Aristippus of Cyrene was a hedonistic Greek philosopher and the founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy. He was a pupil of Socrates, but adopted a different philosophical outlook, teaching that the goal of life was to seek pleasure by adapting circumstances to oneself and by maintaining proper control over both adversity and prosperity. His view that pleasure is the only good came to be called ethical hedonism. Due to the ideological and philosophical differences between Socrates and himself, Aristippus faced backlash by Socrates and many of his fellow-pupils. Out of his hedonistic beliefs, Aristippus' most famous phrase was, "I possess, I am not possessed." Despite having two sons, Aristippus identified his daughter Arete as the "intellectual heiress" of his work, resulting in the systematization of his work and the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, by Arete, and her son Aristippus the Younger, Aristippus' grandson, during the later years of his life and after his death.
Aristippus the Younger, of Cyrene, was a Cyrenaic philosopher in the second half of the 4th century BC. He was the grandson of Aristippus of Cyrene, the founder of the school. According to Diogenes Laërtius, he received the nickname "Mother-taught" (metrodidaktos). because he learned philosophy from his mother, Arete of Cyrene, who was the daughter of the elder Aristippus. Diogenes lists Theodorus the Atheist as one of his students. According to Aristocles of Messene, as quoted by Eusebius, he may have formalized the principles of Cyrenaic philosophy.: He quite plainly defined the end to be the life of pleasure, ranking as pleasure that which lies in motion. For he said that there are three states affecting our temperament: one, in which we feel pain, like a storm at sea; another, in which we feel pleasure, that may be likened to a gentle undulation, for pleasure is a gentle movement, comparable to a favourable breeze; and the third is an intermediate state, in which we feel neither pain nor pleasure, which is similar to a calm.
Aristo of Alexandria was a Peripatetic philosopher who lived in the 1st century BC. According to Philodemus, he was a pupil of Antiochus of Ascalon. Strabo, a later contemporary, relates a story where both Ariston and Eudorus, a contemporary of his, had claimed to have written a work on the Nile, but that the two works were so nearly identical that the authors charged each other with plagiarism. Who was right is not said, though Strabo seems to be inclined to think that Eudorus was the guilty party.
Aristo of Ceos was a Peripatetic philosopher and a native of the island of Ceos. His birthplace was the town of Ioulis. He is not to be confused with Aristo of Chios, a Stoic philosopher of the mid 3rd century BC.
Aristo of Chios, also spelled Ariston, was a Greek Stoic philosopher and colleague of Zeno of Citium. He outlined a system of Stoic philosophy that was, in many ways, closer to earlier Cynic philosophy. He rejected the logical and physical sides of philosophy endorsed by Zeno and emphasized ethics. Although agreeing with Zeno that Virtue was the supreme good, he rejected the idea that morally indifferent things such as health and wealth could be ranked according to whether they are naturally preferred. An important philosopher in his day, his views were eventually marginalized by Zeno's successors.
Aristobulus of Alexandria also called Aristobulus the Peripatetic and once believed to be Aristobulus of Paneas, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher of the Peripatetic school, though he also used Platonic and Pythagorean concepts. Like his successor, Philo, he attempted to fuse ideas in the Hebrew Scriptures with those in Greek thought.
Aristodama of Smyrna was a 3rd century BCE itinerant poet of ancient Ionia. None of her works have survived to the present; we know of her only through inscriptions found in the mainland Greek cities of Lamia and Chaleion. There she and her brother were granted citizenship and other privileges in recognition of her poetic skill and performance. Chaleion honoured her for several readings of an epic narrating the traditions of their Aetolian ancestors. The earliest known such honour granted to a woman, it provides evidence of the opportunities of education and advancement for women in the Hellenistic period. That Aristodama must have lived sometime after 217 BCE is deduced because the contemporary Agetas of Callipolis is mentioned in the Lamia inscription as an Aetolian general.
Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries.
Aristotelis Valaoritis was a Greek poet, representative of the Heptanese School, and politician. He was also the great-grandfather of Nanos Valaoritis, one of the most distinguished writers of Greece.
