Arius Didymus

Arius Didymus (Ancient Greek: Ἄρειος Δίδυμος Areios Didymos; fl. 1st century BC) was a Stoic philosopher and teacher of Augustus. Fragments of his handbooks summarizing Stoic and Peripatetic doctrines are preserved by Stobaeus and by Eusebius of Caesarea.

Life

Arius was a citizen of Alexandria. Areius as well as his two sons, Dionysius and Nicanor, are said to have instructed Augustus himself in philosophy, and Areius for a time resided directly within Augustus's household.¹² He is frequently mentioned by the philosopher Themistius, who says that Augustus valued Areius not less than Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who is commonly thought of as Augustus's confidant and right-hand man (though it must be mentioned that Themistius was writing four hundred years after the fact).³ Augustus esteemed him so highly, that after the conquest of Alexandria, he declared that he spared the city chiefly for the sake of Arius.⁴⁵⁶⁷ According to Plutarch, Arius advised Augustus to execute Caesarion, the son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, with the words "ouk agathon polukaisarie" ("it is not good to have too many Caesars"), a pun on a line in . Modern scholars disagree over whether this was the actual reason Augustus spared the city, as at the same time Augustus claimed he was also doing it to honor the memory of , and some scholars also suggest that he did it to curry favor with that city's elite. Arius as well as his two sons, Dionysius and Nicanor, are said to have instructed Augustus in . He is frequently mentioned by , who says that Augustus valued him not less than . He is presumably the "Arius" whose was among those in the missing final section of book VII of the of .