ARISTIDES, P. Elius, surnamed Theodorus, a distinguished Greek rhetorician, born at Adriani in Mysia about A.D. 117. After studying at Athens under Herodes Atticus, he travelled through Egypt, Greece, and Italy. Though his health was extremely delicate, he pursued his rhetorical studies with unremitting assiduity, and acquired so great a reputation that statues were erected in his honour by several of the states he visited. His overweening estimation of his own abilities, however, induced some persons to underrate his merits, and exposed him to frequent enmities. He settled at Smyrna; and when that city was ruined by an earthquake A.D. 178, the eloquence of his appeal induced M. Aurelius
to assist the citizens in restoring it. In gratitude for this service they would have heaped honours on Aristides, but he declined to receive anything but the office of priest of Asclepius, which he held till his death, about A.D. 189. His Sermones Sacri contain several curious passages respecting the cures of the sick in temples, which have excited considerable attention in modern times by their apparent resemblance to certain effects said to be produced by Mesmerism, or, more properly, Hypnotism or nervous sleep. Fifty-five of his orations and declamations are extant, and two treatises on rhetoric, of little value. A complete edition of his works was published by W. Dindorf, Lips. 1829, 3 vols. 8vo.