Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/54

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AEROPUS.
AESCHINES.

was from him that subsequently the kings of Messenia were called Aepytids instead of the more general name Heraclids. (Paus. 4.3.3, &c., 8.5.5; Hyg. Fab. 137, 184.)

3. A son of Hippothous, and king of Arcadia. He was a great-grandson of the Aepytus mentioned first. He was reigning at the time when Orestes, in consequence of an oracle, left Mycenae and settled in Arcadia. There was at Mantineia a sanctuary, which down to the latest time no mortal was ever allowed to enter. Aepytus disregarding the sacred custom crossed the threshold, but was immediately struck with blindness, and died soon after. He was succeeded by his son Cypselus. (Paus. 8.5.3.) [L. S.]


AE'RIUS (Ἀέριος), Heretic, the intimate friend of Eustathius of Sebaste in Armenia, A. D. 360, was living when St. Epiphanius wrote his Book against Heresies, A. D. 374-6. After living together an ascetic life, Eustathius was raised to the episcopate, and by him Aerius was ordained priest and set over the Hospital (πτωχοτροφεῖον) of Pontus. (St. Epiph. ad v. Haer. 75.1.) But nothing could allay the envy of Aerius at the elevation of his companion. Caresses and threats were in vain, and at last he left Eustathius, and publicly accused him of covetousness. He assembled a troop of men and women, who with him professed the renunciation of all worldly goods (ἀποταξία). Denied entrance into the towns, they roamed about the fields, and lodged in the open air or in caves, exposed to the inclemency of the seasons. Aerius superadded to the irreligion of Arius the following errors : 1. The denial of a difference of order between a bishop and a priest. 2. The rejection of prayer and alms for the dead. 3. The refusal to observe Easter and stated fasts. on the ground of such observances being Jewish. St. Epiphanius refutes these errors. (l.c. There were remains of his followers in the time of St. Auguistine. (Adv. Haer. § 53, vol. viii. p. 18, which was written A. D. 428.) Template:DGRBM/A.J.S.


AE'ROPE(Ἀερόπη), a daughter of Crateus, king of Crete, and granddaughter of Minos. Her father, who had received an oracle that he should lose his life by one of his children, gave her and her sister, Clymene, to Nauplius, who was to sell them in a foreign land. Another sister, Apemone, and her brother. Aethemlenes, who had heard of the oracle, had left Crete and gone to Rhodes. Aerope afterwards married Pleisthenes, the son of Atreus, and became by him the mother of Agamemnon and Menelaus. (Apollod. 3.2.1, &c.; Serv. ad Aen. 1.458; Dictys Cret. 1.1.) After the death of Pleisthenes Aeriope married Atreus, and her two sons, who were educated by Atreus, were generally believed to be his sons. Aerope, however, became faithless to Atreus, being seduced by Thyests. (Eur. Orest. 5, &c., Helen. 397; Hyg. Fab. 87; Schol. ad Hom. Il. 2.249; Serv. ad Aen. 11.262.) [L. S.]


AE'ROPUS (Ἀέροπος). 1. The brother of Perdiccas, who was the first king of Macedonia of the family of Temenus. (Hdt. 8.137.)

2. King of Macedonia, the son of Philip I., the great-grandson of Perdiccas, the first king, and the father of Alcetas. (Hdt. 3.139.)

AE'SACUS (Αἴσακος), a son of Priam and Arisbe, the daughter of Merops, from whom Aesacus learned the art of interpreting dreams. When Hecuba during her pregnancy with Paris dreamt that she was giving birth to a burning piece of wood which spread conflagration through the whole city, Aesacus explained this to mean, that she would give birth to a son who would be the ruin of the city, and accordingly recommended the exposure of the child after its birth. [PARIS.] Aesacus himself was married to Asterope, the daughter of the river-god Cebren, who died early, and while he was lamenting her death he was changed into a bird. (Apollod. 3.12.5.) Ovid (Ov. Met. 11.750) relates his story differently. According to him, Aesacus was the son of Alexirhoe, the daughter of the river Granicus. He lived far from his father's court in the solitude of mounitainforests. Hesperia, however, the daughter of Cebren, kindled love in his heart, and on one occasion while he was pursuing her, she was stung by a viper and died. Aesacus in his grief threw himself into the sea and was changed by Thetis into an aquatic bird. [L. S.]


AE'SARA (Αἰσάρα), of Lucania, a female Pythagorean philosopher, said to be a daughter of Pythagoras, wrote a work "about Human Nature," of which a fragment is preserved by Stobaeus. (Ecl. i. p. 847, ed. Heeren.) Some editors attribute this fragment to Aresas, one of the successors of Pythagoras, but Bentley prefers reading Aesara. She is also mentioned in the life of Pythagoras (apud . Phot. Cod. 249, p. 438b. ed. Bekker), where Bentley reads Αἰσάρα instead of Σάρα. (Dissertation upon Plalaris, p. 277.)

AE'SCHINES (Αἰσχίνης), the orator, was born in Attica in the demus of Cothocidae, in B. C. 389, as is clear from his speech against Timarchus (p. 78), which was delivered in B. C. 345, and in which he himself says that he was then in his forty-fifth year. He was the son of Tromes and Glaucothea, and if we listen to the account of Demosthenes, his political antagonist, his father was not a free citizen of Athens, but had been a slave in the house of Elpias, a schoolmaster. After the return of the Athenian exiles under Thrasybulus, Tromes himself kept a small school, and Athenias in his youth assisted his father and performed such services as were unworthy of a free Athenian youth. Demosthenes further states, that Aeschines, in order to conceal the low condition of his father, changed his name Tromes into Atrometus, and that he afterwards usurped the rights of an Athenian citizen. (Dem. De Coron. pp. 313, 320, 270.) The mother of Aeschines is described as originally a dancer and a prostitute, who even after her marriage with Tromes continued to carry on unlawful practices in her house, and made money by initiating low and superstitious persons into a sort of private mysteries. She is said to have been generally known at Athens under the nickname Empusa. According to Aeschines himself, on the other hand, his father Atrometus was descended from an honourable family, and was in some way even connected with the noble priestly family of the Eteobuladae. He was originally an athlete, but lost his property during the time of the Peloponnesian war, and was afterwards driven