dedicated to the goddess by Aristomenes from the Spartans.” His prowess contributed largely to the Messenian victory over the Spartan and Corinthian forces at “The Boar’s Barrow” in the plain of Stenyclarus, but in the following year the treachery of the Arcadian king Aristocrates caused the Messenians to suffer a crushing defeat at “The Great Trench.” Aristomenes and the survivors retired to the mountain stronghold of Eira, where they defied the Spartans for eleven years. On one of his raids he and fifty of his companions were captured and thrown into the Caeadas, the chasm on Mt. Taygetus into which criminals were cast. Aristomenes alone was saved, and soon reappeared at Eira: legend told how he was upheld in his fall by an eagle and escaped by grasping the tail of a fox, which led him to the hole by which it had entered. On another occasion he was captured during a truce by some Cretan auxiliaries of the Spartans, and was released only by the devotion of a Messenian girl who afterwards became his daughter-in-law. At length Eira was betrayed to the Spartans (668B.C.according to Pausanias), and after a heroic resistance Aristomenes and his followers had to evacuate Messenia and seek a temporary refuge with their Arcadian allies. A desperate plan to seize Sparta itself was foiled by Aristocrates, who paid with his life for his treachery. Aristomenes retired to Ialysus in Rhodes, where Damagetus, his son-in-law, was king, and died there while planning a journey to Sardis and Ecbatana to seek aid from the Lydian and Median sovereigns (Pausanias iv. 14-24). Another tradition represents him as captured and slain by the Spartans during the war (Pliny,Nat. Hist.xi. 187; Val. Maximus i. 8, 15; Steph. Byzant. s.v.Άνδανία). Though there seems to be no conclusive reason for doubting the existence of Aristomenes, his history, as related by Pausanias, following mainly theMesseniacaof the Cretan epic poet Rhianus (about 230B.C.), is evidently largely interwoven with fictions. These probably arose after the foundation of Messene in 369B.C.Aristomenes’ statue was set up in the stadium there: his bones were fetched from Rhodes and placed in a tomb surmounted by a column (Paus. iv. 32. 3, 6); and more than five centuries later we still find heroic honours paid to him, and his exploits a popular subject of song (ib. iv. 14. 7; 16. 6).

For further details see Pausanias iv.; Polyaenus ii. 31; G. Grote,History of Greece, pt. ii. chap. vii.; M. Duncker,History of Greece, Eng. trans., book iv. chap, viii.; A. Holm,History of Greece, Eng. trans., vol. i. chap. xvi.

(M. N. T.)

ARISTONICUS,of Alexandria, Greek grammarian, lived during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. He taught at Rome and wrote commentaries and grammatical treatises. His chief work wasΠερὶ Σημείων Όμήρου, in which he gave an account of the “critical marks” inserted by Aristarchus in the margin of his recension of the text of theIliadandOdyssey. Important fragments are preserved in the scholia of the Venetian Codex A of theIliad.

Friedländer,AristoniciΠερὶ Σημείων Ίλιάδοςreliquiae(1853); Carnuth,AristoniciΠερὶ Σημείων Όδυσσεἰαςreliquiae(1869).

ARISTOPHANES(c.448-385B.C.1), the great comic dramatist and poet of Athens. His birth-year is uncertain. He is known to have been about the same age as Eupolis, and is said to have been “almost a boy” when his first comedy (The Banqueters) was brought out in 427B.C.His father Philippus was a landowner in Aegina. Aristophanes was an Athenian citizen of the tribe Pandionis, and the deme Cydathene. The stories which made him a native of Camirus in Rhodes, or of the Egyptian Naucratis, had probably no other foundation than an indictment for usurpation of civic rights (ξενίας γραφή) which appears to have been more than once laid against him by Cleon. His three sons— Philippus, Araros and Nicostratus—were all comic poets. Philippus, the eldest, was a rival of Eubulus, who began to exhibit in 376B.C.Araros brought out two of his father’s latest comedies—theCocalusand theAeolosicon, and in 375 began to exhibit works of his own. Nicostratus, the youngest, is assigned by Athenaeus to the Middle Comedy, but belongs, as is shown by some of the names and characters of his pieces, to the New Comedy also.

Although tragedy and comedy had their common origin in the festivals of Dionysus, the regular establishment of tragedy at Athens preceded by half a century that of comedy. The Old Comedy may be said to have lasted about eighty years (470-390B.C.), and to have flourished about fifty-six (460-404B.C.). Of the forty poets who are named as having illustrated it the chief were Cratinus, Eupolis and Aristophanes. The Middle Comedy covers a period of about seventy years (390-320B.C.), its chief poets being Antiphanes, Alexis, Theopompus and Strattis. The New Comedy was in vigour for about seventy years (320-250B.C.), having for its foremost representatives Menander, Philemon and Diphilus. The Old Comedy was possible only for a thorough democracy. Its essence was a satirical censorship, unsparing in personalities, of public and of private life—of morality, of statesmanship, of education, of literature, of social usage—in a word, of everything which had an interest for the city or which could amuse the citizens. Preserving all the freedom of banter and of riotous fun to which its origin gave it an historical right, it aimed at associating with this a strong practical purpose—the expression of a democratic public opinion in such a form that no misconduct or folly could altogether disregard it. That licentiousness, that grossness of allusion which too often disfigures it, was, it should be remembered, exacted by the sentiment of the Dionysiac festivals, as much as a decorous cheerfulness is expected at the holiday times of other worships. This was the popular element. Without this the entertainment would have been found flat and unseasonable. But for a comic poet of the higher calibre the consciousness of a recognized power which he could exert, and the desire to use this power for the good of the city, must always have been the uppermost feelings. At Athens the poet of the Old Comedy had an influence analogous, perhaps, rather to that of the journalist than to that of the modern dramatist. But the established type of Dionysiac comedy gave him an instrument such as no public satirist has ever wielded. When Molière wished to brand hypocrisy he could only make his Tartuffe the central figure of a regular drama, developed by a regular process to a just catastrophe. He had no choice between touching too lightly and using sustained force to make a profound impression. The Athenian dramatist of the Old Comedy worked under no such limitations of form. The wildest flights of extravagance were permitted to him. Nothing bound him to a dangerous emphasis or a wearisome insistence. He could deal the keenest thrust, or make the most earnest appeal, and at the next moment—if his instinct told him that it was time to change the subject—vary the serious strain by burlesque. He had, in short, an incomparable scope for trenchant satire directed by sure tact.

Aristophanes is for us the representative of the Old Comedy. But his genius, while it includes, also transcends the genius of the Old Comedy. He can denounce the frauds of a Cleon, he can vindicate the duty of Athens to herself and to her allies, with a stinging scorn and a force of patriotic indignation which makes the poet almost forgotten in the citizen. He can banter Euripides with an ingenuity of light mockery which makes it seem for the time as if the leading Aristophanic trait was the art of seeing all things from their prosaic side. Yet it is neither in the denunciation nor in the mockery that he is most individual. His truest and highest faculty is revealed by those wonderful bits of lyric writing in which he soars above everything that can move laughter or tears, and makes the clear air thrill with the notes of a song as free, as musical and as wild as that of the nightingale invoked by his own chorus in theBirds. The speech of Dikaios Logos in theClouds, the praises of country life in thePeace, the serenade in theEcclesiazusae, the songs of the Spartan and Athenian maidens in theLysistrata, above all, perhaps, the chorus in theFrogs, the beautiful chant of the Initiated,—these passages, and such as these, are the true glories of Aristophanes. They are the strains, not of an artist, but of one who warbles for pure gladness of heart in some place made bright by the presence of a god. Nothing else in Greek poetry has quite this wild sweetness of the woods. Of modern poets Shakespeare alone, perhaps, has it in combination with a like richness and fertility of fancy.

Fifty-four2comedies were ascribed to Aristophanes. Forty-three of these are allowed as genuine by Bergk. Eleven only are extant. These eleven form a running commentary on the outer and the inner life of Athens during thirty-six years. They may be ranged under three periods. The first, extending to 420B.C., includes those plays in which Aristophanes uses an absolutely unrestrained freedom of political satire. The second ends with the year 405. Its productions are distinguished from those of the earlier time by a certain degree of reticence and caution. The third period, down to 388B.C., comprises two plays in which the transition to the character of the Middle Comedy is well marked, not merely by disuse of the parabasis, but by general self-restraint.

I.First Period, (1) 425B.C.The Acharnians.—Since the defeat in Boeotia the peace party at Athens had gained ground, and in this play Aristophanes seeks to strengthen their hands. Dicaeopolis, an honest countryman, is determined to make peace with Sparta on his own account, not deterred by the angry men of Acharnae, who crave vengeance for the devastation of their vineyards. He sends to Sparta for samples of peace; and he is so much pleased with the flavour of the Thirty Years’ sample that he at once concludes a treaty for himself and his family. All the blessings of life descend on him; while Lamachus, the leader of the war party, is smarting from cold, snow and wounds.

(2) 424B.C.The Knights.—Three years before, in hisBabylonians, Aristophanes had assailed Cleon as the typical demagogue. In this play he continues the attack. The Demos, or State, is represented by an old man who has put himself and his household into the hands of a rascally Paphlagonian steward. Nicias and Demosthenes, slaves of Demos, contrive that the Paphlagonian shall be supplanted in their master’s favour by a sausage-seller. No sooner has Demos been thus rescued than his youthfulness and his good sense return together.

(3) 423B.C.The Clouds(the first edition; a second edition was brought out in 422B.C.).—This play would be correctly described as an attack on the new spirit of intellectual inquiry and culture rather than on a school or class. Two classes ofthinkers or teachers are, however, specially satirized under the general name of “Sophist” (v. 331)—1. The Physical Philosophers—indicated by allusions to the doctrines of Anaxagoras, Heraclitus and Diogenes of Apollonia. 2. The professed teachers of rhetoric, belles lettres, &c., such as Protagoras and Prodicus. Socrates is taken as the type of the entire tendency. A youth named Pheidippides—obviously meant for Alcibiades—is sent by his father to Socrates to be cured of his dissolute propensities. Under the discipline of Socrates the youth becomes accomplished in dishonesty and impiety. The conclusion of the play shows the indignant father preparing to burn up the philosopher and his hall of contemplation.

(4) 422B.C.The Wasps.—This comedy, which suggestedLes Plaideursto Racine, is a satire on the Athenian love of litigation. The strength of demagogy, while it lay chiefly in the ecclesia, lay partly also in the paid dicasteries. From this point of view theWaspsmay be regarded as supplementing theKnights. Philocleon (admirer of Cleon), an old man, has a passion for lawsuits—a passion which his son, Bdelycleon (detester of Cleon) fails to check, until he hits upon the device of turning the house into a law-court, and paying his father for absence from the public suits. The house-dog steals a Sicilian cheese; the old man is enabled to gratify his taste by trying the case, and, by an oversight, acquits the defendant. In the second half of the play a change comes over the dream of Philocleon; from litigation he turns to literature and music, and is congratulated by the chorus on his happy conversion.

(5) 421B.C.3The Peace.—In its advocacy of peace with Sparta, this play, acted at the Great Dionysia shortly before the conclusion of the treaty, continues the purpose of theAcharnians. Trygaeus, a distressed Athenian, soars to the sky on a beetle’s back. There he finds the gods engaged in pounding the Greek states in a mortar. In order to stop this, he frees the goddess Peace from a well in which she is imprisoned. The pestle and mortar are laid aside by the gods, and Trygaeus marries one of the handmaids of Peace.

II.Second Period. (6) 414B.C.The Birds.—Peisthetaerus, an enterprising Athenian, and his friend Euelpides persuade the birds to build a city—“Cloud-Cuckoo-borough”—in mid-air, so as to cut off the gods from men. The plan succeeds; the gods send envoys to treat with the birds; and Peisthetaerus marries Basileia, daughter of Zeus. Some have found in theBirdsa complete historical allegory of the Sicilian expedition; others, a general satire on the prevalence at Athens of headstrong caprice over law and order; others, merely an aspiration towards a new and purified Athens—a dream to which the poet had turned from his hope for a revival of the Athens of the past. In another view, the piece is mainly a protest against the religious fanaticism which the incident of the Hermae had called forth.

(7) 411B.C.The Lysistrata.—This play was brought out during the earlier stages of those intrigues which led to the revolution of the Four Hundred. It appeared shortly before Peisander had arrived in Athens from the camp at Samos for the purpose of organizing the oligarchic policy. TheLysistrataexpresses the popular desire for peace at any cost. As the men can do nothing, the women take the question into their own hands, occupy the citadel, and bring the citizens to surrender.

(8) 411B.C.The Thesmophoriazusae(Priestesses of Demeter).— This came out three months later than theLysistrata, during the reign of terror established by the oligarchic conspirators, but before their blow had been struck. The political meaning of the play lies in the absence of political allusion. Fear silences even comedy. Only women and Euripides are satirized. Euripides is accused and condemned at the female festival of the Thesmophoria.

(9) 405B.C.The Frogs.—This piece was brought out just when Athens had made her last effort in the Peloponnesian War, eight months before the battle of Aegospotami, and about fifteen months before the taking of Athens by Lysander. It may be considered as an attempt to distract men’s minds from public affairs. It is a literary criticism. Aeschylus and Euripides were both lately dead. Athens is beggared of poets; and Dionysus goes down to Hades to bring back a poet. Aeschylus and Euripides contend in the under-world for the throne of tragedy; and the victory is at last awarded to Aeschylus.

III.Third Period.4(10) 393B.C.4The Ecclesiazusae(women in parliament).—The women, disguised as men, steal into the ecclesia, and succeed in decreeing a new constitution. At this time the demagogue Agyrrhius led the assembly; and the play is, in fact, a satire on the general demoralization of public life.

(11) 388B.C.The Plutus(Wealth).—The first edition of the play had appeared in 408B.C., being a symbolical representation of the fact that the victories won by Alcibiades in the Hellespont had brought back the god of wealth to the treasure-chamber of the Parthenon. In its extant form thePlutusis simply a moral allegory. Chremylus, a worthy but poor man, falls in with a blind and aged wanderer, who proves to be the god of wealth. Asclepius restores eyesight to Plutus; whereupon all the just are made rich and all the unjust are reduced to poverty.

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