ASPASIUS, a Peripatetic philosopher, and one of the most prolific commentators on Aristotle, flourished probably towards the close of the 1st century a.d., or perhaps during the reign of Antoninus Pius. His commentaries on the Categories, De Interpretatione, De Sensu, and other works of Aristotle, are frequently referred to by later writers, but have not come down to us. Certain commentaries on Plato, mentioned by Porphyry in his life of Plotinus, have also been lost. Commentaries on the 2d, 4th, 7th, and 8th books of the Nicomachean Ethics, which pass under his name, were printed along with those of Eustratius and others by Manutius at Venice in 1536. They were translated into Latin by Felicianus in 1541, and have been frequently republished. The authenticity of part, and even of the whole, of these ethical commentaries has been disputed; and recently some fragments of another commentary by Aspasius on the Ethics have been printed. See Classic. Jour., vols, xxviii,, xxix.

ASPASIUS, a celebrated rhetorician and sophist, was born at Ravenna, and flourished during the early part of the 3d century a.d. He was the son (or, according to Suidas, the scholar) of the rhetorician Demetrianus; and, after a careful training in all the branches of a rhetorician’s art, began to teach at Rome. For many years he filled the chair of rhetoric which had been founded by Vespasian. He travelled extensively in the suite of the emperor, as whose secretary he acted, for some time. His orations, which are praised for their style, have been lost.