Mr. Blakesley (Life of Aristotle, p. 36) and Oncken (Die Staatslehre des Aristoteles, p. 158) concur in thinking that the departure of Aristotle from Athens had nothing to do with the death of Plato, but was determined by the capture of Olynthus, and by the fear and dislike of Philip which that event engendered at Athens.
But the fact that Xenokrates left Athens along with Aristotle disproves this supposition, and proves that the death of Plato was the real cause.
[8] Diog. Laert. v. 7-8. Diodorus ascribes this proceeding to Mentor the Rhodian: Strabo, to his brother Memnon. I think Diodorus is right. A remarkable passage in the Magna Moralia (genuine or spurious) of Aristotle, seems to me to identify the proceeding with Mentor (Aristot. Magn. Mor. i. 35, p. 1197, b. 21; as also the spurious second book of the Å’konomica, p. 1351, a. 33).
[9] It was probably during this period that Aristotle introduced to Alexander his friend the rhetor Theodektês of Phasêlis. Alexander took delight in the society of Theodektês, and testified this feeling, when he conquered Phasêlis, by demonstrations of affection and respect towards the statue of the rhetor, who had died during the intervening years — ἀποδιδοὺς τιμὴν τῇ γενομένῃ δι’ Ἀριστοτέλην καὶ φιλοσοφίαν ὁμιλίᾳ πρὸς τὸν ἄνδρα (Plutarch, Alex. c. 17).
[10] It is to this period of Aristotle’s life that the passage extracted from his letters in Demetrius (so-called περὶ Ἑρμηνείας) refers. ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης φησίν — ἐγὼ ἐκ μὲν Ἀθηνῶν εἰς Στάγειρα ἦλθον διὰ τὸν βασιλέα τὸν μέγαν, ἐκ δὲ Σταγείρων εἰς Ἀθήνας διὰ τὸν χειμῶνα τὸν μέγαν — s. 29.
We shall hardly consider this double employment of the epithet μέγαν as an instance of that success in epistolary style, which Demetrius ascribes to Aristotle (s. 239); but the passage proves Aristotle’s visits both to Stageira and to Athens. The very cold winters of the Chalkidic peninsula were severely felt by the Greeks (Plato — Symposion, p. 220), and may well have served as motive to Aristotle for going from Stageira to Athens.
[11] Ammonius, Vit. Aristot. See the curious statements given by Dion Chrysostom, out of the epistles of Aristotle; Orat. ii. p. 100, xlvii. p. 225, Reiske.
Respecting the allusions made in these statements to various persons who were reluctant to return out of the separate villages into the restored city, compare what Xenophon says about the διοίκισις, and subsequent restitution, of Mantineia; Hellenica, v. 2, 1-8, vi. 5, 3-6.
[12] Plutarch, Alexander, c. 7. What Plutarch calls the Nymphæum, is considered by Stahr (Aristotelia, i. p. 93 n.) to be probably the same as what Pliny denominates the Museum at Stageira (N. H. xvi. c. 23); but Zeller (p. 23, n.), after Geier, holds that Mieza lay S.W. of Pella, in Emathia, far from Stageira. Plutarch seems to imply that Aristotle was established along with Alexander at Meiza by Philip.
Compare, for these facts of the biography of Aristotle, Stahr, Aristotelia, Part I., pp. 86-94, 103-106.