Life

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a wealthy native of Stagira, a Greek coastal city on the Chalcidice peninsula of Macedonia, not far from modern Thessaloniki. His father, who died in Aristotle's childhood, was physician to the Macedonian king. In 367 Aristotle was sent to Athens, at the age of seventeen, to complete his education at Plato's school, the Academy. Instead, he remained there until Plato's death in 347, studying, writing and lecturing over a wide range of philosophical subjects having roots in Plato's own work - the theory of rhetorical argument and persuasion, logical theory, ethics, and questions of metaphysics, among others. At Plato's death he, together with Xenocrates, another of the leading members of the school, left Athens for the north-western coast of Asia Minor, where the local ruler Hermias (whose daughter Aristotle married - later the mother of his two children) established them at the town of Assos. Aristotle continued his work there, and afterwards for a time at Mytilene on the nearby island of Lesbos, where he apparently first collaborated with the younger philosopher Theophrastus: it appears that his most important researches on sea animals date from this period. In 343 King Philip II of Macedon called him (accompanied by Theophrastus and others) to the royal court to become tutor to his son Alexander (‘the Great’).