Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus and Phaestis, of Stageira. Nicomachus traced his descent from Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the son of Asclepius, as Hermippus states in his work On Aristotle; and he lived with Amyntas, king of the Macedonians, serving as his physician and friend. Aristotle was the most genuine of Plato's pupils, lisping in his speech, as Timotheus of Athens says in his On Lives; moreover, they say he was thin-legged, small-eyed, and conspicuous for wearing notable clothing, rings, and his style of haircut. He also had a son, Nicomachus, by his concubine Herpyllis, as Timaeus says.

​He parted from Plato while the latter was still alive; so that they say Plato remarked: "Aristotle has kicked us away, just like foals born of their mother do." Hermippus says in his Lives that while Aristotle was serving on an embassy to Philip on behalf of the Athenians, Xenocrates became head of the school in the Academy; and that when Aristotle returned and saw the school under someone else, he chose the walkway (peripatos) in the Lyceum and walked up and down as far as the anointing-place, philosophizing together with his pupils; whence he was named the Peripatetic. Others say it was because he accompanied Alexander when the latter was walking about recovering from an illness and conversed with him on various subjects.

​When his pupils had already grown more numerous, he even sat down, saying: "It is disgraceful to keep silence and let Xenocrates speak." And he trained his pupils toward a thesis, at the same time exercising them rhetorically. Afterwards, however, he departed to Hermias the eunuch, who was tyrant of Atarneus; some say Hermias was his beloved, while others say that he even formed a marriage alliance with him by giving him his daughter or niece, as Demetrius of Magnesia says in his On Poets and Writers of the Same Name; Demetrius also says that Hermias had been a slave of Eubulus, being Bithynian by birth, and had made away with his master. But Aristippus, in the first book of On Ancient Luxury, says that Aristotle fell in love with a concubine of Hermias.

​With Hermias' consent, he married her, and being overjoyed with the little woman, he sacrificed to her as the Athenians do to Eleusinian Demeter; and he wrote a paean for Hermias, which is transcribed below. From there he went to Macedonia to Philip and received from him his son Alexander as a pupil, and he requested the restoration of his own native city, which had been razed by Philip, and obtained it; he also laid down laws for them. Furthermore, in his school he made regulations in imitation of Xenocrates, so as to appoint a leader every ten days. When it seemed to him that he had spent sufficient time with Alexander, he departed for Athens, having recommended to him his kinsman Callisthenes of Olynthus;

​whom, speaking rather too frankly to the king and failing to heed him, Aristotle is said to have rebuked, saying: "Short-lived indeed shalt thou be for me, my child, by such things as thou speakest." And so indeed it came to pass. For having been thought to have taken part with Hermolaus in the conspiracy against Alexander, Callisthenes was carried about in an iron cage, covered with lice and untended; and finally, being thrown to a lion, he met his end in this way. Now Aristotle, having come to Athens and presided over his school for thirteen years, withdrew to Chalcis, when Eurymedon the hierophant—or Demophilus, as Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History—drew up an indictment of impiety against him, because he had composed the hymn to the

​aforementioned Hermias, and also an epigram on the statue at Delphi to this effect: "This man once, impiously violating the holy ordinance of the blessed gods, the king of the bow-bearing Persians slew, not openly prevailing with spear in murderous contests, but having relied on the faith of a treacherous man." There indeed he died by drinking aconite, as Eumelus says in the fifth book of his Histories, having lived seventy years. The same author also says that he joined Plato at thirty years of age, being mistaken; for he lived sixty-three years, and joined Plato when he was seventeen. Now the hymn runs in this manner:

"Virtue, arduous for the mortal race, most noble quarry in life, for the sake of thy form, maiden, even to die is an enviable lot in Greece, and to endure fierce, unwearied labors; such immortal strength dost thou cast into the mind, surpassing gold and parents and softly beaming sleep. For thy sake Heracles, the son of Zeus, and the sons of Leda endured many things in their deeds, hunting after thy power."