ARISTOBULUS

aristobulus, of paneas (c. 160 b.c.), a jewish philosopher of the peripatetic school. gercke places him in the time of ptolemy x. philometor (end of 2nd century), anatolius in that of ptolemy ii. philadelphus, but the middle of the 2nd century is more probable. he was among the earliest of the jewish-alexandrian philosophers whose aim was to reconcile and identify greek philosophical conceptions with the jewish religion. only a few fragments of his work, apparently entitled _commentaries on the writings of moses_, are quoted by clement, eusebius and other theological writers, but they suffice to show its object. he endeavoured to prove that early greek philosophers had borrowed largely from certain parts of scripture, and quoted from linus, orpheus, musaeus and others, passages which strongly resemble the mosaic writings. these passages, however, were obvious forgeries. it is suggested that the name aristobulus was taken from 2 macc. i. 10. the hypothesis (schlatter, _das neugefundene hebraische stuck des sirach_) that it was from aristobulus that the philosophy of _ecclesiasticus_ was derived is not generally accepted. see e. schurer, _history of the jewish people_ (eng. trans., 1890-1891), ii. 237 seq.; article alexandrian school: _philosophy_; and _s.v._ "aristobulus" in _jewish encyclopedia_ (paul wendland). aristocracy (gr. [greek: aristos], best; [greek: aristos], government), etymologically, the "rule of the best," a form of government variously defined and appreciated at different times and by different authorities. in greek political philosophy, aristocracy is the government of those who most nearly attain to the ideal of human perfection. thus plato in the _republic_ advocates the rule of the "philosopher-king" who, in the social scheme, is analogous to reason in the intellectual, and alone is qualified to control the active principles, i.e. the fighting population and the artisans or workers. aristocracy is thus the government by those who are superior both morally and intellectually, and, therefore, govern directly in the interests of the governed, as a good doctor works for the good of his patient. aristotle classified good governments under three heads--monarchy, aristocracy and commonwealth [greek: politeia], to which he opposed the three perverted forms--tyranny or absolutism, oligarchy and democracy or mob-rule. the distinction between aristocracy and oligarchy, which are both necessarily the rule of the few, is that whereas the few [greek: aristoi] will govern unselfishly, the oligarchs, being the few wealthy ("plutocracy" in modern terminology), will allow their personal interests to predominate. while plato's aristocracy might be the rule of the wise and benevolent despot, aristotle's is necessarily the rule of the few. historically aristocracy develops from primitive monarchy by the gradual progressive limitation of the regal authority. this process is effected primarily by the nobles who have hitherto formed the council of the king (an excellent example will be found in athenian politics, see archon), whose triple prerogative--religious, military and judicial--is vested, e.g., in a magistracy of three. these are either members of the royal house or the heads of noble families, and are elected for life or periodically by their peers, i.e. by the old royal council (cf. the areopagus at athens, the senate at rome), now the sovereign power. in practice this council depends primarily on a birth qualification, and thus has always been more or less inferior to the aristotelian ideal; it is, by definition, an "oligarchy" of birth, and is recruited from the noble families, generally by the addition of emeritus magistrates. from the earliest times, therefore, the word "aristocracy" became practically synonymous with "oligarchy," and as such it is now generally used in opposition to democracy (which similarly took the place of aristotle's [greek: politeia]), in which the ultimate sovereignty resides in the whole citizen body. the aristocracy of which we know most in ancient greece was that of athens prior to the reforms of cleisthenes, but all the greek city-states passed through a period of aristocratic or oligarchic government. rome, between the regal and the imperial periods, was always more or less under the aristocratic government of the senate, in spite of the gradual growth of democratic institutions (the lat. _optimates_ is the equivalent of [greek: aristoi]). there is, however, one feature which distinguishes these aristocracies from those of modern states, namely, that they were all slave-owning. the original relation of the slave-population, which in many cases outnumbered the free citizens, cannot always be discovered. but in some cases we know that the slaves were the original inhabitants who had been overcome by an influx of racially different invaders (cf. sparta with its helots); in others they were captives taken in war. hence even the most democratic states of antiquity were so far aristocratic that the larger proportion of the inhabitants had no voice in the government. in the second place this relation gave rise to a philosophic doctrine, held even by aristotle, that there were peoples who were inferior by nature and adapted to submission ([greek: phusei douloi]); such people had no "virtue" in the technical civic sense, and were properly occupied in performing the menial functions of society, under the control of the [greek: aristoi]. thus, combined with the criteria of descent, civic status and the ownership of the land, there was the further idea of intellectual and social superiority. these qualifications were naturally, in course of time, shared by an increasingly large number of the lower class who broke down the barriers of wealth and education. from this stage the transition is easy to the aristocracy of wealth, such as we find at carthage and later at venice, in periods when the importance of commerce was paramount and mercantile pursuits had cast off the stigma of inferiority (in gr. [greek: banausia]). it is important at this stage to distinguish between aristocracy and the feudal governments of medieval europe. in these it is true that certain power was exercised by a small number of families, at the expense of the majority. but under this system each noble governed in a particular area and within strict limitations imposed by his sovereign; no sovereign authority was vested in the nobles collectively. under the conditions of the present day the distinction of aristocracy, democracy and monarchy cannot be rigidly maintained from a purely governmental point of view. in no case does the sovereign power in a state reside any longer in an aristocracy, and the word has acquired a social rather than a political sense as practically equivalent to "nobility," though the distinction is sometimes drawn between the "aristocracy of birth" and the "aristocracy of wealth." modern history, however, furnishes many examples of government in the hands of an aristocracy. such were the aristocratic republics of venice, genoa and the dutch netherlands, and those of the free imperial cities in germany. such, too, in practice though not in theory, was the government of great britain from the revolution of 1689 to the reform bill of 1832. the french nobles of the _ancien regime_, denounced as "aristocrats" by the revolutionists, had no share as such in government, but enjoyed exceptional privileges (e.g. exemption from taxation). this privileged position is still enjoyed by the heads of the german mediatized families of the "high nobility." in great britain, on the other hand, though the aristocratic principle is still represented in the constitution by the house of lords, the "aristocracy" generally, apart from the peers, has no special privileges. aristodemus (8th century b.c.), semi-legendary ruler of messenia in the time of the first messenian war. tradition relates that, after some six years' fighting, the messenians were forced to retire to the fortified summit of ithome. the delphic oracle bade them sacrifice a virgin of the house of aepytus. aristodemus offered his own daughter, and when her lover, hoping to save her life, declared that she was no longer a maiden, he slew her with his own hand to prove the assertion false. in the thirteenth year of the war, euphaes, the messenian king, died. as he left no children, popular election was resorted to, and aristodemus was chosen as his successor, though the national soothsayers objected to him as the murderer of his daughter. as a ruler he was mild and conciliatory. he was victorious in the pitched battle fought at the foot of ithome in the fifth year of his reign, a battle in which the messenians, reinforced by the entire arcadian levy and picked contingents from argos and sicyon, defeated the combined spartan and corinthian forces. shortly afterwards, however, led by unfavourable omens to despair of final success, he killed himself on his daughter's tomb. though little is known of his life and the chronology is uncertain, yet aristodemus may fairly be regarded as a historical character. his reign is dated 731-724 b.c. by pausanias, and this may be taken as approximately correct, though duncker (_history of greece_, eng. trans., ii. p. 69) inclines to place it eight years later. pausanias iv. 9-13 is practically our only authority. he followed as his chief source the prose history of myron of priene, an untrustworthy writer, probably of the 2nd century b.c.; hence a good deal of his story must be regarded as fanciful, though we cannot distinguish accurately between the true and the fictitious. (m. n. t.) aristolochia (gr. [greek: aristos], best, [greek: locheia], child-birth, in allusion to its repute in promoting child-birth), a genus of shrubs or herbs of the natural order aristolochiaceae, often with climbing stems, found chiefly in the tropics. the flower forms a tube inflated at the base. _a. clematitis_, birthwort, is a central and southern european species, found sometimes in england apparently wild on ruins and similar places, but not a native. _a. sipho_, dutchman's pipe, or pipe vine, is a climber, native in the woods of the atlantic united states, and grown in europe as a garden plant. the flower is bent like a pipe. a member of the same order is the _asarabacca_ (_asarum europaeum_), a small creeping herb with kidney-shaped leaves and small purplish bell-shaped flowers. it is a native of the woods of europe and north temperate asia, and occurs wild in some english counties. it was formerly grown for medicinal purposes, the underground stem having cathartic and emetic properties. an allied species, _a. canadense_, is the canadian snake-root, a native of canada and the atlantic united states.