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

36 AEROPUS.
was from him that subsequently the kings of Messenia were called Aepytids instead of the more
general name Heraclids. (Paus. iv. 3. ~ 3, &c.,
viii. 5. ~ 5; Hygin. 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. viii. 5. ~ 3.) [L. S.]
AE'RIUS ('Aepios), 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 (rwcoxxorpoPeLov) of Pontus. (St. Epiph. adv. 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 (caroraeia). 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. (1. c.) There were remains
of his followers in the time of St. Augustine. (Adv.
Haer. ~ 53, vol. viii. p. 18, which was written
A. D. 428.) [A. J. C.]
AE'ROPE ('Aps7T7), 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, Aethemenes, 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. iii. 2. ~ 1, &c.; Serv. ad
Aen. i. 458; Dictys Cret. i. 1.) After the death
of Pleisthenes Aerope 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 Thyestes.
(Eurip. Orest. 5, &c., Helen. 397; Hygin. Fab.
87; Schol. ad Homr. 11. ii. 249; Serv. ad Aen. xi.
262.) [L. S.]
AE'ROPUS ('Alposros). 1. The brother of
Perdiccas, who was the first king of Macedonia of
the family of Temenus. (Herod. viii. 137.)
2. I. King of Macedonia, the son of Philip I.,
the great-grandson of Perdiccas, the first king, and
the father of Alcetas. (Herod. viii. 139.)
3. II. King of Macedonia, guardian of Orestes,
the son of Archelaus, reigned nearly six years
from B. c. 399. The first four years of this time
he reigned jointly with Orestes, and the remainder

AESCHINES.

alone. He was succeeded by his son Pausanias.
(Diod. xiv. 37, 84; Dexippus, ap. Syncell. p. 263, a.;
comp. Polyaen. ii. 1. ~ 17.)
AE'SACUS (A'o-amcos), 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. iii. 12. ~ 5.) Ovid
(Met. xi. 750) relates his story differently. According to him, Aesacus was the son of Alexirho;,
the daughter of the river Granicus. He lived far
from his father's court in the solitude of mountainforests. 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 (Aldpa), of Lucania, a female
Pythagorean philosopher, said to be a daughter of
Pythagoras, wiote a work "about Human Nature,"
of which a fragment is preserved by Stobaeus.
(Eel. 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
(ap. Phot. Cod. 249, p. 438, b. ed. Bekker), where
Bentley reads Ala-dpa instead of 2a'pa. (Dissertation
upon Phalaris, p. 277.)
AE'SCHINES (Aloivmfs), 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 fortyfifth year. Hle 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 Aeschines
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 Eteobutadae. He was originally an
athlete, but lost his property during the time of
the Peloponnesian war, and was afterwards driven