12
LIFE OF ARATUS.
of his life, are numerous and upon various subjects: rhetorick, grammar, medicine, and poetry. He certainly merited the title given him by one of his scholiasts, σφόδρα πολυγράμματος ἄνηρ.
Aratus is said to have ended his life in Macedonia at the court of Antigonus: if so, his ashes were probably removed to his native country, as Pomponius Mela, who lived in the first century of the Christian æra, states that the tomb of the poet was to be seen in his time near to Pompeiopolis, the name to which Soli had been changed in honour of Pompey the Great[1]. There was a silver coin of Cilicia bearing the head of Aratus, and on the reverse a lyre, of which a specimen is still in existence[2].
- ↑ "Cydnus ultra per Tarsum exit. Deinde urbs est olim a Rhodiis, Argivisque, post Piratis Pompeio assignante possessa, nunc Pompeiopolis, tunc Soloe. Juxta in parvo tumulo Arati poetæ monumentum, ideo referendum, quia ignotum, quam ob causam jacta in id saxa desiliunt." [Pomp. Mela. Cap. 13.]
- ↑ Vid. Beger. Thesaur. Brandenburg, p. 265.
