Aristo of Ceos (; grc-gre, Ἀρίστων ὁ Κεῖος; ) was a

Peripatetic Peripatetic may refer to: *Peripatetic school, a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece *Peripatetic axiom * Peripatetic minority, a mobile population moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade. *Peripatetic Jats There are several ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

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 was a pupil of Lyco, who had succeeded Strato as the

head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may ...

of the Peripatetic school from about 269 BC. After the death of Lyco (c. 225) Aristo probably succeeded him as the head of the school. Although Aristo was, according to

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

, a man of taste and elegance, he was deficient in gravity and energy, which prevented his writings from acquiring the popularity they otherwise deserved. This may have been one of the causes of their neglect and loss. Judging from the scant extant fragments, his philosophical views seem to have followed his master Lyco pretty closely.

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a ...

, after enumerating the works of Aristo of Chios, says that

Panaetius Panaetius (; grc-gre, Παναίτιος, Panaítios; – ) of Rhodes was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus in Athens, before moving to Rome where he did m ...

and Sosicrates attributed all these works, except the letters, to Aristo of Ceos. Whether this attribution is correct we are unable to determine. At any rate, one of those works, ''Conversations on Love'', is repeatedly ascribed to Aristo of Ceos by

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...

. One work of Aristo not mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius was entitled ''Lyco'' in gratitude to his master. There are also two epigrams in the ''

Greek Anthology The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Pa ...

''''Greek Anthology'', vi. 303, and vii. 457 which are commonly attributed to Aristo of Ceos, though there is no evidence for the validity of their authorship.

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