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704: AEISTIPPUS satisfaction of all. When Themistocles feU under suspicion he did not join in the prosecu- tion- and after the banishment of his rival he always spoke of him with admiration and re- spect He died so poor that he was buried at the public cost; his daughters received dowries out of the public treasury, and a landed estate was bestowed on his son. II. 31ns, a Greek rhetorician, born at Hadrian! in Bithyma, A. D. 117 or 129, died about 180. He was the son of Eudsemon, a priest of Jupiter. After travelling through the countries which border the Med- iterranean, and as far as Ethiopia, he took up his abode at Smyrna; and when that city was almost destroyed by an earthquake in 178, he persuaded his friend the emperor Marcus Aure- fius to assist in rebuilding it. For this Aristides was named the founder of the city, and a bronze statue was raised to him in the agora. Fifty- five of his orations and declamations have been preserved, consisting of eulogies on various di- vinities, panegyrics on towns, and treatises on rhetorical topics. In his " Sacred Discourses," where Aristides describes a singular malady, not unlike somnambulism, the disciples of mes- merism find something similar to the mes- meric phenomena. A statue discovered in the 16th century, representing Aristides in a sitting posture, is now in the museum of the Vatican. The best complete edition of his works is that of Dindorf (3 vols., Leipsic, 1829). HI. Of Thebes, a Greek painter, flour- ished from about 360 to 330 B. C. He is said by Pliny to have been a little older than his contemporary Apelles, and to have been the first who expressed upon the countenance the passions of the soul. At the time of the Ro- man conquest (146 B. C.), the consul Mummius, discovering the high price set upon a battle picture by Aristides, seized it and sent it to Borne. It was placed in the temple of Ceres, and is said to have been the first foreign paint- ing exposed to the view of the Romans. ARK1 IIT1S, a Greek philosopher, disciple of Socrates, born in Gyrene, flourished about 380 B. C. He was luxurious, sensual, and avari- cious, and prided himself on extracting pleasure from both prosperity and adversity, and con- trolling thorn alike. His conversation was witty and agreeable. He is said to have incur- red the dislike of Plato and Xtnophon, who accordingly speak of him slightingly. He spent a part of his life at the court of Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse. His doctrine, called from his birthplace the Gyrenaic philosophy, was reduced to a system by his grandson, Aris- tippus the younger. It pronounces pleasure the chief good, and pain the chief evil the former a moderate, the latter a violent motion of the soul. Pleasures differ only in their degree of purity. Actions are to be judged good or bad by their results ; and in forming a judgment the only authorities are law and cus- tom. Whatever conduces to pleasure is ac- counted virtue; but virtue is regarded as a quality of mind rather than of the body, since ARISTOMENES bodily pleasure is valued for the sake of the mental state it produces. A subject becomes cognizant of objects only through the medium of impressions ; the only existences are states of mind ; and man is the measure of all things. AU1STOBI LI S. I. A Jewish writer of Alexan- dria, who flourished under Ptolemy Philome- tor, about 160 B. C. He wrote philosophical commentaries upon the Pentateuch, composed in the purest Greek, in which he undertook to prove that the most ancient Grecian poets, his- torians, and philosophers were acquainted with the sacred writings, and in the habit of borrow- ing largely from them. In support of this theory, he forged numerous passages, ostensibly from Huseeus, Linus, Homer, and others, with such art as to deceive Greek writers, and also some of the fathers of the church, who speak of him as a Peripatetic philosopher, the founder of Jewish philosophy in Egypt. Of his writings only scanty fragments have been preserved. II. The eldest son and successor of John Hyr- canus, the Asmonean ruler of Judea, and the first of that house who assumed the royal title. His reign lasted only one year (106-105 B. C.). According to his father's will he was to act only, as high priest, with the title of nasi (prince), and his mother to carry on the affairs of state. Impatient to rule, he threw his mother into a dungeon, where she perished of hunger, imprisoned three of his four brothers, and proclaimed himself king. The queen, Sa- lome or Alexandra, persuaded Aristobulus that his remaining brother Antigonus meditated treason and usurpation, and he was cut down by the royal guards. Aristobulus, who was sick, grew worse from remorse and vomited blood, which, being carried off by a domestic, was spilled on the very spot on which the blood of Antigonus had been shed. The parricide saw in the accident a sign of the vengeance of Heaven, and soon after expired in terrible agony. III. Son of Alexander Janneeus, the brother and successor of the preceding. His his- tory can be properly treated only in connection with that of other persons. (See HEBREWS.) AI1ISTOGITOX. See HABMODIUS AND ABISTO- QITON. ABISTOMENES, a Messenian general and statesman, the hero of the second Messenian war, of the royal line of ^Epytus. The Mes- senians, having determined to free themselves from the tyranny of their Spartan conquer- ors, selected him as their chief. He formed an alliance with Argos, Elis, Sicyon, Arcadia, and Pisa ; but before the troops they promised him could arrive, he began the war by the in- decisive battle of Derse, 685 B. 0. His ex- ploits in this conflict induced his countrymen to offer him the throne of Messenia, but he re- fused it. In the same year he entered Sparta alone, by night, and fastened a shield with a taunting inscription to the temple of Minerva. During the next year he won great victories at the Boar's Pillar (n&irpov OT^C) in the plain of Stenyclerus, and at Pharso, which latter place