Biography certain public festivals duties of an inferior, not to say menial, character were assigned to them. They could hold no land; they could not intermarry with citizens, nor even maintain a civil action in their own persons, but were obliged for this purpose to employ a citizen as their patron or sponsor, (poσrárns.t) Plato, on the contrary, was of one of the most illustrious families in Athens, and, if we may judge by the anecdotes of his connection with Chabrias and Timotheus, possessed friends among the most influential public characters of the day. It is scarcely credible therefore, even had all better motives been wanting, that fear of making a powerful enemy should not have restrained Aristotle from behaving to his master in the way which has been described. Uncongeniality of Plato and Aristotle. It is not difficult to imagine how such stories grew up. There is a most marked contrast observable in the modes of thought of the two philosophers, such a difference indeed as seems incompatible with congeniality, although quite consistent with the highest mutual admiration and respect. It manifests itself in their very style; Aristotle's being the dryest and most jejune prose, while that of Plato teems with the imagery of poetry. The one delights to dress his thoughts in all the pomp of as high a degree of fancy as one can conceive united to a sound judgment; the other seems to consider that the slightest garment would cramp their vigour and hide their symmetry. In Aristotle we find a searching and comprehensive view of things as they present themselves to the understanding, but no attempt to pass the limits of that faculty,-no suspicion indeed that such exist. Plato, on the contrary, never omits an opportunity of passing from the finite to the infinite, from the sensuous to the spiritual, from the domain of the intellect to that of the feelings: he is ever striving to body forth an ideal, and he only regards the actual as it furnishes materials for this. Hence he frequently forgets that he violates the conditions to which the actual world is subjected; or perhaps we should rather say, he disregards the importance of this. A striking exemplification of the essential difference between the two great philosophers is afforded by the Republic of Plato compared with the criticism of it by Aristotle. (Pol. ii.) The former seems to have grown up out of a wish to embody an ideal of justice, and is the genuine offspring of a vigorous and luxuriant imagination reviewing the forms of social life and seeing in all analogies to the original conception which it was the aim of the artist to set forth. But from this point of view it is never once contemplated by its critic. Essentially a picture, it is discussed by him as if it were a map.§ The natural They were the σκαφηφόροι, σκιαδηφόροι, and υδριαφόροι. See the authorities collected by Schoemann. Jus publicum Græcum, p. 190. Diog. Laert. Vit. Plat. sec.1, 23. Ælian, Var. Hist. ii. 18. The sacred subjects, as they were treated by the early Italian painters,—indeed down to the time of Raffaelle and Correggio,— present an analogy to this work. There is in them a certain dominant thought, which it is the artist's problem to embody, and which all the details, however incongruous they may be in all other respects, assist in bringing out more fully and clearly. Thus in the celebrated Vierge au Poisson there is a real unity of feeling to which each of the particulars contributes its share. But a spectator who misses this will at once remark on the glaring absurdity of the evangelist, an old man, reading his gospel to the subject of it, an infant in arms; and of Tobias presenting a fish of the size of a mackerel, as that one which leaped out of the river and would have devoured him." Exactly on such principles does Aristotle's critique on the Republic proceed. consequence of these different bents is that Aristotle's Aristot views always form parts of a system intellectually complete, while Plato's harmonize with each other morally; we rise from the study of the latter with our feelings purified, from that of the former with our perceptions cleared; the one strengthens the intellect, the other elevates the spirit. Consistently with this opposition it happened that in the early centuries Christianity was often grafted on Platonism, and even where this was not the case, many persons were prepared for its reception by the study of Plato; while in the age of the schoolmen-an age when religion had become theologyAristotle's works were the only food which the philosophy of the time could assimilate. minds. The difference which is so strikingly marked between Misinterthe matured philosophical characters of these two giant preted by intellects is of a kind which must have shown itself early. inferior Neither could have entirely sympathized with the other however much he might admire his genius; and this circumstance may very well have produced a certain estrangement, which by such of their followers as were of too vulgar minds to understand the respect which all really great men must entertain for each other, would readily be misinterpreted. Difference of opinion would, if proceeding from an equal, be represented in the light of hostility,-if from a former pupil, in that of ingratitude. The miserable spirit of partisanship prevailing among the Greeks, which is so strongly reprobated by Cicero, rapidly gave birth to tales which at first probably were meant only to illustrate the preconceived notions which they were in course of time employed to confirm. And so, if Plato had ever made a remark in the same sense and spirit as Waller's Epigram to a Lady singing one of his own Songs,† this might very easily in its passage through inferior and ungenial minds have been distorted into the bitter reflection we have noticed above. Aristotle and Iso Respecting the relation between Aristotle and another Hostility celebrated contemporary of his, there can be no manner between of doubt. All accounts agree with the inference we should draw from what we find on the subject in his crates. works, that between him and Isocrates the rhetorician there subsisted a most cordial dislike, accompanied, on the part of the former at least, with as cordial a contempt. Isocrates was in fact a sophist of by no means a high order. He did not possess the cleverness which enabled many of that class to put forth a claim to universal knowledge, and under many circumstances to maintain it successfully. He professed to teach nothing but the art of oratory: but his want of comprehensiveness was not compensated by any superior degree of accuracy or depth. Oratory, according to his view, was the art of making what was important appear trivial, and what was trivial appear important,-in other words, of proving black white and white black. He taught this accomplishment not on any principles even pretending to be scientific, but by mere practice in the school, ‡ like fencing or boxing. Indignation at this miserable sub * Sit ista in Græcorum levitate perversitas, qui maledictis insectantur eos, a quibus de veritate dissentiunt. De Finibus, ii. 25. The eagle's fate and mine are one, I où μstion dax' doxńcu. Pseudo-Plutarch, Vi!. Isocr. p. 838. Compare Cicero, De Invent. ii, 2. Brut. 12. gires lec tures. Biography, stitute for philosophical institution, and at the undeserved reputation which its author had acquired, found vent with Aristotle in the application of a sentiment* which Euripides in his Philoctetes, a play now lost, put into the mouth of Ulysses. He resolved himself to Aristotle take up the subject, and his success was so great that Cicero appears to regard it as one of the principal motives which induced Philip to intrust him with the education of Alexander.† The expressions which Cicero uses in describing Aristotle's treatment of the subject imply rather lectures combined with rhetorical practice and historical illustration than a formal treatise.‡ And this is an important point, inasmuch as it proves that Aristotle assumed the functions of an instructor during this his first residence at Athens. However, such part of his subject as embraced the early history of the art, and might be regarded in the light of an introduction to the rest, would very likely appear by itself; and this is exactly the character of the work so highly praised by Cicero, but unfortunately lost, to which we have before alluded, (p. 95*.) It was purely historical and critical, and contained none of his own views. These were systematically developed in another work, § perhaps the one which we possess, which was certainly not written at this early period. Apparently, in this lost work the system of Isocrates was attacked and severely handled. The assailed party does not seem to have come forward in person to defend himself; but Cepsa scholar of his, Cephisodorus, in a polemical treatise of considerable length, did not confine himself to the defence of his master's doctrines, but indulged in the most virulent attacks upon the moral as well as intellectual character of his rival.¶ Upon this work Dionysius of Halicarnassus, perhaps sympathizing with a brother rhetorician, passes a high encomium.** But His book from the little which we know of it, there is but scanty room for believing that its author carried conviction to Aristotle. the minds of many readers not predisposed to agree with him. One of the grounds on which he holds his adversary up to contempt is the having made a collection of proverbs, an employment, in the opinion of Cephisodorus, utterly unworthy of one professing to be a philosopher. Such as have not, like Cephisodorus, an enemy to overthrow by fair means or foul, will be inclined to smile at such a charge, even if indeed they do not view it in something like the contrary light. Apophthegms," says Bacon," are not only for delight and ornament, but for real businesses and civil usages; for they are, as he said, secures aut mucrones verborum, which by their sharp edge cut and penetrate the knots of Matters and Business; and occasions run round in a ring, and what was once profitable may again be practised, deras. * αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾶν, βαρβάρους δ' ἐᾶν λέγειν. Aristotle substituted the ποτά Ισοκράτη for βαρβάρους. + De Orat. iii. 35. ........ Itaque ornavit et illustravit doctrinam illam omnem, rerumque cognitionem cum orationis exercitatione conjunxit .......... Hunc Alexandro filio doctorem accivit, a quo eodem ille et agendi acci peret præcepta et eloquendi. Cicero, loc. cit. § Cujus Aristotelis] et illum legi librum, in quo exposuit dicendi artes omnium superiorum, et illos, in quibus ipse sua quædam de eádem arte dixit. De Orutor. ii. 38. See Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, a. 334. Aristocles ap. Euseb. loc. cit. Athenæus, p. 60. De Isocrate judicium, sec. 18. He calls it πάνυ θαυμαστήν. But Dionysius utterly fails where he attempts literary criticism. Witness the absurd principles on which he proceeds in his comparison of Herodotus and Thucydides. VOL, X. and again be effectual, whether a man speak them as Aristotle. ancient or make them his own." Proverbs are the apophthegms of a people, and from this point of view Aristotle appears to have formed his estimate of their importance. He is said to have regarded them as exhibiting in a compressed form the wisdom of the age in which they severally sprang up; and as in many instances having been preserved by their compactness and pregnancy through vicissitudes which had swept away all other traces of the people which originated them." Hermias. 348-7. 345-4. We now pass to another stage in the life of Aristotle. Aristotle at After a twenty years' stay at Athens, he, accompanied the court of by the Platonic philosopher Xenocrates, passed over B. C. into Asia Minor, and took up his residence at Atarneus or Assos, (for the accounts vary,) in Mysia, at the court of Hermias. Of the motives which impelled him to this step we have, as is natural, very conflicting accounts. His enemies imputed it to a feeling of jealousy, arising from Speusippus having been appointed by Plato, who had died just before, as his successor in the school of the Academy. Others attributed it to a yet more vulgar motive, a taste for the coarse sensualities and ostentatious luxury of an Oriental court.§ But the first of these reasons will seem to deserve but little credit, when we consider that the position which Plato had held was not recognised in any public manner; that there was neither endowment nor dignity attached to it; that all honour or profit arising from it was due solely to the personal merits of the philosopher; that in all probability Aristotle himself had occupied a similar position before the death of Plato; and, that if he felt himself injured by the selection of Speusippus, (Plato's nephew,) he had every opportunity of showing by the best of all tests, competition, how erroneous a judgment had been formed of their respective merits. And with regard to the second view, it will be sufficient to remark, that for the twenty years preceding this epoch, as well as afterwards, he possessed the option of living at the court of Macedonia, where he probably had connections, and where there was equal scope for indulging the tastes in question. We shall, therefore, feel no scruple in referring this journey to other and more adequate causes. The reader of Grecian history will not fail to recollect that the suspicions which the Athenians had for some time entertained of the ambitious designs of Philip received a sudden confirmation just at this moment by the successes of that monarch in the Chalcidian peninsula. The fall of Olynthus and the destruction of the Greek con 53. *Synesius, Encom. Calviti, p. 59, ed. Turneb. Strabo, xiii. p. 126, ed. Tauchnitz. Diodorus Siculus, xvi. Ælian, Var. Hist. iii. 19. Eubulides (ap. Aristocl. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2.) alleged that Aristotle refused to be present at Plato's deathbed. To this the Epigram of Theocritus of Chios (ap. Aristocl. loc. cit.) perhaps alludes: Ἑρμίου ευνούχου τε καὶ Ευβούλου τόδε δούλου although Plutarch applies it to his residence in Macedonia. The cenotaph spoken of in the second line is probably the foundation for the "altar" to Plato, of which the later writers speak. See above, p. 7. Theocritus of Chios was a contemporary of Aristotle. The Syracusan poet of the same name, in an Epigram ascribed to him, protests against being identified with him. Biography. federacy, of which that town was the head,* produced at Athens a feeling of indignation mixed with fear, of which Demosthenes did not fail to take advantage to kindle a strong hatred of any thing belonging to Macedon. The modern example of France will enable us readily to understand how dangerous must have been the position of a foreigner, by birth, connections, or feelings in the slighest degree mixed up with the unpopular party, especially when resident in a democratic State, in which the statute laws were every day subject to be violated by the extemporaneous resolutions (noiopura) of a popular assembly. Philip indeed was accustomed or at any rate by his enemies believed-to make use of such aliens, as from any cause were allowed free ingress to the States with which he was not on good terms, as his emissaries. It is scarcely possible under these circumstances to conceive that the jealousy of party hatred should fail to view the distinguished philosopher, the friend of Antipater, and the son of a Macedonian court-physican, with dislike and distrust, especially if, as from Cicero's description appears highly probable, political affairs entered considerably into the course of his public instructions. Eubulus. Here, then, we have a reason, quite independent of any particular motive, for Aristotle's quitting Athens at this especial time. And others, little less weighty, Revolt of existed to take him to the court of Hermias. For Persian de- some time before, the gigantic body of the Persian pendencies. empire had exhibited symptoms of breaking up. Egypt had for a considerable period maintained itself in a state of independence, and the success of the experiment had produced the revolt of Phoenicia. The cities of Asia Minor, whose intercourse with Greece Proper was constant, naturally felt an even greater desire to throw off the yoke, and about the year 349 before the Christian era, most of them were in a state of open rebellion. Confederacies of greater or less extent for the purpose of maintaining their common independence were formed among them; and over one of these, which included Atarneus and Assos, one Eubulus, a native of Bithynia, exercised a sway which Suidas represents as that of an absolute prince. This remarkable man, of whom it is much to be regretted that we know so little, is described as having carried on the trade of a banker§ in one of these towns. If this be true, the train of circumstances which led him to the pitch of power which he seems to have reached was probably such a one as, in more modern times, made the son of a brewer of Ghent Regent of Flanders, and the Medici Dukes of Tuscany. A struggle for national existence calls forth the confidence of the governed in those who possess the genius which alone can preserve them, as unboundedly as it stimulates that genius itself; and there appears no reason why the name of tyrant or dynast should have been bestowed upon Eubulus more than upon Philip van Artevelde or William of Orange. He was assisted in the duties of Hermias. his government, and afterwards succeeded, by Hermias, who is termed by Strabo his slave,-a term which a Greek would apply no less to the Vizier than to the lowest menial servant of an Asiatic potentate. He is also de scribed as an eunuch, but, whether this was the case or Aristotle. not, he was a man of education and philosophy, and had during a residence at Athens attended the instructions of both Plato and Aristotle.* By the invitation of this individual the latter, accompanied by Xenocrates, passed over at this particular juncture into Mysia; and it will surely not seem an improbable conjecture that the especial object for which their presence was desired was to frame a political constitution, in order that the little confederacy, of which Hermias may perhaps be regarded as the general and stadtholder, might be kept together and enabled to maintain its independence in spite of the formidable power of the Persian empire. Ably as such a task would doubtless have been executed by so wise a statesman, as even the fragmentary political work that has come down to us proves Aristotle to have been, it was not blessed with success. Fortune for a time favoured the cause of freedom, but the barbarian's hour was not come. The treachery of a Rhodian leader of condottieri in the service of the revolted Egyptians enabled the Persian king, Artaxerxes Ochus, rapidly to overrun Phoenicia and Egypt, and to devote the whole force of his empire to the reduction of Asia Minor. Yet Hermias made his ground good, until at last he suffered himself to be entrapped into a personal conference with the Greek general Mentor, the traitor whose perfidy had ruined the Egyptian cause, and who now commanded the Per- Death of sian army that was sent against Atarneus. In spite of Hermias. the assurance of a solemn oath, his person was seized and sent to the court of the Persian king, who ordered him to be strangled ;—the fortresses which commanded the country surrendered at the sight of his signet; and Atarneus and Assos were occupied by Persian troops.† The two philosophers were only enabled to save them- Aristotle selves by a precipitate flight to Mytilene, taking with flies to them Pythias, the sister and adopted daughter of Her- Mytilene. Olymp. mias. It is singular that Aristotle's intercourse with evil. the Prince of Atarneus, and more especially that part B. C. which related to his connection with this woman, whom 345–4. he married, should have brought more calumny upon him than any other event of his life; and the strangest thing of all, according to our modern habits of thinking, is that he himself should have thought it necessary, for the satisfaction of his own friends, to give a particular explanation of his motives to the marriage. In a letter to Antipater, which is cited by Aris- Marries tocles,§ he relates the circumstances which induced him Pythias. to take this step; and they are calculated to give us as high an opinion of the goodness of his heart as his works do of the power of his intellect. The calamity which had befallen Hermias would necessarily have entailed utter misery, and in all probability death, upon his adopted daughter, had she been left behind. In this conjuncture, respect for the memory of his murdered friend, and compassion for the defenceless situation of the girl, induced him, knowing her besides, as he says, to be modest and amiable, to take her as his wife. It' is a striking proof of the utter want of sentiment in the intercourse between the sexes in Greece, that this noble and generous conduct, as every European will at once confess it to have been, should have drawn down isted in conse glence. Biography. obloquy upon the head of its actor; while, if he had left the helpless creature to be carried off to a Persian harem, or sacrificed to the lust of a brutal soldiery, not a human being would have breathed the slightest word of censure upon the atrocity. Even his apologists appear to have considered this as one of the most vulnerable points of his character. When Is calum Aristocles* discusses the charges which had been made against him, he dismisses most of them with contempt as carrying the marks of falsehood in their very front. "Two, however," he adds, "do appear to have obtained credit, the one that he treated Plato with ingratitude, the other that he married the daughter of Hermias." And indeed the relation of Aristotle to the father furnished a subject for many publications in the IId and IIId Centuries before Christ, and appears to have excited as much interest among literary antiquarians of that day, as the question, who wrote Icon Basilike, or the Letters of Junius, might do in modern times. The treatise of Apellicon of Teos, a wealthy antiquary and bibliomaniac contemporary with Sylla, was regarded as the classical work among them. We shall have occasion, in the sequel, to say something more about this personage. Aristoclest speaks of his book as sufficient to set the whole question at rest, and silence all the calumniators of the philosopher for ever. Indeed, if we may judge of the whole of their charges from the few specimens that have come down to us, a further refutation than their own extravagance was hardly needful. The hand of Pythias is there represented as purchased by a fulsome adulation of her adopted father,§ and a subserviency to the most loathsome vices which human nature in its lowest state of depravity can engender; and the husband is said, in exultation at his good fortune, to have paid to his fatherin-law a service appropriated to the gods alone, singing his praises, like those of Apollo, in a sacred pæan. Fortunately this composition has come down to us, and turns out to be a common scolium, or drinking song, similar in its nature to the celebrated one, so popular at Athenian banquets, which records the deserts of Harmodius and Aristogiton. It possesses no very high degree of poetical merit, but as an expression of good feeling, and as a literary curiosity, being the only remaining specimen of its author's powers in this branch, it perhaps deserves a place in the note. The perfec tion of the manly character is personified as a virgin, Aristotle. for whose charms it is an enviable lot to die, or to endure the severest hardships. The enthusiasm with which she inspires the hearts of her lovers is more precious than gold, than parents, than the luxury of softeyed sleep! For her it was that Hercules and the sons of Leda toiled, and Achilles and Ajax died! her fair form, too, made Hermias, the nursling of Atarneus, renounce the cheerful light of the sun. Hence his deeds shall become the subjects of song, and the Muses, daughters of memory, shall wed him to immortality when they magnify the name of Jupiter Xenius, (i.e. Jupiter as the protector of the rights of hospitality,) and bestow its meed on firm and faithful friendship! By comparing this relic with the scolium to Harmodius and Aristogiton, which Athenæus has preserved on the page preceding the one from which this is taken, the reader will at once see that Hermias is mentioned together with Achilles and Ajax, and the other heroes of mythology, only in the same manner as Harmodius is; yet not only did this performance bring down on its author's head the calumnies we have mentioned, but many years after it was even made the basis of a prosecution of him for blasphemy: such straws will envy and malice grasp at! The respect of the philosopher for his departed friend was yet further attested by the erection of a statue, or, as some say, a cenotaph, to him at Delphi, with an inscription, in which his death was recorded " as wrought in outrage of the sacred laws of the gods, by the monarch of the bow-bearing Persians, not fairly by the spear in the bloody battle-field, but through the false pledge of a crafty villain !"* And "the nearer view of wedded life" does not seem in any respect to have diminished the good opinion he had originally formed of his friend's daughter. She died,-how soon after their marriage we cannot say, leaving one orphan daughter; and not only was her memory honoured by the widower with a respect which exposed him, as in the former instance of her father, to the charge of idolatry,† but, in his will, made some time afterwards, he provides that her bones should be taken up and laid by the side of his, wherever he might be buried, as, says he, she herself enjoined.‡ educate exanderOlymp. cix. 2. B. C. At this epoch of Aristotle's life, when the clouds of Aristotle adversity appeared to be at the thickest, his brightest goes to fortunes were about to appear. He had fled to Myti- Macedon to lene an exile, deprived of his powerful friend, and apparently cut off from all present opportunity of bringing his gigantic powers of mind into play. But in Mytilene he received an invitation from Philip to undertake the training of one who, in the World of Action, was des- 343-2. tined to achieve an empire, which only that of his master in the World of Thought has ever surpassed. A conjunction of two such spirits has not been yet twice recorded in the annals of mankind; and it is impossible to conceive any thing more interesting and fruitful than a Biography, good contemporary account of the intercourse between them would have been. But, although such a one did exist, (see below, p. 104*,) we are not fortunate enough to possess it. The destroying hand of time has been most active exactly where we should most desire information as to details, and almost all the description we can give of this period is founded upon the scanty notices on the subject furnished by Plutarch in his biography of the Great Conqueror. Philip's probable acquaintance with Aristotle. Alexan How far the mere personal character of Aristotle contributed to procuring him the invitation from Philip, it is difficult to say. Cicero represents the King as mainly determined to the step by the reputation of the philosopher's rhetorical lectures. A letter preserved by Aulus Gellius, (ix. 3.) which is well known, but can scarcely be genuine, would induce us to believe that, from the very birth of Alexander, he was destined hy his father to grow up under the superintendence of his latest instructor. It is, indeed, not unlikely that, at this early period, Aristotle was well known to Philip. We have seen that, in all probability, his earliest years were passed at the court, where his father possessed the highest confidence of the father of Philip. Moreover, he is said, although neither the time nor the occasion is specified, to have rendered services to the Athenians as ambassador to the court of Macedon. But if this letter be genuine, how are we able to account for the absence of the philosopher from his charge during the thirteen years which elapsed between its professed date and the second year of the 109th Olympiad, in which we know for certain that he entered upon his important task? For that it was not because he considered the influences exerted upon this tender age unimportant, is clear from the great stress he lays upon their effect in the eighth book of his Politics, which is entirely devoted to the details of this subject. And although Alexander was only thirteen years old when his connection with Aristotle commenced, yet the seeds of many vices had even at that early period been sown by the unskilful hands of former instructors; and perhaps the best means of estimating the value of Aristotle's services, is to compare what his pupil really became with what he would naturally have been had he been left under the care of these. Two are particularly noticed by Plutarch,§ of totally opposite dispositions, and singularly calculated to produce, by their combined action, that oscillation between asceticism and luxury which, in the latter part of his life especially, was so striking a feature in Alexander's character. The Leonidas. first was Leonidas, a relation of his mother Olympias, a rough and austere soldier, who appears to have directed all his efforts to the production of a Spartan endurance of hardship and contempt of danger. He was accustomed to ransack his pupil's trunks for the purpose of discovering any luxurious dress or other means of indulgence which might have been sent by his mother to him: and, at the outset of Alexander's Asiatic expedition, on the occasion of an entertainment by his adopted mother, a Carian princess, he told her that Leonidas's early discipline had made all culinary refinements a matter cf indifference to him; that the only cook he had ever been allowed to season his breakfast was a good night's journey; and the only one to improve his supper, der's early masters. *De Oratore, iii. 35. + Diog. Vit. sec. 2. See especially p. 1334, col. 2, line 25, et seq.; p. 1338, col. 1, line 5, et seq. ed. Bekker. § Vit. Alex. sec. 5. a scanty breakfast.* An education of which these traits Aristotl are characteristic might very well produce the personal hardiness and animal courage for which Alexander was distinguished;-it might enable him to tame a Bucephalus, to surpass all his contemporaries in swiftness of foot, to leap down alone amidst a crowd of enemies from the ramparts of a besieged town, to kill a lion in single combat ;t-it might even inspire the passion for military glory which vented itself in tears when there was nothing left to conquer ;-but it would be almost as favourable to the growth of the coarser vices as to the developement of these ruder virtues, and we learn that, to the day of his death, the ruffianly and intemperate dispositions which belong to barbarian blood, and which the influences of Leonidas had tended rather to increase than diminish, were never entirely subdued by Alexander.§ The character of Lysimachus, the other in- Lysimastructor especially noticed by Plutarch, was very differ- chus. ent, but hardly likely to have produced a much more beneficial effect. He was by birth an Acarnanian, and an expert flatterer, by which means he is said to have gained great favour. His favourite thought appears to have been to compare Alexander to Achilles, Philip to Peleus, and himself to Phoenix, as the characters are described in the epic poetry of Greece, and this insipid stuff it was his delight to act out in the ordinary business of life. At a later period, this passion for scenemaking nearly cost poor Phoenix and his master their lives;|| and to it is probably due, in a great measure, the cormorant appetite for adulation which is the most disgusting feature in the history of the latter. To neither then of these two individuals,-and if not to these, of course much less to the crowd of masters in reading, writing, horsemanship, harp-playing, and the other accomplishments included by ancient education in its two branches of μovou and yvμvaσriký,—can we ascribe a share in the production of that character which distinguishes Alexander from any successful military leader. But to Aristotle some of the ancients attribute a degree His obliand kind of merit in this respect which is perfectly rations to absurd. Plutarch says that his pupil gained from him more towards the accomplishment of his schemes than from Philip. Alexander himself was accustomed to say, that he honoured Aristotle no less than his own father, that to the one he owed life, but to the other all that made life valuable ;**-and it is very likely that the misinterpretation of such phrases as these led to the belief that the conqueror had received from his instructor direct advice for the accomplishment of the great exploit which has made him known to posterity. But the obligations to which he really alluded were probably *Plutarch, Vit. sec. 22. + Ibid. 6-40, &c. Unus Pellao juveni non sufficit orbis.-Juv. Sat. x. 168. Leonidas Alexandri pædagogus, ut a Babylonio Diogene traditur, quibusdam eum vitiis imbuit, quæ robustum quoque et jam maximum regem ab illa institutione puerili sunt prosecuta. Quintilian, Inst. Or. i. 1, 8. Is it not probable that Aristotle, in the seventh book of his Politics, (p. 1324, col. 1, line 23, et seq., and p. 1333, col. 2, line 10, et seq.) has a particular reference to the views of Leonidas? See also above, col. I, note . || Plutarch, Vit. sec. 24. Plutarch, De Fortun. Alexandri. See Ste. Croix, Eramen Historique, p. 84. Such expressions as these led later writers to yet more extravagant ones; such as Roger Bacon's, per vias sapientiæ mundum Alexandro tradidit Aristoteles; and probably to the same source is to be traced the romance of the philosopher having personally attended his pupil in his expedition. **Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 8. Aristotle. |