ARISTAENETUS, Greek epistolographer, flourished in the 5th or 6th century A.D. He was formerly identified with Aristaenetus of Nicaea (the friend of Symmachus), who perished in an earthquake at Nicomedia, A.D. 358, but internal evidence points to a much later date. Under his name two books of love stories, in the form of letters, are extant; the subjects are borrowed from the erotic elegies of such Alexandrian writers as Callimachus, and the language is a patchwork of phrases from Plato, Lucian, Alciphron and others. The stories are feeble and insipid, and full of strange and improbable incidents.
Text: Boissonade (1822); Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci (1873). English translations: Boyer (1701); Thomas Brown (1715); R.B. Sheridan and Halked (1771 and later).
ARISTAEUS, a divinity whose worship was widely spread throughout ancient Greece, but concerning whom the myths are somewhat obscure. The account most generally received connects him specially with Thessaly. Apollo carried off from Mount Pelion the nymph Cyrene, daughter or granddaughter of the river-god Peneus, and conveyed her to Libya, where she gave birth to Aristaeus. From this circumstance the town of Cyrene took its name. The child was at first handed over to the care of the Hours, or the nymph Melissa and the centaur Cheiron. He afterwards left Libya and went to Thebes, where he received instruction from the Muses in the arts of healing and prophecy, and married Autonoe, daughter of Cadmus, by whom he had several children, among others, the unfortunate Actaeon. He is said to have visited Ceos, where, by erecting a temple to Zeus Icmaeus (the giver of moisture), he freed the inhabitants from a terrible drought. The islanders worshipped him, and occasionally identified him with Zeus, calling him Zeus Aristaeus. After travelling through many of the Aegean islands, through Sicily, Sardinia and Magna Graecia, everywhere conferring benefits and receiving divine honours, Aristaeus reached Thrace, where he was initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, and finally disappeared near Mount Haemus. While in Thrace he is said to have caused the death of Eurydice, who was bitten by a snake while fleeing from him. Aristaeus was essentially a benevolent deity; he was worshipped as the first who introduced the cultivation of bees (Virgil, Georg. iv. 315-558), and of the vine and olive; he was the protector of herdsmen and hunters; he warded off the evil effects of the dog-star; he possessed the arts of healing and prophecy. He was often identified with Zeus, Apollo and Dionysus. In ancient sculptures and coins he is represented as a young man, habited like a shepherd, and sometimes carrying a sheep on his shoulders. Coins of Ceos exhibit the head of Aristaeus and Sirius in the form of a dog crowned with rays.
Pindar, Pythia, ix. 5-65; Apollonius Rhodius, schol. on ii. 498, 500; Diodorus, iv. 81.
ARISTAGORAS (d. 497 B.C.), brother-in-law and cousin of Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus. While Histiaeus was practically a prisoner at the court of Darius, he acted as regent in Miletus. In 500 B.C. he persuaded the Persians to join him in an attack upon Naxos, but he quarrelled with Megabates, the Persian commander, who warned the inhabitants of the island, and the expedition failed. Finding himself the object of Persian suspicion, Aristagoras, instigated by a message from Histiaeus, raised the standard of revolt in Miletus, though it seems likely that this step had been under consideration for some time (see [Ionia]). After the complete failure of the Ionian revolt he emigrated to Myrcinus in Thrace. Here he fell in battle (497), while attacking Ennea Hodoi (afterwards Amphipolis) on the Strymon, which belonged to the Edonians, a Thracian tribe. The aid given to him by Athens and Eretria, and the burning of Sardis, were the immediate cause of the invasion of Greece by Darius.
See Herodotus v. 30-51, 97-126; Thucydides iv. 102; Diodorus xii. 68; for a more favourable view see G.B. Grundy, Great Persian War (London, 1901).