AELIUS

ARISTIDES  , surnamed THEODORUS, Greek rhetorician and sophist, son of Eudaemon, a priest of Zeus, was born at Hadriani in Mysia, A.D . 117 (or 129) . He studied under Herodes Atticus of Athens, Polemon of Smyrna, and Alexander of Cotyaeum, in whose honour he composed a funeral oration still extant . In the practice of his calling he travelled through Greece, Italy, Egypt and Asia, and in many places the in-habitants erected statues to him in recognition of his talents . In 156 he was attacked by an illness which lasted thirteen years, the nature of which has caused considerable speculation . How-ever, it in no way interfered with his studies; in fact, they were prescribed as part of his cure . Aristides' favourite place of residence was Smyrna . In 178, when it was destroyed by an earthquake, he wrote an account of the disaster to Aurelius, which deeply affected the emperor and induced him to rebuild the city . The grateful inhabitants set up a statue in honour of Aristides, and styled him the " builder " of Smyrna . He refused all honours from them except that of priest of Asclepius, which office he held till his death, about 189 . The extant works of Aristides consist of two small rhetorical treatises and fifty-five declamations, some not really speeches at all . The treatises are on political and simple speech, in which he takes Demosthenes and Xenophon as models for illustration; some critics attribute these to a later compiler (Spengel, Rhetores Graeci) .

The six Sacred Discourses have attracted some

attention . They give a full account of his protracted illness, including a mass of superstitious details of visions, dreams and wonderful cures, which the god Asclepius ordered him to record . These cures, from his account, offer similarities to the effects produced by hypnotism . The speeches proper are epideictic or show speeches—on certain gods, panegyrics of the emperor and individual cities (Smyrna, Rome) ; justificatory—the attack on Plato's Gorgias in defence of rhetoric and the four statesmen, Thucydides, Miltiades, Pericles, Cimon; symbouleutic or political, the subjects being taken from the past history of free Greece—the Sicilian expedition, peace negotiations with Sparta, the political situation after the battle of Leuctra . The Panathenaicus and Encomium of Rome were actually delivered, the former imitated from Isocrates . The Leptinea—the genuineness of which is disputed—contrast unfavourably with the speech of Demosthenes . Aristides' works were highly esteemed by his contemporaries; they were much used for school instruction, and distinguished rhetoricians wrote commentaries upon them . His style, formed on the best models, is generally clear and correct, though sometimes obscured by rhetorical ornamentation; his subjects being mainly fictitious, the cause possessed no living interest, and his attention was concentrated on form and diction . Editio princeps (52 declamations only) (1517) ; Dindorf (1829) ; Kell (1899); Sandys, Hist. of Class . Schol. i . 312 (ed . 1906) .