Aristarchus of Samothrace

“ ARISTARCHUS OF SAMOS. We are told that Aristarchus of Samos was a pupil of Strato of Lampsacus, a natural philosopher of originality, who succeeded Theophrastus as head of the Peripatetic school in 288 or 287 B.C., and held that position for eighteen years. ”

“ I intended to point out to you then 158the fact that in photograph No. 19 we see, for the first time, not only the ring of Aristarchus but its curious neighbor Herodotus. A light streak, which we observed in an earlier picture, seems to connect the two. It is better, however, to notice this now because in turning from No. 19 to No. 20 you will perceive once more a change in the appearance of Aristarchus and its neighborhood. In No. 20 Aristarchus is distinctly more conspicuous. ”

“ For a person to be introduced speaking thus of himself, is in truth unnatural and out of character." Would that the Doctor had been alive to be set at ease on this point by our explanations—but he is dead. They would have quieted his mind, too, about the celebrated speech of Aristarchus. "In Book IV.," he adds, "is such another breach of truth and decorum, in making Aristarchus (Bentley) abuse himself, and laugh at his own labours. ”

“ Now Samothrace, according to the map, appeared to be not only out of all seeing distance from the Troad, but to be entirely shut out from it by the intervening Imbros, which is a larger island, stretching its length right athwart the line of sight from Samothrace to Troy. ”

“ Samothrāce, or Samothrācia, an island in the Ægean sea, opposite the mouth of the Hebrus, on the coast of Thrace, from which it is distant about 32 miles. It was known by the ancient names of Leucosia, Melitis, Electria, Leucania, and Dardani. It was afterwards called Samos, and distinguished from the Samos which lies on the coast of Ionia by the epithet of Thracian, or by the name of Samothrace. It is about 38 miles in circumference, according to Pliny, or only 20 according to modern travellers. The origin of the first inhabitants of Samothrace is unknown. ”

“ Fortunate during life, he could, by virtue and the favor of Heaven, promise himself after death an eternal felicity.
The Priests of the Island of Samothrace promised favorable winds and prosperous voyages to those who were initiated. It was promised them that the CABIRI, and Castor and Pollux, the DIOSCURI, should appear to them when the storm raged, and give them calms and smooth seas: and the Scholiast of Aristophanes says that those initiated in the Mysteries there were just men, who were privileged to escape from great evils and tempests. ”

“ He, fearing for these reasons that they might lean to the Roman cause, took note of all [Pg 138] the men who had any ability as politicians or could dominate the populace and sent them one after another to Epirus to his son on various excuses; occasionally, however, he would quietly assassinate them instead. A certain Aristarchus, who was accounted one of the noblest of the Tarentini and was a most persuasive speaker, he made his boon companion to the end that this man should be suspected by the people of having the interests of Pyrrhus at heart. ”

“ But Aristarchus brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses, wherein it appears, as a consequence of the assumptions made, that the universe is many times greater than the ‘universe’ just mentioned. ”

“ We can thus tell a good deal about the condition of Homer in the second century B.C., and can hope to establish with few errors a text 'according to Aristarchus,' a text which would approximately satisfy the best literary authority at the best period of Greek criticism. But we must go much further, unless we are to be very unworthy followers of Aristarchus and indifferent to the cause of science in literature. ”

“ And altogether the poet has attributed devotion to such things to the Suitors, and to the Phæacians, but not to Nestor or to Menelaus. And Aristarchus did not perceive that in his marriage feast, after the entertainment had lasted some time, and the principal days of the revel were over, in which the bride had been taken to the house of the bridegroom, and the marriage of Megapenthes was completed, Menelaus and Helen were left to themselves and feasted together. ”

“ Now from the Trojan war to the birth of Homer, according to Philochorus, a hundred and eighty years elapsed; and he was posterior to the Ionic migration. But Aristarchus, in the Archilochian Memoirs, says that he lived during the Ionic migration, which took place a hundred and twenty years after the siege of Troy. But Apollodorus alleges it was an hundred and twenty years after the Ionic migration, while Agesilaus son of Doryssæus was king of the Lacedæmonians: so that he brings Lycurgus the legislator, while still a young man, near him. ”

“ They walked in a westerly direction, towards the marshy mouth of the great river, and when they were clear of the city walls, they slackened their pace. Already the air was cooler, for the evening was coming and the sun was now sliced across by the horizon. Olympus, in a delicate mist, burned milkily like an opal.
“Aristarchus,” said Paul a little absently, “{77}Lycastus has something to tell thee.”
But Lycastus, hanging his head, did not speak.
“Lycastus, what is it?” asked Aristarchus. “But I see how it is with thee. Thou art shy. Thou art in love and thou wishest to marry.” ”

“ He was chiefly known for his critical writings, in which his opinions of poetry were thought so just that few dared to disagree with them; and his name soon became proverbial for a critic. Aristarchus had also the good fortune to be listened to in his lecture-room by one whose name is far more known than those of his two royal pupils. Moschus of Syracuse, the pastoral poet, was one of his hearers; but his fame must not be claimed for Alexandria; he can hardly have learned from the critic that just taste by which he joined softness and sweetness to the rude plainness of the Doric muse. ”

“ I feel strangely excited to-day, and my work with Aristarchus would have led to no issue. It is a pity that we should have begun to talk of that barbarian rubbish; there are so many other subjects more pleasing and more cheering to the mind. Do you remember how we used to read the great tragedians and Plato together?”
“And how you would often interrupt our tutor Agatharchides in his lectures on geography, to point out some mistake! Did you prosecute those studies in Cyrene?” ”

“ Aristarchus appears to have deserved the primacy generally accorded to him by being more wisely conservative than Zenodotus, and less tempted to stick in the letter than the lesser Aristophanes; as well as by a general display, in his more literary remarks, of critical faculty greater than was possessed by either, and infinitely greater than that of the average scholiast. While the still earlier, and at least equally famous or notorious, name of Zoilus is of itself sufficient to show that the critic who is merely or mainly a snarler can at least boast that he is of an ancient house. ”

“ What a travesty of justice it would be if in the case of a man like Aristarchus, (11) who first tried to destroy the democracy and then betrayed Oenoe to our enemy the Thebans, you granted him a day for his defence, consulting his wishes, and conceded to him all the other benefits of the law; whereas now you are proposing to deprive of these same privileges your own generals, who in every way conformed to your views and defeated your enemies. Do not you, of all men, I implore you, men of Athens, act thus. ”

“ At dawn Aristarchus again summoned the generals and officers, but the latter resolved to have done with the visit to Aristarchus, and to summon a meeting of the army. In full conclave the soldiers met, with the exception of Neon's men, who remained about ten furlongs off. When they were met together Xenophon rose, and made the following announcement: "Men, Aristarchus with his ships of war hinders us from sailing where we fain would go; it is not even safe to set foot on board a vessel. ”

“ Many a caprice can be forgiven the suffering Ptolemy, who recently expressed a wish that he could change places with the common workmen whom he saw eating their meal with a good appetite, and who is now tortured by the gout; yet he watches the hapless woman with the jealousy of a tiger, though he himself is openly faithless to her. What is the Queen to him, since the widow of Lysimachus returned from Thrace—no, from Cassandrea, Ephesus, and sacred Samothrace, or whatever other places there are which would no longer tolerate the murderess? ”

“ Those verses which Aristarchus was convinced to be spurious he left out of his edition altogether. Aristarchus was in constant opposition to Crates of Mallus, the founder of the Pergamene school of grammar. This Crates had the merit of trans- planting the study of literature to Rome. With regard to Homer, he zealously defended the alle- gorical explication against his rival Aristarchus. ”

“ But this seems an over-refinement: both the shooting and the running go to constitute an accomplished huntress.
In respect to Parthenopæus, called by Euripidês and by so many others the son of Atalanta, it is of some importance to add, that Apollodôrus, Aristarchus, and Antimachus, the author of the Thebaid, assigned to him a pedigree entirely different,—making him an Argeian, the son of Talaos and Lysimachê, and brother of Adrastus. ”

“ The offense of Socrates consisted in unfolding to his disciples the arcane doctrine concerning the gods, which was taught in the Mysteries and was a capital crime. He also was charged by Aristophanes with introducing the new god Dinos into the republic as the demiurgos or artificer, and the lord of the solar universe. The Heliocentric system was also a doctrine of the Mysteries; and hence, when Aristarchus the Pythagorean taught it openly, Cleanthes declared that the Greeks ought to have called him to account and condemned him for blasphemy against the gods,”— (“Plutarch”) . ”

“ In Lemnos they fostered the vine and fruits of the field, and from their connexion with Hermes in Samothrace it would also seem that they promoted the fruitfulness of cattle.
By far the most important seat of their worship was Samothrace. Here, as early as the 5th century B.C., their mysteries, possibly under Athenian influence, attracted great attention, and initiation was looked upon as a general safeguard against all misfortune. But it was in the period after the death of Alexander the Great that their cult reached its height. ”

“ Theocritus (one must quote the whole of this, and waive the discussion of it) “is admirable in his peculiar style, but his rustic and pastoral muse shrinks not only from appearing in the forum, but even from approaching the city.” And then Pisander, Nicander, Euphorion, Tyrtæus, Callimachus, Philetas are slid over rapidly, while, though Aristarchus had sanctioned three iambographi, Simonides and Hipponax are passed in silence, Archilochus only receiving very high praise for vigour and all similar qualities. ”

“ Strong justly points to the motive as an ultimate evolution from that of the Nike of Samothrace, wherein the weight of the body seems partly supported by the foot and partly by the spread wings, which serve as a counterpoise to the structure. It is quite in consonance with Hellenistic sentiment that the love-god should be shown as the victor in the sacred torch race, the Lampadephoria —Eros the unconquerable, the ἀνίκατος μάχαν, invades the palaestra and beats the athlete at his own game. ”

“ But this orator was exceedingly addicted to amorous indulgences, as Idomeneus tells us. Accordingly, being in love with a youth named Aristarchus, he once, when he was intoxicated, insulted Nicodemus on his account, and struck out his eyes. He is related also to have been very extravagant in his table, and his followers, and in women. Therefore, his secretary once said, "But what can any one say of Demosthenes? For everything that he has thought of for a whole year, is all thrown into confusion by one woman in one night." ”

“ But Aristarchus not only interpolated lines which had no business there into the banquet of Menelaus, and by so doing made Homer make representations inconsistent with the system of the Lacedæmonians, and with the moderation of their king, but he also took away the singer from the Cretan chorus, mutilating his song in the following manner:—
The gazing multitudes admire around
Two active tumblers in the centre bound ”

“ In later times the story of a Phoenician immigrant of that name became current, to whom was ascribed the introduction of the alphabet, the invention of agriculture and working in bronze and of civilization generally. But the name itself is Greek rather than Phoenician; and the fact that Hermes was worshipped in Samothrace under the name of Cadmus or Cadmilus seems to show that the Theban Cadmus was originally an ancestral Theban hero corresponding to the Samothracian. The name may mean "order," and be used to characterize one who introduces order and civilization. ”

“ For on his departure, Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a philosopher, being at that time general in Samos, despising either the small number of ships that were left or the inexperience of the commanders, prevailed with the citizens to attack the Athenians. And the Samians having won the battle and taken several of the men prisoners, and disabled several of the ships, were masters of the sea, and brought into port all necessities they wanted for the war, which they had not before. Aristotle says, too, that Pericles himself had been once before this worsted by the Milissus in a sea-fight. ”