ARISTOXENUS (᾿Αριστόξενος), a philosopher of the Peripatetic school. The date of his birth is not known; but from the account of Suidas, and from incidental notices in other writers, we learn that he was born at Tarentum, and was the son of a learned musician named Spintharus (otherwise Mnesias). (Aelian, H. A. ii. 11.) He learnt music from his father, and having been afterwards instruct­ed by Lamprus of Erythrae and Xenophilus the Pythagorean, finally became a disciple of Aristotle (Gell. iv. 11; Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 18), whom he appears to have rivalled in the variety of his studies, though probably not in the success with which he prosecuted them. According to Suidas, he produced works to the number of 453 upon music, philosophy, history, in short, every department of literature. He gained so much credit as a scholar of Aristotle, that it was expected, at least by himself, that he would be chosen to succeed him; and his disgust at the appointment of Theophrastus caused him afterwards to slander the character of his great master. This story is, however, contradicted by Aristocles (ap. Euseb.Praep. Evang. xv. 2), who asserts that he never mentioned Aristotle but with the greatest respect. We know nothing of his philo­sophical opinions, except that he held the soul to be a harmony of the body (Cic. Tusc.Disp. i. 10,18; Lact. Instit. vii. 13, de Opif. Dei, c. 16), a doctrine which had been already discussed by Plato (in the Phaedo) and combated by Aristotle. (De An. i. 4.) It is only in his character as a musician that Aristoxenus appears to have deserved and acquired a reputation for real excellence; and no consider­able remains of his works have come down to us except three books of ἁρμονικὰ στοιχεῖα, or rather, as their contents seem to shew, fragments of two or three separate musical treatises. (See Burney, Hist. of Music., vol. i. p. 442.) They contain less actual information on the theory of Greek music than the later treatises ascribed to Euclid, Aristeides Quintilianus, and others; but they are interesting from their antiquity, and valuable for their criticisms on the music of the times to which they belong. Aristoxenus, at least if we may trust his own ac­count, was the first to attempt a complete and sys­tematic exposition of the subject; and he aimed at introducing not only a more scientific knowledge, but also a more refined and intellectual taste than that which prevailed among his contemporaries, whom he accuses of cultivating only that kind of music which was capable of sweetness. (Aristox. p. 23, ed. Meibom.) He became the founder of a sect or school of musicians, called, after him, Aristoxeneans, who were opposed to the Pytha­goreans on the question whether reason or sense should furnish the principles of musical science and the criterion of the truth of its proposi­tions. Pythagoras had discovered the connexion between musical intervals and numerical ratios; and it had been found that the principal concords were denned by simple ratios which were either 
superpariicular (of the form n +1/n or multiple (of the form n/1 From this facts he or his followers inferred, that no interval could be consonant which was denned by a ratio of a different kind; and hence they were obliged to maintain (contrary to the evidence of the senses), that such intervals as the octave and fourth (the eleventh), for example, were dissonant. Aristoxenus justly blamed them for their contempt of facts, but went into the opposite extreme of allowing too much authority to the decisions of the ear, though without denying the existence of a certain truth in the arithmetical theory (p. 33). He maintains, for instance, not only that every consonant interval added to the octave produces another consonance, which is true ; but also that the fourth is equal to two tones and a half (p. 56), the falsity of which proposition is not directly apparent to the ear, but indirectly would become evident by means of the very experiment which he suggests for the confirmation of it. (See Porphyr. Comm. in Ptot. Harm, in Wallis, Op. vol. iii. p. 211, and Wallis's appendix, pp. 159,169 ; Burney, vol. i chap, v.; Theon Smyrn. p. 83, ed. Bulliald. and not. p. 202.) The titles of a good many other works of Aristoxenus have been collected from various sources by Meursius and others. (See Fabric. Bibl. Graec, vol. ii. p. 257 ; Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. appendix, c. 12.) Among them are lives of Pythagoras, Arcliytas, Socrates, Plato, and other distinguished persons; and several treatises on subjects connected with music, including one Περὶ Τραγικῆς ᾿Ορχήσεως, and one Περὶ Αὐλῶν Τρήσεως. A fragment of ῾Ρυθμικὰ στοιχεῖα was edited by Morelli, Ven. 1785. A collection of fragments of the other works is given in the essay by Mahne referred to below.   
The three books of  ῾Αρμονικὰ στοιχεῖα were first edited in Latin, with the Harmonics of Ptolemy, by Ant. Gogavinus, Ven. 1562. The Greek text, with Alypius and Nicomachus, by Meursius (Lugd. Bat. 1616), who, like his predecessor, seems not to have had sufficient musical knowledge for the task. The last and best edition is at present that of Meibomius, printed (with a Latin version) in the Antiquae Musicae Auctores Septem, Amst. 1652.
(Mahne, Diatribe de Aristoxeno philosoplio Peripatetico, Amst. 1793.) [W. F. D.] (CHAPITRE2)

HERODICUS (῾Ηρόδικος ὁ Κρατήτειος). Of Babylon, whose epigram, attacking the grammarians of the school of Aristarchus, is quoted by Athenaeus (v. p. 222), and is included in the Greek Anthology. (Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 65; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. ii. p. 64.) From the subject of this epigram it may be safely inferred that this Herodicus of Babylon was the same person as the grammarian Herodicus, whom Athenaeus (v. 219 c.) calls the Crateteian (ὁ Κρατήτειος), and who is quoted by the Scholiast on Homer (Il. xiii. 29, xx. 53) as differing from Aristarchus. (Comp. Athen. v. p. 192. b.) His time cannot be certainly fixed, but in all probability he was one of the immediate successors of Crates of Mallus, and one of the chief supporters of the critical school of Crates against the followers of Aristarchus. He wrote a work on comedy, entitled Κωμῳδούμενα, after the example of the Τραγῳδούμενα of Asclepiades Tragilensis. (Athen. xiii. p. 586, a. p. 591, c.; Harpocrat. s. v. Σινώπη ; Schol. in Aristoph. Vesp. 1231, where the common reading ῾Αρμόδιος should be changed to ῾Ηρόδικος .) Athenaeus (viii. p. 340, e.) also refers to his σύμμικτα ὑπομνήματα, and in another passage (v. p. 215, f.) to his books Πρὸς τὸν Φιλοσκωκράτην. (lonsius, de Script. Hist. Phil. ii. 13; Wolf, Proleg. p. cclxxvii. not. 65 ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. p. 515 ; Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 13, 14 ; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. xiii. p. 903; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. pp. 182,183, ed. Westermann.) [P. S.] (CHAPITRE 50)  

PTOLEMEE EVERGETE (PRENDRE AILLEURS SA VIE) pour ce qu'en dit Athénée je crois que la suite nous interesse pour le chapitre 

The character of Ptolemy Physcon has sufficiently appeared from the foregoing narrative. But stained as he was at once by the most infamous and degrading vices, and by the most sanguinary and unsparing cruelty, he still retained in a great degree that love of letters which appears to have been hereditary in the whole race of the Ptolemies. He had in his youth been a pupil of Aristarchus, and not only courted the society of learned men, but was himself the author of a work called ῾Υπομνήματα, or memoirs, which extended to twenty-four books. It is repeatedly cited by Athenaeus (ii. p. 43, e., 71, b., ix. p. 387, x. p. 438, xiv. p. 654, &c.), but the quotations refer to minute and miscellaneous points from which it is impossible to judge of the general character of the work. It would seem, however, to have been a sort of general natural history, rather than an historical narration of events. But even in his patronage of literature Ptolemy displayed his capricious and tyrannical character: and during the first years of his sole reign his cruelties appear to have produced a gene­ral consternation among the philosophers and men of letters at Alexandria, many of whom fled from Egypt, and took refuge in other countries, where they opened schools, and thus introduced the learning and science of Alexandria (Athen. iv. p. 184). Ptolemy endeavoured in the later years of his reign to repair the mischief he had thus caused, and again draw together an extensive literary society in his capital. To him also is ascribed, with some probability, the prohibition of the export of papyrus, a measure which was dictated by jealousy of the growing literary riches of the kings of Per-gamus, and led, as is well known, to the invention of parchment (Plin. H.N. xiii. 11 (21)). Some writers, however, refer this statement to Euergetes I. (See Parthey, Das Alex. Museum, p. 48.) (CHAPITRE 37)

SOSICRATES (Σωσικράτης). Of Rhodes, an historical writer, who is quoted by Diogenes Laërtius (ii. 84) as an authority for the statement, that Aristippus wrote nothing. It is therefore inferred, with much probability, that he is the same as the Sosicrates whose work upon the Succession of the Philosophers is quoted by Athenaeus (iv. p. 163, Σωσικράτης ἐν τρίτῳ φιλοσόφψν διαδοχῆς). He also wrote a work on the history of Crete, Κρητικά, which is frequently quoted. (Strab. x. p. 474 ; Ath. vi. p. 261, e, et alib.) He flourished after Hermippus and before Apollodorus, and therefore between b. c. 200 and B. c. 128. (Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 565.)
There appear to have been other writers of the name ; such as Sosicrates Phanagorites, whose ᾿Ηοῖοι is quoted by Athenaeus (xiii. p. 590, b.) ; and a certain Sosicrates quoted by Fulgentius Planciades (s. v. Nefrendes). The passage of a Sosicrates of Cysicus, cited by Fulgentius (Myth. ii. 13), is evidently copied from a quotation made by Diogenes Laertius from the Succession of Philosophers. The name is sometimes confounded with Socrates. (Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 500, ed. Westermann ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 873, vol. vi. p. 138.) [P. S.] (CHAPITRE 12)