This account is practically repeated by Diogenes Laertius in his _Life
of Aristotle_, on the authority of the _Chronicles_ of Apollodorus, who
lived in the 2nd century B.C. Starting then from this tradition, near
enough to the time, we can confidently divide Aristotle's career into
four periods: his youth under his parents till his eighteenth year; his
philosophical education under Plato at Athens till his thirty-eighth
year; his travels in the Greek world till his fiftieth year; and his
philosophical teaching in the Lyceum till his departure to Chalcis and
his death in his sixty-third year. But when we descend from generals to
particulars, we become less certain, and must here content ourselves
with few details.
Aristotle from the first profited by having a father who, being
physician to Amyntas II., king of Macedon, and one of the Asclepiads
who, according to Galen, practised their sons in dissection, both
prepared the way for his son's influence at the Macedonian court, and
gave him a bias to medicine and biology, which certainly led to his
belief in nature and natural science, and perhaps induced him to
practise medicine, as he did, according to his enemies, Timaeus and
Epicurus, when he first went to Athens. At Athens in his second period
for some twenty years he acquired the further advantage of balancing
natural science by metaphysics and morals in the course of reading
Plato's writings and of hearing Plato's unwritten dogmas (cf. [Greek: en
tois legomenois agraphois dogmasin], Ar. _Physics_, iv. 2, 209 b 15,
Berlin ed.). He was an earnest, appreciative, independent student. The
master is said to have called his pupil the intellect of the school and
his house a reader's. He is also said to have complained that his pupil
spurned him as colts do their mothers. Aristotle, however, always
revered Plato's memory (_Nic. Ethics_, i. 6), and even in criticizing
his master counted himself enough of a Platonist to cite Plato's
doctrines as what "we say" (cf. [Greek: phamen], _Metaphysics_, i. 9,
990 b 16). At the same time, he must have learnt much from other
contemporaries at Athens, especially from astronomers such as Eudoxus
and Callippus, and from orators such as Isocrates and Demosthenes. He
also attacked Isocrates, according to Cicero, and perhaps even set up a
rival school of rhetoric. At any rate he had pupils of his own, such as
Eudemus of Cyprus, Theodectes and Hermias, books of his own, especially
dialogues, and even to some extent his own philosophy, while he was
still a pupil of Plato.
Well grounded in his boyhood, and thoroughly educated in his manhood,
Aristotle, after Plato's death, had the further advantage of travel in
his third period, when he was in his prime. The appointment of Plato's
nephew, Speusippus, to succeed his uncle in the Academy induced
Aristotle and Xenocrates to leave Athens together and repair to the
court of Hermias. Aristotle admired Hermias, and married his friend's
sister or niece, Pythias, by whom he had his daughter Pythias. After the
tragic death of Hermias, he retired for a time to Mitylene, and in
343-342 was summoned to Macedon by Philip to teach Alexander, who was
then a boy of thirteen. According to Cicero (_De Oratore_, iii. 41),
Philip wished his son, then a boy of thirteen, to receive from Aristotle
"agendi praecepta et eloquendi." Aristotle is said to have written on
monarchy and on colonies for Alexander; and the pupil is said to have
slept with his master's edition of Homer under his pillow, and to have
respected him, until from hatred of Aristotle's tactless relative,
Callisthenes, who was done to death in 328, he turned at last against
Aristotle himself. Aristotle had power to teach, and Alexander to learn.
Still we must not exaggerate the result. Dionysius must have spoken too
strongly when he says that Aristotle was tutor of Alexander for eight
years; for in 340, when Philip went to war with Byzantium, Alexander
became regent at home, at the age of sixteen. From this date Aristotle
probably spent much time at his paternal house in his native city at
Stagira as a patriotic citizen. Philip had sacked it in 348: Aristotle
induced him or his son to restore it, made for it a new constitution,
and in return was celebrated in a festival after his death. All these
vicissitudes made him a man of the world, drew him out of the
philosophical circle at Athens, and gave him leisure to develop his
philosophy. Besides Alexander he had other pupils: Callisthenes,
Cassander, Marsyas, Phanias, and Theophrastus of Eresus, who is said to
have had land at Stagira. He also continued the writings begun in his
second period; and the Macedonian kings have the glory of having
assisted the Stagirite philosopher with the means of conducting his
researches in the _History of Animals_.
At last, in his fourth period, after the accession of Alexander,
Aristotle at fifty returned to Athens and became the head of his own
school in the Lyceum, a gymnasium near the temple of Apollo Lyceius in
the suburbs. The master and his scholars were called Peripatetics
([Greek: oi ek ton peripaton]), certainly from meeting, like other
philosophical schools, in a walk ([Greek: peripatos]), and perhaps also,
on the authority of Hermippus of Smyrna, from walking and talking there,
like Protagoras and his followers as described in Plato's _Protagoras_
(314 E, 315 C). Indeed, according to Ammonius, Plato too had talked as
he walked in the Academy; and all his followers were called
Peripatetics, until, while the pupils of Xenocrates took the name
"Academics," those of Aristotle retained the general name. Aristotle
also formed his Peripatetic school into a kind of college with common
meals under a president ([Greek: archon]) changing every ten days; while
the philosopher himself delivered lectures, in which his practice, as
his pupil Aristoxenus tells us (_Harmonics_ ii, _init_.), was, avoiding
the generalities of Plato, to prepare his audience by explaining the
subject of investigation and its nature. But Aristotle was an author as
well as a lecturer; for the hypothesis that the Aristotelian writings
are notes of his lectures taken down by his pupils is contradicted by
the tradition of their learning while walking, and disproved by the
impossibility of taking down such complicated discourses from dictation.
Moreover, it is clear that Aristotle addressed himself to readers as
well as hearers, as in concluding his whole theory of syllogisms he
says, "There would remain for all of you or for our hearers ([Greek:
panton umon ae ton aekroamenon]) a duty of according to the defects of
the investigation consideration, to its discoveries much gratitude"
(_Sophisticai Elenchi_, 34,184 b 6). In short, Aristotle was at once a
student, a reader, a lecturer, a writer and a book collector. He was,
says Strabo (608), the first we knew who collected books and taught the
kings in Egypt the arrangement of a library. In his library no doubt
were books of others, but also his own. There we must figure to
ourselves the philosopher, constantly referring to his autograph rolls;
entering references and cross-references; correcting, rewriting,
collecting and arranging them according to their subjects; showing as
well as reading them to his pupils; with little thought of publication,
but with his whole soul concentrated on being and truth.
On his first visit to Athens, during which occurred the fatal battle of
Mantineia (362 B.C.), Aristotle had seen the confusion of Greece
becoming the opportunity of Macedon under Philip; and on his second
visit he was supported at Athens by the complete domination of Macedon
under Alexander. Having witnessed the unjust exactions of a democracy at
Athens, the dwindling population of an oligarchy at Sparta, and the
oppressive selfishness of new tyrannies throughout the Greek world, he
condemned the actual constitutions of the Greek states as deviations
([Greek: parekbaseis]) directed merely to the good of the government;
and he contemplated a right constitution ([Greek: orthae politeia]),
which might be either a commonwealth, an aristocracy or a monarchy,
directed to the general good; but he preferred the monarchy of one man,
pre-eminent in virtue above the rest, as the best of all governments
(_Nicomachean Ethics_, viii. 10; _Politics_, [Gamma] 14-18). Moreover,
by adding (_Politics_, [Eta] 7, 1327 b 29-33) that the Greek race could
govern the world by obtaining one constitution ([Greek: mias tonchanon
politeias]), he indicated some leaning to a universal monarchy under
such a king as Alexander. On the whole, however, he adhered to the Greek
city-state ([Greek: polis]), partly perhaps out of patriotism to his own
Stagira. Averse at all events to the Athenian democracy, leaning towards
Macedonian monarchy, and resting on Macedonian power, he maintained
himself in his school at Athens, so long as he was supported by the
friendship of Antipater, the Macedonian regent in Alexander's absence.
But on Alexander's sudden death in 323, when Athens in the Lamian war
tried to reassert her freedom against Antipater, Aristotle found himself
in danger. He was accused of impiety on the absurd charge of deifying
the tyrant Hermias; and, remembering the fate of Socrates, he retired to
Chalcis in Euboea. There, away from his school, in 322 he died. (A tomb
has been found in our time inscribed with the name of Biote, daughter of
Aristotle. But is this _our_ Aristotle?)
Such is our scanty knowledge of Aristotle's life, which seems to have
been prosperous by inheritance and position, and happy by work and
philosophy. His will, which was quoted by Hermippus, and, as afterwards
quoted by Diogenes Laertius, has come down to us, though perhaps not
complete, supplies some further details, as follows:--Antipater is to be
executor with others. Nicanor is to marry Pythias, Aristotle's daughter,
and to take charge of Nicomachus his son. Theophrastus is to be one of
the executors if he will and can, and if Nicanor should die to act
instead, if he will, in reference to Pythias. The executors and Nicanor
are to take charge of Herpyllis, "because," in the words of the
testator, "she has been good to me," and to allow her to reside either
in the lodging by the garden at Chalcis or in the paternal house at
Stagira. They are to provide for the slaves, who in some cases are to be
freed. They are to see after the dedication of four images by Gryllion
of Nicanor, Proxenus, Nicanor's mother and Arimnestus. They are to
dedicate an image of Aristotle's mother, and to see that the bones of
his wife Pythias are, as she ordered, taken up and buried with him. On
this will we may remark that Proxenus is said to have been Aristotle's
guardian after the death of his father, and to have been the father of
Nicanor; that Herpyllis of Stagira was the mother of Nicomachus by
Aristotle; and that Arimnestus was the brother of Aristotle, who also
had a sister, Arimneste. Every clause breathes the philosopher's
humanity.