forming a philosophic friendship. The history of Hermeias was remarkable: he had been the slave of Eubulus, the former despot of Atarneus. As happens not uncommonly in the East, he had sprung from being slave to be vizier, and thence to be ruler himself. He governed beneficently; and, his mind not being devoid of philosophical impulses, he had come to Athens and attended the lectures of Plato. He now hospitably received the two emigrants from Plato’s school, and entertained them at his court for three years, during which time he bestowed the hand of Pythias, his niece, upon Aristotle in marriage. This may be conceived to have been a happy period of Aristotle’s life, but it was cut short by the death of his benefactor, who was treacherously kidnapped by a Greek officer in the service of the Persians, and put to death. Aristotle afterwards recorded his admiration for Hermeias, in a hymn or pæan which he wrote in his honour, and in which he likened him to Hercules and the Dioscuri, and other heroes of noble endurance. He also perhaps alludes to him in a well-known passage[1] in which he says that “a good man does not become a friend to one who is in a superior station to himself, unless that superiority of station be justified by superiority of merit.” If Aristotle had Hermeias, his own former friend, in his mind when he wrote this passage, he must have generously attributed to him moral qualities superior to his own.
On flying from Atarneus, as they were now obliged to do, Xenocrates returned to Athens, and Aristotle
- ↑ ‘Ethics,’ VIII. vi. 6.
