The New International Encyclopædia/Aristides Ælius

ARISTIDES, ÆLius (129-189). A Greek, rhetorician, surnamed Theodorus. son of Eudemon, a priest of Zeus. He enjoyed the teaching of the most famous rhetoricians of his day, Aristocles in Pergamus and Herodes Atticus in Athens; in grammar and literature he was trained by Alexander of Cotyæum. whom he honored with a eulogy still extant. He traveled extensively in Egypt, Asia, Greece, and Italy, exhibiting his art as a speaker. While in Rome in 156 he was attacked by a severe illness, which troubled him seventeen years with slight interruptions; yet he seems to have continued his vocation in spite of it. He stood in such favor with the Emperor Marcus Aurelius that he secured the rebuilding of Smyrna at the imperial expense after its destruction by an earthquake in 178. Of his works, we have two rhetorical treatises and 55 speeches. Of these some are eulogies on deities and cities (e.g. Rome and Smyrna), others declamations like his Panathenaicus, modeled on Isocrates' oration with the same title. Interesting also are the six Sacred Speeches (ιεροἰλόγοι), which report the suggestions made by Æsculapius through his priests for the rhetorician's recovery. Edited by Dindorf (3 vols., Leipzig, 1829).