A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

264 ARCHELAUS.
forming a point of transition from the older to the
newer form of philosophy in Greece. In the mental history of all nations it is observable that scientific inquiries are first confined to natural objects,
and afterwards pass into moral speculations; and
so, among the Greeks, the lonians were occupied
with physics, the Socratic schools chiefly with
ethics. Archelaus is the union of the two: he was
the last recognized leader of the former (succeeding
Diogenes of Apollonia in that character), and added
to the physical system of his teacher, Anaxagoras,
some attempts at moral speculation. He held that
air and infinity (rdo dreipov) are the principle of
all things, by which Plutarch (Plac. Phil. i. 3)
supposes that he meant infinite air; and we are
told, that by this statement he intended to exclude
the operations of mind from the creation of the
world. (Stob. Eel. Phys. i. 1,2.) If so, he abandoned
the doctrine of Anaxagoras in its most important
point; and it therefore seems safer to conclude
with Ritter, that while he wished to inculcate
the materialist notion that the mind is formed of
air, he still held infinite mind to be the cause of
all things. This explanation has the advantage of
agreeing very fairly with that of Simplicius (1. c.);
and as Anaxagoras himself did not accurately distinguish between mind and the animal soul, this
confusion may have given rise to his pupil's doctrine. Archelaus deduced motion from the opposition of heat and cold, caused of course, if we adopt
the above hypothesis, by the will of the material
mind. This opposition separated fire and water,
and produced a slimy mass of earth. While the
earth was hardening, the action of heat upon its
moisture gave birth to animals, which at first were
nourished by the mud from which they sprang,
and gradually acquired the power of propagating
their species. All these animals were endowed
with mind, but man separated from the others, and
established laws and societies. It was just from
this point of his physical theory that he seems to
have passed into ethical speculation, by the proposition, that right and wrong are oA <v'ooei dAd yedJy
-a dogma probably suggested to him, in its form at
least, by the contemporary Sophists. But when we
consider the purely mechanical and materialistic
character of his physics, which make every thing
arise from the separation or distribution of the primary elements, we shall see that nothing, except
the original chaotic mass, is strictly by nature
((uo et), and that Archelaus assigns the same origin
to right and wrong that he does to man. Now a
contemporaneous origin with that of the human
race is not very different from what a sound system of philosophy would demand for these ideas,
though of course such a system would maintain
quite another origin of man; and therefore, assuming the Archelaic physical system, it does not necessarily follow, that his ethical principles are so
destructive of all goodness as they appear. This
view is made almost certain by the fact that Democritus taught, that the ideas of sweet and bitter,
warm and cold, &c., are by v64cos, which can be
accounted for only by a similar supposition.
Of the other doctrines of Archelaus we need
only mention, that he asserted the earth to have
the form of an egg, the sun being the largest of the
stars; and that he correctly accounted for speech
by the motion of the air. For this, according to
Plutarch (Plac. Phil. iv. 19), he was indebted
to Anaxagoras,

ARCHELAUS.

Archelaus flourished B. c. 450. In that year
Anaxagoras withdrew from Athens, and during
his absence Archelaus is said to have taught Socrates. (Laert. 1. c.) To the authorities given
above add Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. 2, 1; Ritter,
Geschichte der Phil. iii. 9; Tennemann, Grundriss
der Gesch. der Phil. ~ 107. [G. E. L. C.]
ARCHELA'US ('ApXeAaos), a Greek POET, is
called an Egyptian, and is believed to have been
a native of a town in Egypt called Chersonesus, as
he is also called Chersonesita. (Antig. Caryst. 19;
Athen. xii. p. 554.) He wrote epigrams, some of
which are still extant in the Greek Anthology,
and Jacobs seems to infer from an epigram of his
on Alexander the Great (Anthol. Planud. 120)
that Archelaus lived in the time of Alexander and
Ptolemy Soter. Lobeck (Aglaoph. p. 749), on the
other hand, places him in the reign of Ptolemy
Euergetes II. But both of these opinions are
connected with chronological difficulties, and
Westerman n ihas shoewn that Arclielaus in all probability flourished under Ptolemy Philadelphus, to
whom, according to Antigonus Carystius (1. c.,
comp. 89), he narrated wonderful stories (wrapd6o0a) in epigrams. Besides this peculiar kind of
epigrams, Archelaus wrote a work called llloiupv,
i. e. strange or peculiar animals (Athen. ix. p. 409;
Diog. Laert. ii. 17), which seems to have likewise
been written in verse, and to have treated on
strange and paradoxical subjects, like his epigrams.
(Plin. Elench. lib. xxviii.; Schol. ad Nicand. Th'er.
822; Artemid. Oneirocr. iv. 22. Compare Westermann, Scriptor. Rer. smirabil. G6raeci, p. xxii., &c.,
who has also collected the extant fragments of
Archelaus, p. 158, &c.) [L. S.]
ARCHELA'US ('ApXEAaos), a Greek RHETORIcIAN of uncertain date, who wrote on his profession; whence he is called TeyXvoypda'o prs rp.
(Diog. Laeirt. ii. 17.) [L. S.]
ARCHELA'US, a SCULPTOR of Priene, the son
of Apollonius, made the marble bas-relief representing the Apotheosis of Homer, which formerly
belonged to the Colonna family at Rome, and is
now in the Townley Gallery of the British Museum
(Inscription on the work). The style of the basrelief, which is little, if at all, inferior to the best
remains of Grecian art, confirms the supposition
that Archelaus was the son of Apollonius of Rhodes
[APOLLONIUS], and that he flourished in the first
century of the Christian aera. From the circumstance of the "Apotheosis" having been found in
the palace of Claudius at Bovillae (now Frattocchi),
coupled with the known admiration of that emperor
for Homer (Suet. Claud. 42), it is generally supposed
that the work was executed in Iis reign. A description of the bas-relief, and a list of the works
in which it is referred to, is given in Thme Townley
Gallery, in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge,
ii. p. 120. [P. S.]
ARCHELA'US ('ApXeAaos), king of SPARTA,
7th of the Agids, son of Agesilaus I., contempo.
rary with Charilaus, with whom he took Aegys, i
town on the Arcadian border, said to have revolt
ed, but probably then first taken. (Paus. iii. 2
Plut. Lye. 5; Euseb. Praep. v. 32.) [A. H. C.
ARCHELA'US ('ApX'Aaos), son of TiHEODO
Rus, was appointed by Alexander the Great th
military commander in Susiana, B. c. 300. (Arriar
iii. 16; Curt. v. 2.) In the division of the province
in 323, Archelaus obtained Mesopotamia. (Dexip1
ap. Phot. Cod, 82, p. 64, b., ed. Bekker.)