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

ARISTARCHUS. ARISTARCHUS. 291
aTTOs). Suidas ascribes to him more than 800 balanced by others. A Scholiast on Homer (II.
commentaries (Tro/uiar'a), while from an expres- iv. 235) declares, that Aristarchus must be followed
sion of a Scholiast on Horace (Epist. ii. 1. 257) in preference to other critics, even if they should
some writers have inferred, that Aristarchus did be right; and Panaetius (Athen. xiv. p. 634)
not write anything at all. Besides these V7rowAv- called Aristarchus a d-U'TiS, to express the skill
feaTa, we find mention of a very important work, and felicity with which he always hit the truth in
irepI dvaXoyias, of which unfortunately a very few his criticisms and explanations. (For further infragments only are extant. It was attacked by formation see Matthesius, Dissertatio de Aristarcko
Crates in a work rept dEvw1AaAlas. (Gellius, ii. 25.) Grammatico, Jena, 1725, 4to.; Villoison, Proleg.
All the works of Aristarchus are lost, and all that ad Apollon. Lex Horn. p. xv., &c., Proleg. ad Horn.
we have of his consists of short fragments, which Iliad. p. xxvi., &c.; and more especially F. A.
are scattered through the Scholia on the above- Wolf, Prolegom. in Horn. p. ccxvi., &c., and Lehrs,
mentioned poets.. These fragments, however, De Aristarchi Studiis Homericis Regimont. Pruss.
would be utterly insufficient to give us any idea of 1833, 8vo.) [L. S.]
the immense activity, the extensive knowledge, ARISTARCHUS ('ApiorTapxos). 1. A Greek
and above all, of the uniform strictness of his PHYSICIAN, of whom no particulars are known, excritical principles, were it not that Eustathius, and cept that he was attached to the court of Berenice,
still more the Venetian Scholia on Homer (first the wife of Antiochus Theos, king of Syria, B. c.
published by Villoison, Venice, 1788, fol.), had 261-246 (Polyaen. Strateg. viii. 50), and perpreserved such extracts from his works on Homer, suaded her to trust herself in the hands of her
as, notwithstanding their fragmentary nature, treacherous enemies.
shew us the critic in his whole greatness. As far as 2. Some medical prescriptions belonging to anthe Homeric poems are concerned, he above all other physician of this name are quoted by Galen
things endeavoured to restore their genuine text, and Aitius, who appears to have been a native of
and carefully to clear it of all later interpolations Tarsus in Cilicia. (Gal. De Compos. Medicam. ec.
and corruptions. He marked those verses which Loc. v. 11, vol. xiii. p. 824.) [W. A. G.]
he thought spurious with an obelos, and those ARISTARCHUS ('Apio-apXos), of SAMOS,
which he considered as particularly beautiful with one of the earliest astronomers of the Alexandrian
an asterisk. It is now no longer a matter of doubt school. We know little of his history, except that
that, generally speaking, the text of the Homeric he was living between B. c. 280 and 264. The
poems, such as it has come down to us, and the first of these dates is inferred from a passage in
division of each poem into twenty-four raphsodies, the geydAX? eLvuVraeLs of Ptolemy (iii. 2, vol. i. p.
are the work of Aristarchus; that is to say, the 163, ed. Halma), in which Hipparchus is said to
edition which Aristarchus prepared of the Homeric have referred, in his treatise on the length of the
poems became the basis of all subsequent editions. year, to an observation of the summer solstice made
To restore this recension of Aristarchus has been by Aristarchus in the 50th year of the 1st Calippic
more or less the great object with nearly all the period: the second from the mention of him in
editors of Homer, since the days of F. A. Wolf, a Plutarch (de Facie in Orbe Lunae), which makes
critic of a kindred genius, who first shewed the him contemporary with Cleanthes the Stoic, the
great importance to be attached to the edition of successor of Zeno.
Aristarchus. Its general appreciation in antiquity It seems that he employed himself in the deteris attested by the fact, that so many other gram- mination of some of the most important elements
marians, as Callistratus, Aristonicus, Didymus, and of astronomy; but none of his works remain, exPtolemaeus of Ascalon, wrote separate works upon cept a treatise on the magnitudes and distances of
it. In explaining and interpreting the Homeric the sun and moon (repi /Eye61Owv Kal dWrooer-T dTWV'
poems, for which nothing had been done before his rAiov eal reA.Vmis). We do not know whether
time, his merits were as great as those he acquired the method employed in this work was invented
by his critical labours. His explanations as well by Aristarchus (Suidas, s. v. <^i6o'iopos, mentions
is his criticisms were not confined to the mere a treatise on the same subject by a disciple of
letail of words and phrases, but he entered also Plato); it is, however, very ingenious, and correct
ipon investigations of a higher order, concerning in principle. It is founded on the consideration
nythology, geography, and on the artistic composi- that at the instant when the enlightened part of
ion and structure of the Homeric poems. He was the moon is apparently bounded by a straight line,
Sdecided opponent of the allegorical interpretation the plane of the circle which separates the dark
)f the poet which was then beginning, which some and light portions passes through the eye of the
enturies later became very general, and was per- spectator, and is also perpendicular to the line joinaps never carried to such extreme absurdities as ing the centres of the sun and moon; so that the disa our own days by the author of " Homerus." tances of the sun and moon from the eye are at
'he antiquity of the Homeric poems, however, as that instant respectively the hypothenuse and side
rell as the historical character of their author, of a right-angled triangle. The angle at the eye
sem never to have been doubted by Aristarchus. (which is the angular distance between the sun
[e bestowed great care upon the metrical correct- and moon) can be observed, and then it is an easy
*ess of the text, and is said to have provided the problem to find the ratio between the sides con~orks of Homer and some other poets with ac- taining it. But this process could not, unless by
mnts, the invention of which is ascribed to Aristo- accident, lead to a true result; for it would be imaanes of Byzantium. It cannot be surprising possible, even with a telescope, to determine with
tat a man who worked with that independent much accuracy the instant at which the phaenomeitical spirit, had his enemies and detractors; but non in question takes place; and in the time of
ich isolated statements as that of Athenaeus (v. Aristarchus there were no means of measuring
177), in which Athenocles of Cyzicus is pre- angular distances with sufficient exactness. In
rred to Aristarchus, are more than counter- fact, he takes the angle at the eye to be 83 degrees
u2