One of the most important of the ancient Greek philosophers, whose work influenced Western thought as few others have done. He was born in 384 BC at Stageira in Chalcidice, and his father, Nicomachus, was court physician to Amyntas II of Macedonia. At the age of seventeen Aristotle left Pella to enrol in Plato’s Academy in Athens, where he remained until the latter’s death in 348/7. He then went to Assos, in the Troad, where he devoted himself to his work. In 342 he was summoned by Philip II to undertake the education of his son Alexander. In 335 he returned to Athens where he founded his own school, the Lyceum. He retired to Chalcis in 323 and died the following year; his surviving works were not given their present form until after his death. His work covers every branch of science and philosophy known in his day, including physics, botany, zoology, anatomy, metaphysics, logic, ethics, poetry, drama, music, rhetoric, politics and much more.