ordan, 34 B.C.

ARISTODE`MUS, king of Messenia, carried on for 20 years a war with
Sparta, till at length finding resistance hopeless he put an end to his
life on the tomb of his daughter, whom he had sacrificed to ensure the
fulfilment of an oracle to the advantage of his house; _d_. 724 B.C.
Also a Greek sculptor, 4th century B.C.

ARISTOM`ENES, a mythical king of Messenia, celebrated for his
struggle with the Spartans, and his resistance to them on Mount Ira for
11 years, which at length fell to the enemy, while he escaped and was
snatched up by the gods; died at Rhodes.

ARISTOPHANES, the great comic dramatist of Athens, lived in the 5th
century B.C.; directed the shafts of his wit, which were very keen,
against all of whatever rank who sought in any way to alter, and, as it
was presumed, amend, the religious, philosophical, social, political, or
literary creed and practice of the country, and held up to ridicule such
men as Socrates and Euripides, as well as Cleon the tanner; wrote 54
plays, of which 11 have come down to us; of these the "Clouds" aim at
Socrates, the "Acharnians" and the "Frogs" at Euripides, and the
"Knights" at Cleon; _d_. 384 B.C.

AR`ISTOTLE, a native of Stagira, in Thrace, and hence named the
Stagirite; deprived of his parents while yet a youth; came in his 17th
year to Athens, remained in Plato's society there for 20 years; after the
death of Plato, at the request of Philip, king of Macedon, who held him
in high honour, became the preceptor of Alexander the Great, then only 13
years old; on Alexander's expedition into Asia, returned to Athens and
began to teach in the Lyceum, where it was his habit to walk up and down
as he taught, from which circumstance his school got the name of
Peripatetic; after 13 years he left the city and went to Chalcis, in
Euboea, where he died. He was the oracle of the scholastic philosophers
and theologians in the Middle Ages; is the author of a great number of
writings which covered a vast field of speculation, of which the progress
of modern science goes to establish the value; is often referred to as
the incarnation of the philosophic spirit (385-322 B.C.).

ARISTOX`ENUS OF TARENTUM, a Greek philosopher, author of the
"Elements of Harmony," the only one of his many works extant, and one of
the oldest writers on music; contemporary of Aristotle.

A`RIUS, a presbyter of Alexandria in the 4th century, and founder of
Arianism, which denied the con