LIFE

Aristotle was born in 384 bc, in the town of Stagira, which lay in Macedonia in northern Greece. His father was Nicomachus, a physician, in the service of King Amyntas of Macedon; his mother was Phaestis, a woman of independent wealth. In 367, as a lad of seventeen, Aristotle moved to Athens to study with Plato in the Academy, where he remained for twenty years, until the death of Plato in 347. It is plausible to assume that during those twenty years, Aristotle heard, and participated in, important philosophical discussions involving some of the greatest minds of the time. The themes that were debated must surely have ranged across issues that were dear to Plato, such as metaphysics, ethics, logic, politics, and epistemology. And although physics and cosmology were not themes to which Plato devoted much time and effort, Aristotle must surely have had occasion to engage in discussions about those subjects.

With the death of Plato in 347 and the emergence in Athens of anti-Macedonian sentiment, Aristotle, who never became an Athenian citizen, departed Athens and traveled to the coast of Asia Minor. There, he lived first in Assos, where he married Pythias, the niece of Hermias, the tyrant of Assos. He moved next to Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, where he met Theophrastus, who became an important friend and future colleague. It is likely that during his approximately four years in this region, Aristotle studied marine biology and used what he learned in his biological treatises.