Aristotle was born at Stagira, a city of the Thracian Chersonesus, in the first year of the 99th Olympiad, or the 384th before the Christian era. His father, Nicomachus, was physician to Amyntas, king of Macedonia, the father of Philip, and grandfather of Alexander the Great. Of his mother, we only know that her name was Phestis, and that, like her husband, she was originally from Chalcis. His family claimed descent from Machaon, the son of Esculapius. Having lost his parents at an early age, he went to reside with Proxenus, a citizen of Atarneus in Mysia, the friend to whose guardianship he had been left. According to some authorities, not being observed very strictly by those who had the immediate charge of his education, he spent a great part of his youth in licentious indulgences, by which he dissipated nearly the whole of a large patrimony. It is also said that he entered into the military profession, but finding it disagreeable soon renounced it, and, as a means of subsistence, sold medicines at Athens. But most of these reflections on his juvenile character may perhaps be attributed to slander. However this may be, it became necessary for him to choose an employment; and, on going to Delphi to consult the oracle, he was directed to proceed to Athens, and apply himself to the study of philosophy. This he accordingly did, and at the age of seventeen commenced his career as a pupil of Plato. Being of an ardent temperament, he addicted himself to his new pursuit with so much energy, that he determined to reduce his hours of repose to the smallest possible limits. For this purpose he placed a metallic basin beside his couch, and on lying down held out one of his hands with an iron ball in it, that the noise produced by the collision might awake him should he happen to slumber. Such intensity of application, in a penetrating and subtile mind, could not fail to render him highly successful in his studies. We accordingly find that he had not been long in the academy when he was distinguished above all the other scholars; and it is said that Plato used to call him the mind of his school, and to compare him to a spirited colt that required the application of the rein to restrain its ardour. He has been accused of disrespect and ingratitude to his aged master, and with having set up a school in opposition to him. The author of this charge was Aristoxenus, his own pupil; but it is well known that he was personally an enemy to Aristotle, because that philosopher, in choosing a successor, had preferred Theophrastus. It is doubted, besides, whether he taught publicly until after Plato's death, which happened in 348 B. C.