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

-AETIUS.
question. The Aetian interest with Eusebius
(Soz, i. 16), the powerful Eunuch, divides the intended council, but notwithstanding, the Aetians
are defeated at Seleucia, A. D. 359, and, dissolving
the council, hasten to Constantius, at Constantinople, to secure his protection against their opponents. (S. Ath. transl. pp. 73, 77, 88, 163,
164.) The Anti-Aetians (who are in fact the
more respectable Semi-Arians, see ARms) follow,
and charge their opponents with maintaining a
Diference in Substance (Erepoov'erov) in the Trinity,
producing a paper to that effect. A new schism
ensues among the Aetians, and Aetius is abandoned by his friends (called Eusebians or Acacians, see ARIUS) and banished (S. Bas. i. 4),
after protesting against his companions, who,
holding the same principle with himself (viz. that
the Son was a creature, Kricrja), refused to acknowledge the necessary inference (viz. that He
is of untlike substance to the Father, dv6yoiov).
(Thdt. ii. 23; Soz. iv. 23; S. Greg. p. 301, D.;
Phil. iv. 12.) His late friends would not let him
remain at Mopsuestia, where he was kindly received by Auxentius, the Bishop there: Acacius
procures his banishment to Amblada in Pisidia
(Phil. v. 1), where he composed his 300 blasphemies, captious inferences from the symbol of
his irreligion, viz. that Ingenerateness (dyeav-iola)
is the essence (osthia) of Deity; which are refuted
(those at least which St. Epiphanius had seen) in
S. Ep. adv. Haei. 76. He there calls his opponents Chronites, i.e. Temporals, with an apparent
allusion to their courtly obsequiousness. (Praefat.
up.. S Ep.; comp. c. 4.)
On Constantius's death, Julian recalled the
various exiled bishops, as well as Aetius, whom
he invited to his court (Ep. Juliani, 31, p. 52,
ed. Boisson.), giving him, too, a farm in Lesbos. (Phil. ix. 4.) Euzoius, heretical Bishop of
Antioch, took off the ecclesiastical condemnation
from Aetius (Phil. vii. 5), and he was made
Bishop at Constantinople. (S. Ep. 76. p. 992, c.)
lie spreads his heresy by fixing a bishop of his
own irreligion at Constantinople (Phil. viii. 2) and
by missionaries, till the death of Jovian, A. D. 364.
Valens, however, took part with Eudoxius, the
Acacian Bishop of Constantinople, and Aetius retired to Lesbos, where he narrowly escaped death
at the hands of the governor, placed there by
Procopius in his revolt against Valens, A. D. 365,
366. (See Gibbon. ch. 19.) Again he took refuge
in Constantinople, but was driven thence by his
former friends. In vain he applied for protection
to Eudoxius, now at Marcianople with Valens;
and in A. D. 367 (Phil. ix. 7) he died, it seems, at
Constantinople, unpitied by any but the equally
irreligious Eunomius, who buried him. (Phil. ix.
6.) The doctrinal errors of Aetius are stated
historically in the article on Aarus. From the
Manichees he seems to have learned his licentious
morals, which appeared in the most shocking Solifidianism, and which he grounded on a Gnostic
interpretation of St. John, xvii. 3. He denied,
like most other heretics, the necessity of fasting
and self-mortification. (S. Ep. adv. Haer. 76. ~ 4.)
At some time or other he was a disciple of Eusebius of Sebaste. (S. Bas. Ep st. 223 [79] and
244 [82].) Socrates (ii. 35) speaks of several
letters from him to Constantine and others. His
Treatise is to be found ap. S. Epiphan. adv. Haner.
76, p. 924, ed. Petav. Colon. 1682. [A. J. C.]

AETIUS. 53
AETIUS ('AcTIos, AZtius), a Greek medical
writer, whose name is commonly but incorrectly
spelt Aetius. Historians are not agreed about
his exact date. He is placed by some writers as
early as the fourth century after Christ; but it is
plain from his own work that he did not write till
the very end of the fifth or the beginning of the
sixth, as he refers (tetrab. iii. serm,. i. 24, p. 464)
not only to St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who
died A. D. 444, but also (tetrab. ii. serm. iii. 110,
p. 357) to Petrus Archiater, who was physician
to Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and therefore must have lived still later; he is himself
quoted by Alexander Trallianus (xii. 8, p. 346),
who lived probably in the middle of the sixth
century. He was a native of Amida, a city of
Mesopotamia (Photius, cod. 221) and studied at
Alexandria, which was the most famous medical
school of the age. He was probably a Christian,
which may account perhaps for his being confounded with another person of the same name, a
famous Arian of Antioch, who lived in the time of
the Emperor Julian. In some manuscripts he has
the title of KOcsJiS i4cKiov, conzes obsequii, which
means the chief officer in attendance on the emperor (see Du Cange, Gloss. Med. et Inf. Latin.);
this title, according to Photius (1. c.), he attained
at Constantinople, where lhe was practising medi-.
cine. Aetius seems to be the first Greek medical
writer among the Christians who gives any specimen of the spells and charms so much in vogue
with the Egyptians, such as that of St. Blaise
(tetrab. ii. serm. iv. 50, p. 404) in removing a
bone which sticks in the throat, and another in relation to a Fistula. (tetrab. iv. serm. iii. 14, p. 762.)
The division of his work BLG'ia 'IaTrpKck 'EKKaLiefca, " Sixteen Books on Medicine," into four
tetrabibli (TrTpcdaifAom) was not made by himself,
but (as Fabricius observes) was the invention of
some modern translator, as his way of quoting
his own work is according to the numerical series
of the books. Although his work does not contain much original matter, it is nevertheless one of
the most valuable medical remains of antiquity, as
being a very judicious compilation from the writings of many authors whose works have been long
since lost. The whole of it has never appeared
in the original Greek; one half was published at Venice, 1534, fol. " in aed. Aldi," with
the title " Aetii Amideni Librorum Medicinalium
tomus primus; primi scilicet Libri Octo nune
primum in lucem editi, Graece:" the second
volunme never appeared. Some chapters of the
ninth book were published in Greek and Latin, by
J. E. Hebenstreit, Lips. 4to. 1757, under the title
" Tentamen Philologicum Medicum super Aetii
Amideni Synopsis Medicorum Veterum," &c.; and
again in the same year, "Antii Amideni AVEK'rcOTW..... Specimen alterum." Another chapter of the
same book was edited in Greek and Latin by J.
Magnus a Tengstrim, Aboae, 1817, 4to., with the
title " Commentationum in Aetii Amideni Medici
'AvcKoran Specimen Primum," etc. Another extract, also from the ninth book, is inserted by
Mustoxydes and Schinas in their " vuAAoy?)
'EAM')vaci&v 'AvseKdCrTe?," Venet. 1816, 8vo. The.
twenty-fifth chapter of the ninth book was edited
in Greek and Latin by J. C. Horn, Lips. 1654,
4to.; and the chapter (tetrab. i. serm. iii. 164)
" De Significationibus Stellarum," is inserted in
Greek and Latin by Petavius, in his " Uranolo^