general of the Achaeans, conquered Nicias tyrant of Sicily. Two years after, he surprised the castle called Acrocorinthus, and drove out the king of Macedonia: he delivered Argos from its tyrants, and was poisoned by Philip II. king of Macedon, whom he had newly restored: he was about 62 when he died, the second year of the 141st Olymp. He was interred at Sicily, and received the greatest honours from his countrymen. His son, who had also been pretor, was poisoned by king Philip. Polybius gives us so great a character of Aratus the father's Commentaries or History, that the loss of so valuable a work is highly to be regretted.

a Greek poet, born at Soli, or Soloe, a town in Cilicia, which afterwards changed its name, and was called Pompeiopolis, in honour of Pompey the Great. He flourished about the 124th, or, according to some, the 126th Olympiad, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus king of Egypt. He discovered in his youth a remarkable poignancy of wit, and capacity for improvement; and having received his education under Dionysius Heracleotes, a Stoic philosopher, he espoused the principles of that sect. Aratus was physician to Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, king of Macedon: this prince, being a great encourager of learned men, sent for him to court, admitted him to his intimacy, and encouraged him in his studies. The Phenomena of Aratus, which is still extant, gives him a title to the character of an astronomer, as well as a poet; in this piece he describes the nature and motion of the stars, and shews the particular influences of the heavenly bodies, with their various dispositions and relations. He wrote this poem in Greek verse; it was translated into Latin by Cicero; who tells us, in his first book De Oratore, that the verses of Aratus are very noble. This piece was translated by others as well as Cicero; there being a translation by Germanicus Caesar, and another into elegant verse by Fetus Avienus. An edition of the Phenomena was published by Grotius, at Leyden, in quarto, 1600, in Greek and Latin, with the fragments of Cicero's version, and the translations of Germanicus and Avienus, all which the editor has illustrated with curious notes. He was certainly much esteemed by the ancients, since we find so great a number of scholiasts and commentators upon him. There are several other works also ascribed to Aratus. Suidas mentions the following: Hymns to Pan; Astrology and Astrotheology; a composition of Antidotes; an Encomium on Theophrastus; an Epistle on Antigonus; an Epigram on Phila, the daughter of Antipater, and wife of Antigonus; an Epicedium of Cleombrotus; a Correction of the Odyssey; and some Epistles, in prose. Virgil, in his Georgics, has imitated or translated many passages from this author; and St Paul has quoted a passage of Aratus. It is in his speech to the Athenians (Acts xvii. 28.) wherein he tells them, that some of their own poets have said, "τερπομένων γενόμενοι: For we are also his offspring." These words are the beginning of the fifth line of the Phenomena of Aratus.