[1] The dates in the text, as given by Jebb, are retained. According
to R.G. Kent, _Classical Review_ (April 1905, April 1906),
Aristophanes was born in 465, and died in 375 B.C.
[2] Or "fourty-four" (reading [Greek: mt'] for [Greek: nd'] in
Suidas).
[3] See E. Curtius, _Hist. of Greece_, iii (Eng. trans. p. 275).
[4] The date is uncertain; others give 392 and 389.
ARISTOPHANES, of Byzantium, Greek critic and grammarian, was born about
257 B.C. He removed early to Alexandria, where he studied under
Zenodotus and Callimachus. At the age of sixty he was appointed chief
librarian of the museum. He died about 185-180 B.C. Aristophanes chiefly
devoted himself to the poets, especially Homer, who had already been
edited by his master Zenodotus. He also edited Hesiod, the chief lyric,
tragic and comic poets, arranged Plato's dialogues in trilogies, and
abridged Aristotle's _Nature of Animals_. His arguments to the plays of
Aristophanes and the tragedians are in great part preserved. His works
on Athenian courtesans, masks and proverbs were the results of his study
of Attic comedy. He further commented on the [Greek: Pinakes] of
Callimachus, a sort of history of Greek literature. As a lexicographer,
Aristophanes compiled collections of foreign and unusual words and
expressions, and special lists (words denoting relationship, modes of
address). As a grammarian, he founded a scientific school, and in his
_Analogy_ systematically explained the various forms. He introduced
critical signs--except the obelus; punctuation prosodiacal, and
accentual marks were probably already in use. The foundation of the
so-called Alexandrian "canon" was also due to his impulse (_Sandys,
Hist. Class. Schol_., ed. 1906, i. 129 f.).
Nauck, _Aristophanis Byzantii Grammatici Fragmenta_ (1848).
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.), the great Greek philosopher, was born at
Stagira, on the Strymonic Gulf, and hence called "the Stagirite."
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in his _Epistle on Demosthenes and
Aristotle_ (chap. 5), gives the following sketch of his life:--Aristotle
([Greek: Aristotelaes]) was the son of Nicomachus, who traced back his
descent and his art to Machaon, son of Aesculapius; his mother being
Phaestis, a descendant of one of those who carried the colony from
Chalcis to Stagira. He was born in the 99th Olympiad in the archonship
at Athens of Diotrephes (384-383), three years before Demosthenes. In
the archonship of Polyzelus (367-366), after the death of his father, in
his eighteenth year, he came to Athens, and having joined Plato spent
twenty years with him. On the death of Plato (May 347) in the archonship
of Theophilus (348-347) he departed to Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus, and,
after three years' stay, during the archonship of Eubulus (345-344) he
moved to Mitylene, whence he went to Philip of Macedon in the archonship
of Pythodotus (343-342), and spent eight years with him as tutor of
Alexander. After the death of Philip (336), in the archonship of
Euaenetus (335-334), he returned to Athens and kept a school in the
Lyceum for twelve years. In the thirteenth, after the death of Alexander
(June 323) in the archonship of Cephisodorus (323-322), having departed
to Chalcis, he died of disease (322), after a life of three-and-sixty
years.