A fellow-countryman of St. Paul, who quotes one of his works in his address to the Athenians. Called to the Court of Antigonus Gonatas, King of Macedonia. He there pursued physics, grammar, and philosophy. He also versified two astronomical treatises by Eudoxus. There are many errors with much want of precision in the descriptive portions of these works, proving the poet to have been neither a mathematician nor an acute observer. As a poet, Aratus was hardly more eminent. He is wanting in originality and poetic feeling; yet his verses obtained popularity both in Greece and Rome. [The well known head, representing, as it is supposed, the Poet of the Stars, in the attitude of viewing the heavens. The same head is found on medals, of which the best is preserved in the Hunterian Museum of the College of Surgeons, London.] GREEK COURT.--NORTH SIDE-COURT. GREEK PHILOSOPHERS, STATESMEN, AND GENERALS. 11. BIAS. _Greek Philosopher._ [Born at Priene, in Ionia. Flourished, it is believed, about the middle of the Sixth Century B.C.] One of the Seven Sages; and of the four to whom alone the title was universally conceded: the remaining three being Thales, Pittacus, and Solon. His profession was that of an advocate; his philosophy was practical--the fruit of experience. Many of his sayings and doings have been recorded. He died at a very advanced age. [From the marble in the Vatican, which bears his name and the motto:-- ΟΙ ΠΛΕΙΣΤΟΙ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΙ ΚΑΚΟΙ. “The majority of men are bad.” A curious mistake of the engraver is observable in the word ΠΡΗΝΕΥΣ, in which the I is omitted; it should have been ΠΡΙΗΝΕΥΣ, the name of his birth-place. This bust was found at Tivoli, with that of Periander, No. 29.] 12. THUCYDIDES. _Greek Historian._ Born at Athens, B.C. 471. Died (place uncertain) B.C. 395. Aged 76.] This great historian, holding military command in Thrace, suffered Amphipolis to be surprised and taken by the Spartan general, Brasidas; and for this misfortune was banished by his countrymen during the space of twenty years. It would have been a greater misfortune for the world had Thucydides proved a warier soldier; for it was during his exile, that he collected with infinite care the materials of his immortal history. That history chronicles, in eight books, the events of twenty out of the twenty-seven years of the Peloponnesian War:--a record of most interesting facts. Where political and moral observations occur, they reveal great knowledge of human character and motives. The style is pregnant, precise, and severely simple. Demosthenes is said to have copied the entire history many times with his own hand as a lesson of composition. The principal actors in the war were the historian’s books of reference. As an historical monument the work is matchless. It has been always believed that Thucydides came to a violent end, but it is not known whether he died at Athens, or in Thrace. 13. SOCRATES. _Philosopher._