Aristeas

, the Proconnesian, an ancient Greek historian and poet, flourished in the time of Cyrus 5 and of Croesus, about 565 years B. C. He is said to have written an epic poem, in three books, on the war of the Arimaspes, or Scythian hyperboreans, which is now lost. Longinus quotes six verses from it in his treatise on the Sublime, and Tzetzes six others. He had also composed a book on Theogony, or the history of the gods, which is likewise lost. Herodotus, Pliny, Pausanias, and Suidas, relate the grossest absurdities about this author, as, that his soul could leave his body at pleasure, and that he wrote poems after he was dead, &c. ²