Life
The son of a wealthy landowner from Adriani, Mysia, Aristides studied under Alexander of Cotiaeum, the tutor of Marcus Aurelius. A career as an orator ended at the age of 26 when he was afflicted during a visit to Rome with the first of a long series of illnesses, possibly of psychosomatic origin. His health problem drove him to the sanctuary of Pergamon (present-day Bergama) where Asclepius, the god of healing, would often advise people certain remedies in their dreams.
After being sufficiently prepared for his profession, he traveled for some time throughout Asia and Africa, particularly Egypt, Greece, and Italy. The fame of his talents and acquirements, which preceded him everywhere, was so great that monuments were erected in his honor in several towns he visited. Shortly before his return, in Italy, he contracted an illness that lasted for thirteen years.
He had from his childhood been of weak constitution, but neither this nor his protracted illness prevented his prosecuting his studies, for he was well at intervals; and in his Sacred Tales (Hieroi Logoi), a sort of diary of his illness and recovery, he relates that he was frequently encouraged by visions in his dreams to cultivate rhetoric to the exclusion of all other studies. During this period and afterwards, he resided at Smyrna, whither he had gone on account of its baths, but he made occasional excursions into the country, to Pergamus, Phocaea, and other towns. He had great influence with Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose acquaintance he had made in Ionia, and when in 178, Smyrna was to a great extent destroyed by an earthquake, Aristides represented the deplorable condition of the city and its inhabitants in such vivid colors to the emperor that he was moved to tears, and generously assisted the Smyrnaeans in rebuilding their town.
The Smyrnaeans showed their gratitude to Aristides by erecting to him a brazen statue in their agora, and by calling him the founder of their town. Various other honors and distinctions were offered to him at Smyrna, but he refused them, and accepted only the office of priest of Asclepius, which he held until his death, about 180 according to some, at the age of 60, and according to others of 70. The circumstance of his living for so many years at Smyrna, and enjoying such great honors there, is probably the reason that in an epigram still extant he is regarded as a native of Smyrna.
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