Dictionary
DIOGENES LAERTIUS	100.00%
A Greek author, who flourished about 150 A.D., the author of a work, in ten books, on the lives and doctrines of celebrated Greek philosophers. It is an uncritical compilation from books of earlier and later date, but the richness of the material gathered from lost writings gives it inestimable value for the history of philosophy. Books 1-7 embrace the Ionic philosophers from Thales onwards, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics down to Chrysippus. Books 8, 9 treat of the philosophers whom he includes under the name of Italian, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, the Eleatics and Atomists, Protagoras, Pyrrho and Epicurus, to the last of whom the whole tenth book is devoted.
BOOKS AND BOOK-TRADE	100.00%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The Greeks were early familiar with the practice of multiplying copies of books by transcription, either to private order or for public sale. As far back as the 5th Century B.C. the Athenians had a special place in their market-place for selling books, and it is clearly established that a regular book-fair existed at Athens by about 300 B.C. In Rome, towards the end of the republican age, the business of copying books and the book-trade in general developed on a large scale, and it became a fashionable thing to possess a library. The book-trade, in the proper sense of the term, owes its existence to Atticus, the well-known friend of Cicero. He kept a number of slaves skilled in shorthand and calligraphy (librarii), whom he set to copy a number of Cicero's writings, Which he then disposed of at a considerable profit in Italy and Greece. His example was soon followed, especially as the interest in new literary productions, and the love of reading, greatly increased after the time of Augustus. To facilitate the appearance of a great number of copies at the same time, the scribes were often set to write from dictation. Much use was made of the abbreviations (notae) invented by Tiro, the freedman of Cicero. The binding was done, as well as the writing, by the librarii ; and as the brittle papyrus was the usual material, the book was generally made up in the form of a roll (see WRITING MATERIALS). The ends of the roll were strengthened with thin strips of bone or wood, which were either provided at top and bottom with a knob (umbilicus), or finished off in the shape of a horn. Previously to this, the upper and lower edges were carefully clipped, smoothed with pumice-stone, and tinted with black. To protect it from moths and worms, the roll was dipped in cedar oil, which gave it a yellowish tinge. The title of the work (titulus or index) was written in red on a strip of parchment attached to the end of the roll. Expensive copies, especially in the case of poems, had a gilt umbilicus, as well as a parchment cover of purple colour. The books were then exposed for sale in the bookseller's shops, and sold at what appear, considering the circumstances, reasonable prices. The booksellers were called librarii or bibliopoloe; their shops were situated in the most frequented parts of the city, and much used, both as reading-rooms and rendezvous for learned discussion. As a general rule there was a good sale for books, especially such as had won popularity before publication in the public recitations (see RECITATIONS). Books were also much bought in the provinces, whose inhabitants were anxious to keep abreast with the intellectual life of the capital. Even works which were little thought of in Rome sometimes found an easy sale in other parts of the empire. It does not appear that the author received any honorarium from the publisher.[1]
GALENUS	89.96%
was the most celebrated physician in antiquity after Hippocrates, and at the same time one of the most prolific among ancient writers. He was born at Pergamon in 131 A.D., received a careful education in philosophy, and afterwards devoted himself to medical studies in his native city, at Smyrna, Corinth, and Alexandria. He returned to Pergamon in 168, and undertook the medical treatment of gladiators, as giving him the best opportunity for increasing his stock of surgical knowledge. In 164 he moved to Rome, and here won a considerable reputation by his success in practice and his public lectures on anatomy. After three years he was driven by the attacks of jealous rivals to leave Rome. He undertook scientific journeys through Greece and Asia, and then settled again in his native city. But he was soon recalled by the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, and in 170 appointed private physician to the young Commodus. He died in his seventieth year, after winning the high esteem of his contemporaries. Part of his writings were destroyed in a fire; in all 125 of his books are lost. About 100 of his genuine treatises have been preserved: of 19 we have fragments, more or less considerable; the genuineness of 18 is doubted, 24 are spurious. Many have not yet been printed, while others exist only in Latin, Syriac, Hebrew and Arabic translations. For during the Middle Ages, down to the 16th century, the authority of Galen was, throughout the East and West, held, especially by the Arabians, to be unassailable. A prolific writer like Galen was naturally careless of his style. His writings leave no branch of medicine untouched. They comprise anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and treatment. Among them should be mentioned the following: On Anatomical Procedure, in 9 books; On the Use of Parts of the Human Body (17 books); On the Parts Affected (6 books); On the Composition of Medicines (three works, including 26 books); On Method in Therapeutics (14 books). His book on medicine, a complete sketch of therapeutics, was immensely popular. He was also the author of 18 books, of commentaries on Hippocrates, whom he claimed as his master. These still survive. His books contain important notices on the history of philosophy, of which he professes his knowledge and enthusiastic admiration. Some of his writings deal specially with this subject.
DIODORUS	78.77%
surnamed Siculus, or the Sicilian. A Greek historian, native of Agyrion, in Sicily, who lived in the times of Julius Caeesar and Augustus. After thirty years preparation, based upon the results yielded by long travels in Asia and Europe, and the use of the plentiful materials supplied by residence in Rome, he wrote his Bibliotheca, an Universal History in 40 books, extending over a period of some 1,100 years, from the oldest time to 60 B.C. In the first six books he treated the primitive history and mythology of the Egyptians, the natives of Asia, and Africa, slid the Hellenes. The next eleven embraced the period from the Trojan war to the death of Alexander the Great. The remaining 23 brought the history down to the beginning of Caesar's struggle with Gaul. We still possess books 1-5 and 11-20 (from the Persian War under Xerxes to 302 B.C.), besides fragments, partly considerable, of the other books. In the early books his treatment is ethnographical; but from the seventh book onwards, in the strictly historical part of his work, he writes like an annalist narrating all the events of one year at a time, with emphasis on the more important ones. It is obvious that this proceeding must rob the history of all its inner connection. He has other weaknesses. He is incapable of seizing the individual characteristics either of nations or of individuals, and contents himself with giving anecdotes and unconnected details. He follows his authorities blindly, without any attempt to criticize their statements. Then his work falls far short of the ideal which he himself sets up in his introduction. But it is none the less of great value as being one of the main authorities for many parts of ancient history, especially that affecting Sicily. In his style Diodorus aims at clearness and simplicity.
PALLADIUS	73.81%
A Latin author, in the 4th century A.D., who, by borrowing from the teaching of his predecessors and by his own experience, composed a work upon husbandry in fourteen books. Of these the first contains general precepts; books ii-xiii give the operations of agriculture in each of the successive months, while the fourteenth treats of the grafting of trees, in eighty-five elegiac couplets. His book, though written in dry and feeble language, was much used in the Middle Ages on account of its practical arrangement.
PRISCIAN	73.72%
A physician, who lived in the 5th century, named Theodorus Priscianus, has left us a Medicina Prcesentanea (a book of rapid curatives) in five books.
AGATHARCHIDES	71.35%
A Greek grammarian of Cnidus, who lived at Alexandria in the 2nd century B.C. as tutor, and afterwards guardian, of a prince. He composed several historical works (one on the successors of Alexander), a well written performance, and a description of the Red Sea in five books. Of the former only a few fragments remain, of the last some considerable extracts from the first and fifth books.
STRABO	69.75%
The Greek geograpber. He was born of a good family at Amaseia in Pontus about 63 B.C. After the conclusion of his education in philosophy he devoted himself to historical and geographical studies, and undertook long journeys in Asia Minor, also in Egypt up to the boundaries of Ethiopia, and in parts of Greece and Italy, paying several visits to Rome. He composed a great historic work in forty-seven books, which from the fifth book onwards formed a continuation of Poklybius down to his own time; but of this only a few fragments remain. His Geogrdphica, however, we possess complete in seventeen books, with the exception of a few gaps in the seventh book. This was finished about A.D. 23. It is the principal geographical work that has come down to us from ancient times. It consists of descriptions of countries and peoples, and is specially valuable on account of the extent and importance of the historical and topographical matter it contains, partly derived from personal observation, but chiefly drawn from the best authorities, particularly from Eratosthenes. The first two books contain (1) a criticism, not always just, of the more ancient geographers from the time of Homer; and (2) the mathematical part of physical geography, the weakest portion of the work; books iii-x describe Europe (iii Spain, iv Gaul, Britain, Ireland, and the Alps, v and vi Italy, vii the north and east of Europe to the Danube, viii-x Greece); xi-xvi Asia; xvii Africa. Strabo gives detailed accounts of manners and customs, history and constitutions, whereas, in topography, he generally gives only what is of most importance. His style is clear and attractive. Notwithstanding a great extension of geographical knowledge, the work was not superseded by any later one, and indeed even in the Middle Ages was still used in selections as a school-book in Constantinople. [See Tozer's Selections, 1893.]
EUSEBIUS	69.16%
The father of ecclesiastical history. He was born at Caesarea in Phoe nicia in 264 A.D. In 315 he became bishop of that city, and died in 340. He was one of the most learned men of his time, and holds a high position both among the historians and the apologists of Christianity, His greatest work is his Church History. This work is in ten books, beginning with the rise of Christianity, and coming down to 314 A.D. It was much used by later writers, and was, about 403 A.D., translated into Latin by Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia, who continued it down to the death of Theodosius (A.D. 395). The apologetic writings of Eusebius are the Praeparatio Evangelica in fifteen books, and the Demonstratio Evangelica in twenty. They are both, but especially the former, a rich storehouse of information on antiquity, particularly on the philosophy and religion of the Greeks. Of still greater importance is his Chronicle (Chronicon), a work founded upon extracts from the now lost writings of previous historians. Its first book, the Chronographia, contains a general ethnographical history of the world, arranged from the creation to 325 A.D. The second, called the Chronological Canon, consisted of parallel chronological tables of the names of rulers and the most important events since 2017 B.C. Only fragments of the original work remain; but we have both books in an Armenian translation, and the second in the Latin version of Hieronymus. Among the other works of Eusebius we may mention: (1) A sketch of the topography of Palestine, in two books. The second alone survives, both in the original and in the translation of Hieronymus. (2) A biography, in four books, of the emperor Constantine, who had shown favour to Eusebius and had been baptized by him. This work is strongly coloured by personal feeling. (3) A panegyric on Constantine.
DION	68.99%
Dio Cassius (or Cassius Dio) Cocceianus. A Greek historian, grandson of Dio Chrysostomos, born at Nicaea, in Bithynia, 155 A.D. He came early to Rome with his father, Cassius Apronianus, a senator and high official. Here he received a careful education. In about 180 A.D. he became a member of the senate, and he was a long time in practice as an advocate. In 194 he was praetor, and afterwards consul. As proconsul he administered in succession the provinces of Africa, Dalmatia, and Pannonia. The strict order which he had maintained in Pannonia had drawn upon him the hatred of the undisciplined praetorians, who demanded his life. Alexander Severus, however, not only shielded him, but nominated him his colleague in the consulship of 229. At the same time he allowed him, for the sake of his own personal safety, to live outside Rome during his term of office. When this had expired the emperor, in consequence of his age and weak health, gave him leave to quit the public service and retire to his native city, where he ended his days. Here he completed his great work on Roman history, from the arrival of Aencas in Italy, to his own consulship in 229 A.D. This he had undertaken at the divine command, communicated to him in a dream. He spent twenty-two years upon it, ten on the preparation, and twelve on the execution. It contained 80 books, divided into decades. It gives only a sketch of the history down to Caesar, but treats the empire in detail, special care being bestowed upon the events contemporary with the writer. Of the first thirty-five books we have only fragments; book 36 (the wars with the pirates and with Mithridates) is mutilated at the beginning; books 37-54 (down to the death of Agrippa) are tolerably complete; books 55-60, which come down to Claudius, are imperfect. The rest are preserved only in fragments, and in the extracts made by Ionnes Xiphilinos, a Byzantine monk of the 12th century. These begin with book 35. The model taken by Dio for imitation was Polybius, whom he only distantly resembles. He often repels the reader by his crawling flattery, his affected dislike of the republican champions, such as Cicero, Brutus, and Cassius, and his gross superstition. But his book is a work of enormous industry, and of great importance, especially for the history of his own time. His narrative is, generally speaking, clear and vivid, and his style is careful.
DIOSCORIDES	67.14%
A Greek physician and man of science. He flourished about the middle of the 1st century A.D., and was the author of a work De Materia Medica in five books. For nearly 1700 years this book was the chief authority for stu- dents of botany and the science of healing. Two short essays on specifies against vegetable and animal poisons (Alexipharmaca and Theriaca) are appended to it as the sixth and seventh books: but these are probably from the hand of a later Dioscorides of Alexandria. A work on family medicine is also attributed to him, but is not genuine.
PALAEPHATUS	66.79%
A Greek author who followed the Peripatetic philosophy. He composed in the 4th century B.C. a historical and allegorical explanation of Greek myths in several books. Of this work we possess only a short abstract, probably composed in the Byzantine age under the title, On Incredible Tales. In former times it was a favourite school book.
DIOMEDES	66.71%
A Roman writer on grammar of the last part of the 4th century A.D. He was the author of an Ars Grammatica, in three books, founded on the same ancient authorities as the work of his contemporary Charisius, with whom lie often agrees verbatim. His third book derives special value from the notices on literary history taken from Suetonius.
STOBAEUS	64.96%
Of Stobi in Macedonia. About 500 A.D. he composed, for the education of his son Septimius, a philosophical anthology in four books, from the extracts which he had made in the course of his extensive reading from more than 500 Greek poets and prose writers. It is of great value, as it includes numerous fragments of works now lost, and is particularly rich in quotations from the works of the Greek dramatists. The collection, which originally seems to have formed one whole work, has been separated into two distinct portions in the course of time: (1) The "physical, dialectical, and ethical eclogues" (or selections) in two books (imperfect at the beginning and end); and (2) the Florilegium, also in two books, on ethical and political subjects, the sections of which are in great part so arranged that each virtue is treated in connexion with its opposite vice.
TERENTIUS	64.79%
Marcus Terentius Varro Reatinus (i.e. a native of Reate in the Sabine territory). The most learned of the Romans; born 116 B.C. of an ancient senatorial family. He devoted himself to study at an early age, under the direction chiefly of the learned antiquarian and philologist Aelius Stilo, without however withdrawing from public life either in time of peace or war. He held the public offices of tribune, curule aedile, and praetor. In 67 he was lieutenant to Pompey in the war against the pirates; in 49 he again held a command under Pompey in the province of Spain beyond the Iberus, but was taken prisoner by Caesar after the capitulation of Ilerda. Although he afterwards rejoined Pompey, Caesar received him into favour, and he returned to Rome in 46 B.C., where he is said to have had the superintendence of the great library which Caesar destined for the public use. In spite of his abstaining henceforward from taking any active part in public affairs, he was prescribed by Antony in 43, and only narrowly escaped with his life. Pardoned by Octavianus, he lived till the year 27, full of vigour and literary activity to the last. Varro's learning comprised all the provinces of literature known at that time, and in productivity he was equalled by no Romans, and only a few Greeks. According to his own statement, he had composed 490 books before his 78th year; the total number of his works, either in prose or verse, theoretical or practical, exceeded 70, in more than 600 books. Of these, the three books on agriculture (Rerum Rusticarum Libri), written in the form of a dialogue in his 80th year, in which he treats the subject exhaustively, drawing from his own experience as well as from more ancient sources, are the only ones that have been completely preserved. Further, of the original 25 books on the Latin language (De Lingua Latina) dedicated to Caesar, in which he systematically treats, under the head of etymology, inflexions and syntax, only books v-x exist, in a mutilated condition. This work was followed by a number of other grammatical writings. It is only through a series of extant titles of his works that we know of his literary and historical studies, which were especially directed to dramatic poetry, and in particular to the comedies of Plautus, as well as of his researches into the history and antiquities of his own nation. His principal work, of which much use has been made by later writers, the Antiquitatas Rerum Humanarum et Divinarum, in 41 books. This was the most important of his writings on these subjects, as it gave a complete account of the political and religious life of the Romans from the earliest times. The 15 books, entitled Imagines or Hebdomades, published about B.C. 39, contained 700 portraits of celebrated Greeks and Romans, in sets of seven in each group, with epigrams written beneath them. His nine Disciplinarum Libri gave an encyclopaedia of the arts pertaining to general culture (grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music, architecture, medicine). His 76 Libri Logistorici included shorter popular treatises of a historical and philosophical nature, described by titles appropriate to their contents, borrowed from the names of well-known persons (e.g. Sisenna de Historia). Among Varro's numerous and varied poetical works we will only mention, as the most original, the 150 books of Menippean Satires (Saturoe Menippeoe), which were completed before 45 B.C., a species of composition which he introduced into Roman literature in imitation of the Cynic Menippus of Gadara. In these Satires, written alternately in prose and different kinds of verse, he treats of philosophical questions, especially those relating to morality, science, etc., chiefly with the view of exposing the failings of the age. Only a number of titles and fragments of this work have been preserved.
LIBRARIUS	64.66%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The Latin name for a bookseller. (See BOOKS AND BOOK-TRADE.)
DIOPHANTUS	64.44%
A Greek mathematician of Alexandria, who flourished probably about 360 B.C. He was the author of an Arithmetica in thirteen books, of which littlemore than the first six still remain. The book is the only Greek work upon algebra. Diophantus was the most considerable arithmetician in Greek antiquity.
MARTIANUS CAPELLA	62.01%
of Madaura in Africa, apparently a pagan; a lawyer at Carthage. He compiled before 439 A.D. (When Genseric took Carthage) an encyclopaedia of the liberal arts, entitled, " The Marriage of Philology and Mercury " (Nuptioe Philologioe et Mercurii), in nine books, a medley of prose and verse on the pattern of the Menippean Satires of Varro, to whom he is also otherwise indebted. The first two books contain the allegory: Mercury marries the maiden Philologia, and among the presents he gives her are seven maidens, the liberal arts: Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Harmony (Music); each of these delivers her teaching in the following books. The style is partly dry and partly bombastic. In the earlier Middle Ages the book was for a long time the principal basis of school education in general, and exerted great influence on the liberal culture of the time.
ARISTOTLE	60.08%
One of the two greatest philosophers of antiquity, born B.C. 384 at Stageira, a Greek colony in Thrace. He was the son of Nicomachus, who died while acting as physician in ordinary to Amyntas II at Pella in Macedonia. In B.C. 367, after the death of his parents and the completion of his seventeenth year, Axistotle betook himself to Athens, became a pupil of Plato, and remained twenty years, latterly working as a teacher of rhetoric. About his relations with Plato unfavourable rumours were current, which may have had their origin in his subsequent opposition to the Platonic doctrine of ideas. That he arrived pretty early at opposite opinions, and gave emphatic expression to them, is quite credible. This may have been the occasion of Plato's comparing him (so it is said) to a colt that kicks his mother; yet Plato is also said to have called him "the intellect" of his school, and " the reader," on account of his habit of incessant study. Comparing him with Xenocrates, he remarked, that the one wanted a spur, the other a bridle. On the other hand, Aristotle, in one of his writings, combating his former master's theory of ideas, lays down the maxim that friendship, especially among philosophers, must not be allowed to violate the sanctity of truth; and in a fragment of an elegy he calls Plato the first man who showed in word and deed how a man is to become good and happy. After Plato had handed over his school to his sister's son Speusippus, Aristotle quitted Athens, B.C. 347, and repaired to his friend Hermeias, despot of Atarneus in Mysia. When that prince had fallen a prey to Persian intrigues he withdrew, B.C. 345, with his wife Pythias, his friend's sister, to Mitylene in Lesbos; and two years later accepted an invitation to Macedonia to be tutor to Alexander, then thirteen years old. He lived at the court eight years, though his tenure of office seems to have lasted barely half that time. Both Philip and his son esteemed him highly, and most liberally seconded his studies in natural science, for which he inherited his father's predilection. Alexander continued till his death to respect and love him, though the affair of Callisthenes (q.v.) occasioned some coolness between them. When the king undertook his expedition in Asia, Aristotle betook himself once more to Athens, and taught for thirteen years in the Gymnasium called the Lyceum. In the mornings he conversed with his maturer pupils on the higher problems of philosophy, walking up and down the shady avenues, from which practice the school received the name of Peripatetics. In the evenings he delivered courses of lectures on philosophy and rhetoric to a larger audience. After Alexander's death, when all adherents of the Macedonian supremacy were persecuted at Athens, a certain Demophilus brought against him a charge of impiety, where upon Aristotle, "to save the Athenians from sinning a second time against philosophy" so he is reported to have said, alluding to the fate of Socrates retired to Chalcis in Eubcaea. There he died late in the summer of the next year, B.C. 322. Of the very numerous writings of Aristotle, some were composed in a popular, others in a scientific form. A considerable number of the latter kind have come down to us, but of the former, which were written in the form of dialogues, only a few fragments. The strictly scientific works may be classed according to their contents, as they treat of Logic, Metaphysics, Natural Science or Ethics. (1) Those on LOGIC were comprehended by the later Aristotelians under the name of Organon ("instrument"), because they treat of Method, the instrument of research. They in clude the Categories, on the fundamental forms of ideas : the De Interpretatifte, on the doctrine of the judgment and on the proposition, important as an authority on philosophical terminology; the Analytica Priora and Posteriora, each in two books, the former on the syllogism, the latter on demonstration, definition, and distribution; the Topica in eight books, on dialectic inferences (those of probability); on Sophisms, the fallacies of sophists, and their solution. (2) The METAPHYSICS as they were called by late writers, in fourteen books, consist of one connected treatise and several shorter essays on what Aristotle himself calls " first philosophy," the doctrine of Being in itself and the ultimate grounds of Being; a work left unfinished by Aristotle and supplemented by foreign ingredients. The works on NATURAL SCIENCE are headed by the Physics in eight books, treating of the most general bases and relations of nature as a whole. This is followed up by four books on the Heavens or Universe, two on Beginning to be and Perishing, and the Meteorologica in four books, on the phenomena of the air. A short treaties On the Cosmos is spurious: that on the Directions and Names of Winds is a fragment of a larger work on the signs of storms; and the Problems (physical) is a collection gradually formed out of Aristotelian extracts. Of mathematical import are the Mechanical Problems (on the lever and balance) and the book about Indivisible Lines. Natural history is handled in the ten books of Animal History, and in four books on the Parts, five on the Generation, and one on the mode of Progression of Animals. The work on The Motion of Animals is probably spurious, certainly so the one on Plants in two books. Aristotle's treatise on this subject is lost. Turning to Psychology, we have the three books On the Soul and a number of smaller treatises (on the Senses and the Objects of Perception; on Memory and Recollection; on Sleep and Waking; on Dreams; on Divination by Sleep; on the Length and Shortness of Life; on Youth and Age, Life and Death; on Breathing; on Sound and Voice, etc.; that on Physiognomy is probably spurious). (4) Of the three general works on ETHICS, the Nicomachean Ethics in ten books, the Eudemian Ethics in seven, and the so-called Magna Moralia in two, the first alone, addressed to his son Nicomachus, and of marked excellence in matter and manner, is by Aristotle himself. The second is by his pupil Eudemus of Rhodes, and the third a mere abstract of the other two, especially of the second. The essay on Virtues and Vices is spurious. Closely connected with the Ethics is the Politics in eight books, a masterly work in spite of its incompleteness, treating of the aim and elements of a State, the various forms of Government, the ideal of a State and of Education. A valuable work on the Constitution of 158 states is lost, all but a few fragments.1 Of the two books on Aeconomics the first is spurious. Corresponding partly with the Logic, and partly with the Ethics, is the Rhetoric in three books,2 and the Poetics, a work of inestimable worth, not withstanding the ruinous condition in which its text has come clown to us. [The Rhetoric is a masterly treatise on oratory, regarded as an instrument for working upon the various passions and feelings of humanity.] Sundry other prose writings are preserved under Aristotle's name, e.g., that on Colours; the so-called Mirabiles Auscultationes, a collection of memoranda on all sorts of strange phenomena and occurrences, mostly bearing on natural science; on Melissus, Zeno, and Gorgias; six Letters which however are not regarded as genuine, any more than the 63 epigrams out of supposed mythological miscellany entitled Peplos. But we may safely assign to him he beautiful Scolion, or impromptu song, on his friend Hermeias, which takes the form of a Hymn to Virtue. A story dating from antiquity informs us that Aristotle bequeathed his own writings and his very considerable library to his pupil and successor in the office of teacher, Theophrastus, who again made them over to his pupil Mileus, of Scepsis in the Troad. After his death his relations are said to have buried them in a cellar, to guard them against the mania for collecting books which characterized the Pergamene princes. At last they were unearthed by Apellieon of Teos, a rich bibliophile, who brought them to Athens about 100 B.C., and tried to restore them from the wretched state into which they had fallen through the neglect of 130 years. Soon after, at the taking of Athens by the Romans, they fell into Sulla's hands, who brought them to Rome. Here the grammarian Tyrannion took copies of them, and on this basis the Peripatetic Andronicus of Rhodes prepared an edition of Aristotle's works. This would indeed partly account for the wretched condition in which some of them are preserved. At the same time it can be proved that the principal works were known during the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C., 80 that the story affects only the author's original MSS., among which a number of works till then unpublished may have come to light. Though the writings preserved form rather less than half of the number which he actually wrote, there is quite enough to show the universality of Aristotle's intellect, which sought with equal ardour and acumen to explore and subdue the entire domain of research. He was the originator of many lines of study unknown before him,-Logic, Grammar, Rhetoric in its scientific aspect, Literary Criticism, Natural History, Physiology, Psychology; he was the first to attempt a History of Philosophy and of the forms of government then existing. His method, of which he must be considered the creator, is critical and empirical at once. In all cases he starts from facts, which he collects, sifts and groups as completely as he can, so as to get some general leading points of view, and with the help of these to arrive at a systematic arrangement of the subject, and a knowledge of its in most being, its cause. For to him the Cause is the essential part of knowledge, and the philosophy that searches into ultimate causes for the mere sake of knowing is the best and freest science. The form of Aristotle's works is by no means equal to their contents. Of the beautiful harmony between style and subject, that so charms us in Plato, there is not a trace in Aristotle; his manner of expression, though scientifically exact, lacks flavour, art, and elegance. But of exact scientific terminology he is the true founder. When the ancients celebrate the "golden stream" of his writing, the opinion can only refer to his lost popular works. Aristotle's personality is one of those which have affected the history of the world. His writings, Us those of Plato, were to the Christian centuries of antiquity a most stimulating incentive to scientific inquiry; in the Middle Ages they were for the Christian nations of the West and the Arabs the chief guide to philosophical method; and in the province of logic his authority remains unshaken to this day.
SACERDOS	57.22%
A Latin grammarian, perhaps of the end of the 3rd century A.D.; wrote in Rome an ars grammatica in three books. The third treats of metre.