Aristeas was a semi-legend

Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

ary Greek poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and miracle-worker

Iatromantis

Iatromantis is a Greek word whose literal meaning is most simply rendered "physician-seer." Perhaps the most famous iatromantis was the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, best known as the founder of Western logic...

, a native of Proconnesus in Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

, active ca. 7th century BCE. In book IV of The Histories

Histories (Herodotus)

The Histories of Herodotus is considered one of the seminal works of history in Western literature. Written from the 450s to the 420s BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that...

, Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

 reports

The birthplace of Aristeas, the poet who sung of these things, I have already mentioned. I will now relate a tale which I heard concerning him both at Proconnesus and at Cyzicus. Aristeas, they said, who belonged to one of the noblest families in the island, had entered one day into a fuller's shop, when he suddenly dropt down dead. Hereupon the fuller shut up his shop, and went to tell Aristeas' kindred what had happened. The report of the death had just spread through the town, when a certain Cyzicenian, lately arrived from Artaca, contradicted the rumour, affirming that he had met Aristeas on his road to Cyzicus, and had spoken with him. This man, therefore, strenuously denied the rumour; the relations, however, proceeded to the fuller's shop with all things necessary for the funeral, intending to carry the body away. But on the shop being opened, no Aristeas was found, either dead or alive. Seven years afterwards he reappeared, they told me, in Proconnesus, and wrote the poem called by the Greeks The Arimaspeia, after which he disappeared a second time. This is the tale current in the two cities above-mentioned.

Two hundred and forty years after his death, Aristeas appeared in Metapontum

Metapontum

Metapontum, Metapontium or Metapontion , was an important city of Magna Graecia, situated on the gulf of Tarentum, between the river Bradanus and the Casuentus . It was distant about 20 km from Heraclea and 40 from Tarentum...

 in southern Italy

Mezzogiorno

The Midday is a wide definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the southern half of the Italian state, encompassing the southern section of the continental Italian Peninsula and the two major islands of Sicily and Sardinia, in addition to a large number of minor islands...

 to command that a statue of himself be set up and a new altar dedicated to Apollo, saying that since his death he had been travelling with Apollo in the form of a sacred raven

Raven

Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...

.

Arimaspea

Aristeas was supposed to have authored a poem called the Arimaspea, giving an account of travels in the far North. There he encountered a tribe called the Issedones

Issedones

The Issedones were an ancient people of Central Asia at the end of the trade route leading north-east from Scythia, described in the lost Arimaspeia of Aristeas, by Herodotus in his History and by Ptolemy in his Geography...

, who told him of still more fantastic and northerly peoples: the one-eyed Arimaspi

Arimaspi

The Arimaspi were a legendary people of northern Scythia who lived in the foothills of the Riphean Mountains, variously identified with the Ural Mountains or the Carpathians...

 who battle gold-guarding griffin

Griffin

The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle...

s, and the Hyperboreans among whom Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 lives during the winter.

Longinus

Longinus (literature)

Longinus is the conventional name of the author of the treatise, On the Sublime , a work which focuses on the effect of good writing. Longinus, sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Longinus because his real name is unknown, was a Greek teacher of rhetoric or a literary critic who may have lived in the...

 excerpts a portion of the poem:

A marvel exceeding great is this withal to my soul—

Men dwell on the water afar from the land, where deep seas roll.

Wretches are they, for they reap but a harvest of travail and pain,

Their eyes on the stars ever dwell, while their hearts abide in the main.

Often, I ween, to the Gods are their hands upraised on high,

And with hearts in misery heavenward-lifted in prayer do they cry.

Similarly, the Chiliades

Chiliades

The Chiliades is a work of the 12th century by John Tzetzes, a Byzantine grammarian.The Chiliades is based upon a collection of Letters , which has been called an index to the larger work, itself described as a versified commentary on the letters...

 of Ioannis Tzetzae

John Tzetzes

John Tzetzes was a Byzantine poet and grammarian, known to have lived at Constantinople during the 12th century.Tzetzes was Georgian on his mother's side...

 quotes the Arimaspea. These two account for our entire knowledge of the poem, which is otherwise lost.

In popular culture

This story appears to be referred to in Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman

Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...

's Sandman comics: Aristeas was a poet who lived around 700 BCE, and became by transformation one of many ravens who have acted as both adviser and assistant to The Endless known as Dream. Not to be confused with the raven Matthew, the main raven in the Sandman tale, who existed in human form in the Swamp Thing continuity before his time as a resident of the Dreaming.