Aristo of

Ceos Kea (), also known as Tzia () and in antiquity Keos (, ), is a Greek island in the Cyclades archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Kea is part of the Kea-Kythnos regional unit. Geography It is the island of the Cyclades complex that is closest to Att ...

(; ; ) was a

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

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and a native of the island of

. His birthplace was the town of

Ioulis Ioulis or Ioulida (; ), locally called Chora or Hora () like the main towns of most Greek islands, and sometimes known by the island name of Kea or Keos (or earlier Zea), is the capital of the island of Kea in the Cyclades. It has a population of ...

. He is not to be confused with

Aristo of Chios Aristo of Chios ( ''Ariston ho Chios''; fl. c. 260 BC), also spelled Ariston, was a Greek Stoic philosopher and colleague of Zeno of Citium. He outlined a system of Stoic philosophy that was, in many ways, closer to earlier Cynic philosophy. He ...

, 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 ani ...

of the

Peripatetic school The Peripatetic school ( ) was a philosophical school founded in 335 BC by Aristotle in the Lyceum in ancient Athens. It was an informal institution whose members conducted philosophical and scientific inquiries. The school fell into decline afte ...

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, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

, 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 ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek ph ...

, after enumerating the works of

, says that

Panaetius Panaetius (; ; – ) of Rhodes was an ancient Greek Stoic philosopher. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus in Athens, before moving to Rome where he did much to introduce Stoic doctrines to the city, thanks to the patro ...

and

Sosicrates Sosicrates of Rhodes (; ) was a Greek historical writer. He was born on the island of Rhodes and is noted, chiefly, for his frequent mention by Diogenes Laërtius in his '' Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'', referencing Sosicrates as the ...

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 (, or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; ) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and Grammarian (Greco-Roman), grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century ...

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

''''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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