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Aristocracy

a form of governor any small privileged class, rules over ment by which the wealthy and noble, or any small privileged class, rules over the rest of the citizens; now mostly ap- plied to the nobility or chief persons in a state. a state. of Athens, whose name is rendered famous by a conspiracy (514 в. C.) formed in conjunction with his friend and Hipparchus, the sons of Pisistratus.

Harmodius against the tyrants Hippias Both Aristogeiton and Harmodius lost their lives through their attempts to free the country and were reckoned martyrs of liberty. birthworts. They of plants, the typical one of the order aristolochiaceæ, or have curiously inflated irregular flowers, in some cases of large size. One species, plant with pale yellow tubular flowers, swollen at the base, is common among old ruins. Most of the aristolochias are emmenagogue, especially the European species, A. rotunda, longa, and clematitis, and the Indian A. Indica; the last-named species is also antarthritic. A. bracteata is anthelmintic; when bruised and mixed with castor-oil, it is used in cases of ob- ARISTOLOCHIACEÆ stinate psora. A. odoratissima, of the West Indies, is alexipharmic. The A. fragrantissima, of Peru, is given in dysenteries, fevers, rheumatism, etc.; A. serpentaria (the Virginian snake root), besides being given in the worst forms of typhus fever, is deemed of use against snake-bite; as is also A. trilobata.

ARISTOLOCHIACEE (ar-is-to-lō-kea'sē-i), an order of plants placed by Lindley under his last or asaral alliance of perigynous exogens. It has hermaphrodite flowers, six to ten epigynous stamina, a three or six celled inferior ovary and wood without concentric zones. There are about 130 species. Many are climbing plants. In their qualities they are tonic and stimulating.

ARISTOPHANES (ar-is-tof'e-nēs), the greatest of the Greek writers of comedy (B. C. 448-385), born at Athens.

His comedy, "The Knights," is said to have been put on the stage when the author was but 20 years old. Of his 44 plays only 11 have come down to us. These are "The Knights," "The Clouds," "The Wasps," "The Acharnians," "The Peace," and "The Lyristrate," arguments for concord among Grecian states; "The Birds," a satire against the "Greater Athens" idea; "The Thesmophoriazusæ"; "The Frogs," directed against Euripides, as the cause of the degeneration of dramatic art; in "The Ecclesiazuse," or "Ladies of Parliament," he reduces to absurdity the overweening expectation of the righting of all wrongs through political reforms. Aristophanes first appeared as a poet in the fourth year of the Peloponnesian War (B. c. 427), and his sarcasms twice brought him to trial on charges of having unlawfully assumed the title of an Athenian citizen.

ARISTOTLE (ar'is-totl), the most renowned of Greek philosophers, born at Stagira, Macedonia, 384 B. C.; was for 20 years a student of philosophy in the school of Plato at Athens, but at the same time a teacher. After Plato's death, he opened a school of philosophy at the court of Hermias, King of Atarneus, in Mysia, whose adopted daughter he afterward married. At the invitation of Philip of Macedon, he undertook the education of his son, Alexander. When Alexander succeeded to the throne, the philosopher returned to Athens and opened a school in the Lyceum. From being held in the covered walk (peripatos) of the Lyceum, the school obtained the name of the Peripatetic. The number of his separate treatises is given by Diogenes Laertius as 146; only 46 ARISTOTELIANISM separate works bearing the name of the philosopher have come down to our time.

He died at Chalcis, Eubœa, in the year 322 в. c.

ARISTOTLE