surnamed the Just, one of the most celebrated characters of his age for purity and integrity, and contemporary with Themistocles, was the son of Lysimachus, a man of middle rank, and born at Athens. His dispositions and temper from his youth all conjoined in anticipating that greatness to which he afterwards rose. To a firm, resolute, and placid temper, he likewise added a great contempt of dissimulation, and an utter abhorrence of every thing dishonourable. He began very early to meditate on subjects of government, and applied to his studies with the greatest assiduity. He imbibed a strong predilection for oligarchy upon becoming acquainted with the laws of Lycurgus, which excited his admiration, and gave him a distaste of the unlimited democracy then established in his native city. On the other hand, Themistocles favoured democracy; and even when at school he is said to have been his constant antagonist on that point. A perpetual opposition to one another in all political points was the consequence of this difference of opinion, when their abilities raised them to several important stations in the state. It is related, that one day having firmly opposed a proposal of Themistocles in the assembly, which in his own conscience he knew to be right, on coming out he exclaimed, "The affairs of the Athenians will never prosper till they throw both of us into the bethrahum" (the dungeon for condemned criminals).

Aristides was present at the battle of Marathon, fought B.C. 496, and was next in command among the Athenians to Miltiades; and there, upon that general's proposing to come to battle as soon as possible, he seconded his motion with the utmost vigour. In the field he distinguished himself by his intrepidity, valour, and generosity; and being left after the battle to secure the spoils, he executed his trust with honour and fidelity, bringing all to the public account, reserving nothing for himself. He was elected to the important office of chief magistrate the year following; but, by the art of Themistocles, the high authority he had attained by his merits was at length converted into an accusation against him, and he was accordingly banished by the ostracism—a mild but often unjust measure in the policy of the Athenian state, for getting a temporary relief from the presence of any political influence by which they thought their independence might be injured. As the Persians were meditating a new invasion of Greece, he employed himself in his exile in encouraging the Greeks to defend their liberties against the invaders. The Athenians immediately, upon the approach of Xerxes, recalled Aristides, whose absence they began sincerely to regret, along with their other exiles. At this critical moment, upon his return, he suspended all political animosities; and upon understanding that it was the design of Themistocles to fight the Persian navy in the Straits of Salamis, he waited on him in private, proposed an oblivion of all past circumstances, extolled his intentions, and gave him his sincere promise to do the utmost in his power towards effecting his designs. Themistocles, some time after the battle of Salamis, acquainted the Athenians that he had formed a scheme which, although it was of such a nature as forbade his public avowal of it to them, was of inestimable advantage to the state. They immediately ordered that he should communicate it to Aristides. It was a project for consuming the whole confederate fleet of Greece by fire, except their own ships; and thus the entire sway of the sea would be left to the Athenian navy. Aristides reported that nothing could be more unjust, and at the same time nothing more advantageous, than the scheme of Themistocles. Upon this report the people immediately determined to drop any further thought of it. Aristides, before the battle of Platæa, was of considerable service in persuading his countrymen, who were elated with their former successes, to submit to the superior power of the Spartans, and in preserving peace and amity between the confederate forces. He acquitted himself with great valour and resolution in the engagement, and was appointed after the victory to determine a very dangerous dispute concerning the honour of the day, which he conferred upon the Platæans, giving up the claim of the Athenians, the Lacedemonians following his example. Upon the rebuilding of Athens, he was the first person to promote a law which divided the administration among the citizens at large, and enjoined that the archons or chief magistrates should be elected out of the whole body of the people, who had so deservedly merited the favour of the state.

Aristides, upon the continuation of the war with the Persians, was sent, along with Cimon the son of Miltiades, to take the command of the Athenian forces in the confederate army. Their humility and meekness, compared with the haughty domineering temper of Pausanias, so enraged the rest of the allies, that the superiority of rank was conferred upon Athens, with the joint concurrence of the other states. The nomination of Aristides to lay an equal assessment upon all the states for the purpose of defraying the expense of the war, was a signal proof of the high idea all Greece had of his integrity and justice. The wisdom and impartiality with which he performed this commission gave universal satisfaction. He obliged all the confederates, after this affair was terminated, solemnly to swear to all the articles of association. The advice which he afterwards gave the Athenians to extend their own territories beyond their proper limits, must certainly have proceeded from some very pressing necessity, when he thus drew down the consequences of the perjury upon his own head. Aristides, on Themistocles's falling under the displeasure of the ruling party, would not con- This great man died about 407 years B.C., according to some at Athens, at an advanced age; others say at Pontus, where he was transacting public business. He was buried at the public expense, his daughters received portions out of the public treasury, and an estate in land was bestowed on his son Lysimachus, in gratitude for the signal services Aristides had done his country.

**Aristides**, *Ætius*, a celebrated orator, born in Mysia about 129 years before the Christian era. The best edition of his works is that of Oxford, printed in Greek and Latin, in two volumes quarto.

**Aristides**, a painter contemporary with Apelles, flourished at Thebes about the 122d Olympiad. He was the first, according to Pliny, who expressed character and passion, but he was not remarkable for softness of colouring.

**Aristippus**, the founder of the Cyrenaic sect of philosophy, was the son of Aretades, and born at Cyrene in Libya. He flourished about the 96th Olympiad. The great reputation of Socrates induced him to leave his own country and remove to Athens, that he might have the satisfaction of hearing his discourses. He was chiefly delighted with those discourses of Socrates that related the most to pleasure, which he asserted to be the ultimate end in which all happiness consists. His manner of life was agreeable to his opinion, for he indulged himself extremely in all sorts of luxuries. Though he had a good estate, yet he was the only one of the disciples of Socrates who took money for teaching. Upon his leaving Socrates he went to Ægina, as Athenaeus informs us, where he lived with more freedom and luxury than before. Socrates sent frequent exhortations to him in order to reclaim him, but all in vain; and with the same view he wrote that discourse which we find in Xenophon. Here Aristippus became acquainted with Laës, the famous courtezan of Corinth, for whose sake he took a voyage to that city. He continued at Ægina till the death of Socrates, as appears from Plato's *Phædo*, and the epistle which he wrote upon that occasion. He returned at last into his own country, Cyrene, where he professed philosophy, and instituted a sect which, as we observed above, was called the *Cyrenaics*, from the place, and by some writers the *Hedonic* or voluptuous, from its doctrines.

We have many apophthegms of his preserved. To one who asked him, what his son would be the better for being a scholar, "If for nothing else," said he, "yet for this alone, that when he comes into the theatre one stone will not sit upon another." When a certain person recommended his son to him, he demanded 500 drachmas; and upon the father's replying that he could buy a slave for that sum, "Do so," said he, "and then you will be master of a couple." Being reproached because, having a suit of law depending, he fed a lawyer to plead for him, "Just so," said he, "when I have a great supper to make I always hire a cook." Being asked what was the difference between a wise man and a fool, he replied, "Send both of them together naked to those who are acquainted with neither of them, and then you will know." Being reproached for going from Socrates to Dionysius, he replied, "That he went to Socrates when he wanted serious instruction, and to Dionysius for diversion." Having received money of Dionysius, at the same time that Plato accepted a book only, and being reproached for it, "The reason is plain," says he, "I want money and Plato wants books." Being cast by shipwreck ashore on the island of Rhodes, and perceiving mathematical schemes and diagrams drawn upon the ground, he said, "Courage, friends; for I see the footsteps of men."

Having visited Dionysius the Sicilian tyrant, and lived a long time at his court, his daughter Arete sent to him to desire his presence at Cyrene in order to take care of her affairs, since she was in danger of being oppressed by the magistrates; but he fell sick in his return home, and died at Lipara. With regard to his principal opinions, like Socrates, he rejected the sciences as they were then taught, and pretended that logic alone was sufficient to teach truth and fix its bounds. He asserted that pleasure and pain were the criterions by which we were to be determined; that these alone made up all our passions; that the first produced all the soft emotions, and the latter all the violent ones. The assemblage of all pleasures, he asserted, made true happiness, and that the best way to attain this was to enjoy the present moments. He wrote a great many books, but none of them has been preserved. It has been shown by M. Luzac, in his *Lectioines Atticae*, that he was not the author of the treatise on the *Luxury of the Ancients*, frequently ascribed to him; nor of the *Epistles* given as his in the Socratic collection of Leo Allatius.

**Aristo**, a Stoic philosopher, the disciple of Zeno, flourished about 290 years before the Christian era. He differed but little from his master Zeno. He rejected logic as of no use, and natural philosophy as being above the reach of the human understanding. It is said that being bald, the sun burnt his head; and that this caused his death.

**Aristocracy**, a form of government by which the supreme power is vested in the principal persons of the state. The word is derived from *ἀρχής*, optimus, and *κυβερνέω*, impero, I govern. See the article Government.

**Aristogiton**, a famous Athenian, who, with Harmodius, killed Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens, about 518 years before the Christian era. The Athenians erected a statue to him.

**Aristophanes**, a celebrated comic poet of Athens. He was contemporary with Plato, Socrates, and Euripides; and most of his plays were written during the Peloponnesian war. His imagination was warm and lively, and his genius particularly turned to raillery. He had also great spirit and resolution, and was a declared enemy to slavery, and to all those who wanted to oppress their country. The Athenians suffered themselves in his time to be governed by men who had no other views than to make themselves masters of the commonwealth. Aristophanes exposed the designs of these men with great wit and severity upon the stage. Cleon was the first whom he attacked, in his comedy of the *Equites*; and as there was not one of the comedians who would venture to personate a man of his great authority, Aristophanes played the character himself, and with so much success, that the Athenians obliged Cleon to pay a fine of five talents, which were given to the poet. He described the affairs of the Athenians in so exact a manner that his comedies are a faithful history of that people. For this reason, when Dionysius, king of Syracuse, desired to learn the state and language of Athens, Plato sent him the comedies of Aristophanes. He wrote above 50 comedies, but there are only 11 extant which are perfect: these are, Plutus, the Clouds, the Frogs, Equites, the Acharnenses, the Wasps, Peace, the Birds, the Ecclesiazusæ or Female Orators, the Thesmophoriazusæ or Priestesses of Ceres, and Lysistrata. The Clouds, which he wrote in ridicule of Socrates, is the most celebrated of all his comedies. Having conceived some aversion to the poet Euripides, Aristophanes satirizes him in several of his plays, particularly in his Frogs and his Thesmophoriazusæ. He wrote his Peace in the 10th year of the Peloponnesian war, when a treaty of 50 years was concluded between the