ARISTEAS  , the pseudonymous author of a famous

Letter in which is described, in legendary form, the origin of the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint (q.v.) . Aristeas represents himself as a Gentile Greek, but was really an Alexandrian Jew who lived under one of the later Ptolemies . Though the Letter is unauthentic, it is now recognized as a useful source of information concerning both Egyptian and Palestinian affairs in the 2nd and possibly in the 3rd century B.C . An English translation, based on a critical Greek text, was published by H . St J . Thackeray in the Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. xv . There are two modern editions of the Greek, one by the last named (in Swete's Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, Cambridge, 1900), the other by P . Wendland (Leipzig, 1900) .