ARISTOBULUS of Cassandria, one of the generals who accompanied Alexander the Great, and who afterwards, when very aged, wrote a history of the expedition. This work was much used by Arrian, who praises it highly. Only a few fragments remain; these are given in Muller’s Hist. Gr<xc. Frag.

ARISTOBULUS, a Jew of Alexandria, and a philosopher of the peripatetic school, flourished about 160 b.c., in the reign of Ptolemy Fhilometer. He is the first representative of the Jewish-Alexandrian philosophy, the aim of which was to reconcile and identify Greek philosophical conceptions with the Jewish religion. Only a few fragments of his work, entitled Commentaries on the Writings of Moses, are quoted by Clement, Eusebius, and other theological writers, but they suffice to show its object. He endeavoured to prove that early Greek philosophers had borrowed largely from some parts of Scripture which had become known to them; in support of this view, he quoted from Linus, Orpheus, Musaeus, and others, passages which strongly resemble the Mosaic writings. These passages, however, were mere forgeries, and it is surprising that any of the Alexandrian scholars should have been deceived by them.