Aretæus, a physician of Cappadocia, very inquisitive after the operations of nature. His treatise on agues has been much admired. The best edition of his works which are extant, is that of Boerhaave, Leiden, folio, 1735.
Aretaphĭla, the wife of Melanippus, a priest of Cyrene. Nicocrates murdered her husband to marry her. She, however, was so attached to Melanippus, that she endeavoured to poison Nicocrates, and at last caused him to be assassinated by his brother Lysander, whom she married. Lysander proved as cruel as his brother, upon which Aretaphila ordered him to be thrown into the sea. After this she retired to a private station. Plutarch, de Mulierum Virtutes.—Polyænus, bk. 8, ch. 38.
Aretāles, a Cnidian, who wrote a history of Macedonia, besides a treatise on islands. Plutarch.
Arēte. See: [Areta].
Arētes, one of Alexander’s officers. Curtius, bk. 4, ch. 15.
Arethūsa, a nymph of Elis, daughter of Oceanus, and one of Diana’s attendants. As she returned one day from hunting, she sat near the Alpheus, and bathed in the stream. The god of the river was enamoured of her, and he pursued her over the mountains and all the country, when Arethusa, ready to sink under fatigue, implored Diana, who changed her into a fountain. The Alpheus immediately mingled his streams with hers, and Diana opened a secret passage under the earth and under the sea, where the waters of Arethusa disappeared, and rose in the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse in Sicily. The river Alpheus followed her also under the sea, and rose also in Ortygia; so that, as mythologists relate, whatever is thrown into the Alpheus in Elis, rises again, after some time, in the fountain Arethusa near Syracuse. See: [Alpheus]. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 5, fable 10.—Athenæus, bk. 7.—Pausanias.——One of the Hesperides. Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 5.——A daughter of Herileus, mother of Abas by Neptune. Hyginus, fable 157.——One of Actæon’s dogs. Hyginus, fable 181.——A lake of Upper Armenia, near the fountains of the Tigris. Nothing can sink under its waters. Pliny, bk. 2, ch. 103.——A town of Thrace.——Another in Syria.
Aretīnum, a Roman colony in Etruria. Silius Italicus, bk. 5, li. 123.
Arētus, a son of Nestor and Anaxibia. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 3, li. 413.——A Trojan against the Greeks. He was killed by Automedon. Homer, Iliad, bk. 17, li. 494.——A famous warrior, whose only weapon was an iron club. He was treacherously killed by Lycurgus king of Arcadia. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 11.
Areus, a king of Sparta, preferred in the succession to Cleonymus, brother of Acrotatus, who had made an alliance with Pyrrhus. He assisted Athens when Antigonus besieged it, and died at Corinth. Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 6.—Plutarch.——A king of Sparta, who succeeded his father Acrotatus II., and was succeeded by his son Leonidas, son of Cleonymus.——A philosopher of Alexandria, intimate with Augustus. Suetonius.——A poet of Laconia.——An orator mentioned by Quintilian.
Argæus and Argēus, a son of Apollo and Cyrene. Justin, bk. 13, ch. 7.——A son of Perdiccas, who succeeded his father in the kingdom of Macedonia. Justin, bk. 7, ch. 1.——A mountain of Cappadocia, covered with perpetual snows, at the bottom of which is the capital of the country called Maxara. Claudian.——A son of Ptolemy, killed by his brother. Pausanias, bk. 1.——A son of Licymnius. Apollodorus, bk. 2.