22

HISTORY OF SEVERAL STATES.

than one hundred and fifty-eight (according to others one hundred and seventy-one or two hundred and fiftyfive) States, which, judging from some fragments which have been preserved, involved their history from the earliest known times to his own. Of this invaluable collection a great many scraps remain. Those which relate to Athens, Sigonius is said to have made the basis of his account of that commonwealth. And another work for which these apparently formed the foundation, the Politics, has come down to us in all probability in the unfinished draught in which it was left at the moment of the author's death. We may conclude the evidence which these productions afford of their writer's activity and industry with an anecdote preserved by Diogenes (Vit. Arist. sec. 16). Apparently to prevent the remission of attention which results from nature insensibly giving way under the

term in Aristotle's time was To Sikaιov, "the rule of right." This was different in different States: he speaks of τὸ δίκαιον όλιγαρχικόν, τὸ δικαιόν ἀριστοκρατικόν, and τὸ δίκαιον δημοκρατικόν, “the oligarchal, aristocratic, and democratic rules of right." Such assertions of political claims as might be considered obvious applications of these fundamental axioms were called by the name Sikaμaтa, "prerogatives," or "pleas of right." Thus in our own country, the right of the Crown to dissolve parliament, that of the subject to be tried by jury and to be held innocent of any charge till found guilty, that of the peers to demand an audience of the sovereign, and to be the ultimate court of appeal in civil cases, are so many dikaiμata. They are not referible to one standard of political justice, because our constitution contains monarchical, aristocratic, oligarchal, and democratic elements. But the Greek states were almost always pure oligarchies or pure democracies.

1

Diog. Laert. Vit. Pseudo-Ammon. and Vit. Lat. Compare Cicero, De Fin. v. 4. 10. Varro, De L. L. vii. 3.

2 Nunnez, ad Vit. Pseudo-Ammon. p. 59.

pressure of extremely laborious study, he was accustomed to read holding a ball in one hand, under which was placed a brazen basin. On the slightest involuntary relaxation of the muscles, the ball would fall, and by the sudden noise which it made, at once dissipate the incipient drowsiness of the student.

But this intense love of knowledge had not the common effect of converting him into a mere bookworm. In his works we see nothing like an undue depreciation of the active forms of life, or even of its pleasures. And this is the more remarkable, as we know that his frame was delicate, and his constitution weakly, and that in the latter part of his life he suffered much from bad health3,-circumstances which in general lead to an under estimate of those pursuits for which a certain robustness of body is a necessary condition. His attention to neatness of person and dress was remarkable; indeed it is said that he carried it to an extent which Plato considered unworthy of a philosopher*. Whether this account be true or not, it is certain that his habits and principles were the reverse of cynical, that he enjoyed life, and was above any unnecessary affectation of severity. "Not apathy, but moderation," is a maxim ascribed to him by Diogenes 5.

We have seen that Plato felt and testified the highest admiration for the talents of his pupil. But

3 Censorinus, De die natali, cap. xiv. Aristotelem ferunt naturalem stomachi infirmitatem crebrasque morbidi corporis offensiones, adeo virtute animi diu sustentasse, ut magis mirum sit ad annos lxiii. eum vitam protulisse, quam ultro non pertulisse. Compare Gellius, xiii. 5.

4 Ælian, Varia Historia, iii. 19. Diog. Laert. Vit. Arist. init. 5 Vit. sec. 31.

24

IS SAID TO HAVE DISPLEASED PLATO.

it appears that in spite of this there was by no means a perfect congeniality in their feelings. Aristotle is said to have offended his master not only by the carefulness respecting his personal appearance which we have just spoken of, but by a certain sarcastic habit (uwxia)', which showed itself in the expression of his countenance. It is difficult to imagine that he should have indulged this humour in a greater degree than Socrates is represented to have done by Plato himself. However, a vein of irony which would appear very graceful in the master whom he reverenced, and whose views he enthusiastically embraced, might seem quite the reverse in a youthful pupil who promised speedily to become a rival. An anecdote is related by Ælian2, from which we should infer that overt hostility broke out between them. Aristotle, it is said, taking advantage of the absence of Xenocrates from Athens, and of the temporary confinement of Speusippus by illness, attacked Plato in the presence of his disciples with a series of subtle sophisms, which, his powers being impaired by extreme old age, had the effect of perplexing him and obliging him to retire in confusion and shame from the walks of the Academy. Xenocrates, however, returning three months after, drove Aristotle away, and restored his master to his old haunts. On this or some other occasion it is said that Plato compared his pupil's conduct to that of the young foals who kick at their dam as soon as dropped3. And the opinion that Aristotle had in some way or other behaved with ingratitude to his master, certainly had obtained considerable currency in antiquity; but it is 1 Ælian, loc. cit.

PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE STORY.

25

probable that this in a great measure arose from the false interpretation of a passage in the biography of Plato by Aristoxenus the musician, whom we have noticed in the last chapter. This writer had related that "while Plato was absent from Athens on his travels, certain individuals, who were foreigners, established a school in opposition to him." "Some," adds Aristocles, the Peripatetic philosopher, after quoting this passage, “have imagined that Aristotle was the person here alluded to, but they forget that Aristoxenus, throughout the whole of his work, speaks of Aristotle in terms of praise." Every one who is conversant with the productive power of Greek imagination, and the rapidity with which in that fertile soil anecdotes sprang up and assumed a more and more circumstantial character on repetition, will not wonder that in the course of five centuries which intervened between Aristoxenus and Ælian, the vague statement of the first should have bourgeoned into the circumstantial narrative of the second".

4

Aristocles, a

Ap. Eusebium, Præparatio Evangelica, xv. 2. native of Messina, was the preceptor of the virtuous Emperor Alexander Severus, not of Alexander Aphrodisiensis, and consequently lived in the first half of the third century of the Christian era. The work from which Eusebius extracts a passage of some length relating to Aristotle, was a kind of History of Philosophy, in ten books. Eusebius's extract is a part of the seventh. The learning and discrimination of the writer is very great. He traces the stories which he has occasion to mention up to their earliest origin, and refutes them in a masterly manner. There is a literary notice of him in Fabricius's Bibliotheca Græca, iii. c. viii. where see Heumann's note. It is curious that in the Latin Life Aristocles is cited together with Aristoxenus as an authority for the very story which he is concerned to refute.

5 The literary men of the declining period considered it a part of their duty to supply all the details which their readers might

26

DISCREPANT ACCOUNTS.

Independently of the vulgar insolence with which this story invests the character of Aristotle, a quality of which there is not a trace in his writings,-there is much which may render us extremely suspicious of receiving it. In the first place, other stories of equal authority represent his feelings towards his master as those of ardent admiration and deep respect. His biographer informs us that he dedicated an altar (by which he probably means a cenotaph) to Plato, and put an inscription on it to the purport that Plato "was a man whom it was sacrilege for the bad even to praise." There is certainly not much credit to be attached to the literal truth of this story'; but its cha

desiderate in the more general notices of the classical writers. An amusing instance of this kind of writer is Ptolemy, the son of Hephæstion, whose book is described by Photius (Biblioth. p. 146—153, Bekker), and strongly praised by him for its utility to those who were desirous of πολυμαθία ἱστορική. Not to mention the secret history of the death of Hercules, Achilles, and various other celebrated characters, we are informed of the name of the Delphian, whom Herodotus abstains from mentioning (i. 51), and of that of the Queen of Candaules, which latter it seems was Nysia. The reason of Herodotus abstaining from giving it was, that a youth named Plesirrhoüs, to whom he was much attached, had fallen in love with a lady of that appellation, and, not succeeding in his suit, had hanged himself. This Ptolemy related in his fifth book. In the third he had informed his readers that this very Plesirrhous inherited Herodotus's property, and wrote the preface to his History, the commencement of it as left by the author having been with the words Пepoéwv oi λóyo. He probably knew that the readers for whom he wrote, even if they read both anecdotes, would have forgotten the first by the time they reached the second. Yet the age, whose taste could render books of this description popular, was no more recent than that of Hadrian, at whose court Ælian and Phavorinus lived and wrote.

1 The phrase in question is found in an elegy to Eudemus, cited by Olympiodorus, Comment. ad Platon. Gorgiam. (Bekk. p. 53.)