Aristeide ̄s (Paradoxographer) (250 BCE – 25 BCE)
Among other authors discussing geographical properties and qualities of water, V
(8.3.27) enumerates Aristeide ̄s. Whether this man should be identified with the homonym-
ous geographer (P 4.70) is doubtful.
RE S.5 (1932) 46 (#23a), W. Kroll.
Jan Bollansée, Karen Haegemans, and Guido Schepens
Aristeide ̄s Quintilianus (ca 270 – 330 CE)
Author of a treatise On music, arranged in three books (in Greek). The overall vocabulary
and style of the treatise are Neo-Platonic, reflecting or suggesting specific notions found in
the writings of P, P, and I. In addition, Aristeide ̄s almost
certainly drew on such 2nd c. authors as T S, P, P, and
Hephaistio ̄n, and on other authors of less certain date such as K and G.
Whole sections of M C’s On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury have
been identified as derived from his treatise.
On music weaves together in rigorous, systematic, and highly complex language a wide
range of materials – musical, philosophical, medical, grammatical, metrical, and literary –
to create a unified philosophical discourse in which music serves as a paradigm for the order
of the soul and the universe. Book I, largely following the Aristoxenian model, defines the
science of music (mousike ̄), conjoining the treatments of harmonics (1.6–12), rhythmics
(1.13–19), and metrics (1.20–29) by means of vocabulary and the development of def-
initions. Various notational diagrams are included, one of which (1.9) purports to preserve
scales of “the exceedingly ancient peoples.” Another diagram (1.11) illustrates the 15 tonoi
(cf. A) laid out “akin to a wing.” The treatments of rhythmics and metrics exhibit
apparent loci paralleli with Hephaestion’s Handbook and Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ On literary
composition (1st c. BCE). Book II, conceived in three sections, applies the definitions of the
first book to larger considerations: the soul, the influence of music on character, and ethnic
stereotypes and the use of music in the Roman empire (2.1–6); the development of ethical
notions through music, the relationship of souls and bodies (human and otherwise), and the
association of masculine, feminine, and medial natures with the technical details of music
(2.7–16); and the affective power of instruments, exercised through their association with
the soul, the Muses, and the gods (2.17–19). Book III reveals music as a paradigm for cosmic
order in two sections: the first reviewing mathematical–musical affinities (3.1–8); the second,
as Aristeide ̄s states, “making quite plain the similarity of each particular to the universe
altogether” (3.9–27), in which nearly every particular of the preceding material is related in
a grand Neo-Platonic cosmology based not only on P (especially Republic and
Timaeus) and A (On the heavens, Physics, Metaphysics, and History of Animals) but also
on Plo ̄tinos, Ptolemy (Tetrabiblos), Porphurios, and Theo ̄n of Smurna.
Ed.: R.P. Winnington-Ingram, De musica (1963); Thomas J. Mathiesen, trans., Aristides Quintilianus On
Music (1983); SRMH 1.47–66 (with diagrams).
MGG2 1 (1999) 917–922; Mathiesen (1999) 521–582; NGD2 1.905–907.
Thomas J. Mathiesen
ARISTEIDE ̄S (PARADOXOGRAPHER)