Aristeas
(Ἀριστέας), of Proconnesus, a son of Caystrobius or Demochares, was an epic poet, who flourished, according to Suidas, about the time of Croesus and Cyrus. The accounts of his life are as fabulous as those about Abaris the Hyperborean. According to a tradition, which Herodotus (4.15) heard at Metapontum, in southern Italy, he re-appeared there among the living 340 years after his death, and according to this tradition Aristeas would belong to the eighth or ninth century before the Christian era; and there are other traditions which place him before the time of Homer, or describe him as a contemporary and teacher of Homer. (Strab. xiv. p.639.) In the account of Herodotus (4.13_16), Tzetzes (Chil. 2.724, &c.) and Suidas (s. v.), Aristeas was a magician, who rose after his death, and whose soul could leave and re-enter its body according to its pleasure. He was, like Abaris, connected with the worship of Apollo, which he was said to have introduced at Metapontum. Herodotus calls him the favourite and inspired bard of Apollo (φοιβόλαμπτος). He is said to have travelled through the countries north and east of the Euxine, and to have visited the countries of the Issedones, Arimaspae, Cimmerii, Hyperborei, and other mythical nations, and after his return to have written an epic poem, in three books, called τὰ Ἀριμάσπεια, in which he seems to have described all that he had seen or pretended to have seen. This work, which was unquestionably full of marvellous stories, was nevertheless looked upon as a source of historical and geographical information, and some writers reckoned Aristeas among the logographers. But it was nevertheless a poetical production, and Strabo (i. p.21, xiii. p. 589) seems to judge too harshly of him, when he calls him an ἀνὴρ γόης εἴ τις ἄλλος. The poem " Arimaspeia" is frequently mentioned by the ancients (Paus. 1.24.6, 5.7.9; Pollux, 9.5; Gellius, 9.4; Plin. Nat. 7.2), and thirteen hexameter verses of it are preserved in Longinus (De Sublim. 10.4) and Tzetzes (Chil. 7.686, &c.). The existence of the poem is thus attested beyond all doubt; but the ancients themselves denied to Aristeas the authorship of it. (Dionys. Jud. de Thuc. 23.) It seems to have fallen into oblivion at an early period. Suidas also mentions a theogony of Aristeas, in prose, of which, however, nothing is known. (Vossius, De Hist. Graec. p. 10, &c. ed. Westermann; Bode, Gesch. der Episch. Dichtk. pp. 472-478.) [L.S]
(Ἀριστέας).
1. Son of Adeimantus. [Aristeus.]
2. Of Chios, a distinguished officer in the retreat of the Ten Thousand. (Xen. Anab.) 4.1.28, 6.20.)
3. Of Stratonice, was the victor at the Olympic games in wrestling and the pancratium on the same day, Ol. 191. (Paus. 5.21.5; Krause, Olympia, p. 249.)
4. An Argive, who invited Pyrrhus to Argos, B. C. 272, as his rival Aristippus was supported by Antigonus Gonatas. (PIut. Pyrrh. 30.)
5. A grammarian, referred to by Varro. (L. L. 10.75, ed. Müller.)
or Aristaeus, a Cyprian by nation, was a high officer at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and was distinguished for his military talents. Works Letter about the Septuagint
Ptolemy being anxious to add to his newly founded library at Alexandria (B. C. 273) a copy of the Jewish law, sent Aristeas and Andreas, the commander of his body-guard, to Jerusalem. They carried presents to the temple, and obtained from the high-priest, Eleazar, a genuine copy of the Pentateuch, and a body of seventy elders, six from each tribe, who could translate it into Greek. On their arrival in Egypt, the elders were received with great distinction by Ptolemy, and were lodged in a house in the island of Pharos, where, in the space of seventy-two days, they completed a Greek version of the Pentateuch, which was called, from the number of the translators, κατά τούς ἑβδομήκοντα (the Septuagint), and the same name was extended to the Greek version of the whole of the Old Testament, when it had been completed under the auspices of the Ptolemies. The above account is given in a Greek work which professes to be a letter from Aristeas to his brother Philocrates, but which is generally admitted by the best critics to be spurious. It is probably the fabrication of an Alexandrian Jew shortly before the Christian aera. The fact seems to be, that the version of the Pentateuch was made in the reign of Ptolemy Soter, between the years 298 and 285 B. C. for the Jews who had been brought into Egypt by that king in 320 B. C. It may have obtained its name from its being adopted by the Sanhedrim (or council of seventy) of the Alexandrian Jews. The other books of the Septuagint version were translated by different persons and at various times. Editions
The letter ascribed to Aristeas was first printed in Greek and Latin, by Simon Schard, Basil. 1561, 8vo., and reprinted at Oxford, 1692, 8vo.; the best edition is in Gallandi Biblioth. Patr. ii. p. 771. (Fabric. Bib. Graec. 3.660.) Further Information
The story about Aristeas and the seventy interpreters is told, chiefly on the authority of the letter but differing from it in some points, by Aristobulus, a Jewish philosopher (apud Euseb. Praep. Evan. 13.12), Philo Judaeus (Vit. Mos. 2), Josephus (J. AJ 12.2), Justin Martyr (Cohort. ad Graec. p. 13, Apol. p. 72, Dial. cum Tryph. p. 297), Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 3.25), Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. i. p. 250), Tertullian (Apolog. 18), Eusebius (Praep. Evan. 8.1), Athanasius (Synop. S. Scrip. ii. p. 156), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. pp. 36, 37), Epiphanius (De Mens. et Pond. 3), Jerome (Praef: in Pentateuch ; Quaest. in Genes. Prooem.), Augustine (De Civ. Dei, 18.42, 43), Chrysostom (Adv. Jud. i. p. 443), Hilary of Poitiers (In Psalm. 2), and Theodoret. (Praef in Psalm.) [P.S]
and PAPIAS, sculptors, of Aphrodisium in Cyprus, made the two statues of centaurs in dark grey marble which were found at Hadrian's villa at Tivoli in 1746, and are now in the Capitoline museum. They bear the inscription ΑΡΙΣΤΕΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΠΙΑΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΣΙΕΙΣ. From the style of the statues, which is good, and from the place where they were discovered, Winckelmann supposes that they were made in the reign of Hadrian. Other statues of centaurs have been discovered, very much like those of Aristeas and Papias, but of better workminanship, from which some writers have inferred that the latter are only copies. The two centaurs are fully described by Winckelmann (Werke, 6.282, with Meyer's note; 7.247), and figured by Cavaceppi (Raccolta di Statue, i. tav. 27, 28) and Foggini (Mus. Capit. tav. 13, 14.) [P.S]
(Ἀριστέας). An epic poet of Proconnesus, of whose life we have only fabulous accounts. His date is quite uncertain. He is represented as a magician, whose soul could leave and re-enter its body according to its pleasure. He was connected with the worship of Apollo, which he was said to have introduced at Metapontum. He wrote an epic poem on the Arimaspi (q.v.), in three books, from which the pseudoLonginus quotes. See Herod. iv. 13.
- poet, his account of the griffins and Arimaspians: Paus. 1.24.6
- son of Caystrobius, his travels in the north, disappearance and subsequent reappearance after 340 years: Hdt. 4.13-16
- Aristaeus
- Olympic victor: Paus. 5.21.10
- son of Adeimantus: Hdt. 7.137