In 343 B.C., he was invited by Philip of Macedonia to return to his homeland to tutor his son, Alexander the Great, then aged 14. Aristotle remained in this post for some seven years, until 336 B.C., when Alexander himself became the king of Macedonia and began his conquest of the ancient world. In 334 B.C., at the age of 50, Aristotle returned to Athens to establish his own school, the Lyceum, in a grove in the north of Athens. The return to Athens marks the mature period of Aristotle's intellectual life, during which he composed most of his famous works. The Lyceum was a center of teaching, learning, and investigation. Aristotle gathered around him fellow students of nature, and coordinated a systematic investigation covering almost all areas of human knowledge, which continued after his death. Aristotle also collected hundreds of manuscripts, maps, and natural specimens, and the Lyceum became one of the first libraries and museums.
Although he was a prolific writer, only fragments of his published writings remain. However, his unpublished writings have survived in the form of lecture notes or texts used by his students. He produced groundbreaking texts not just in metaphysics and logic, but on virtually every subject: physics, astronomy, meteorology, taxonomy, psychology, biology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. Given his incredible powers of observation, classification, and deduction, it is not surprising that later generations thought of him as a superman. When Alexander died in 323 B.C., Athens became a center of anti- Macedonian feelings, and Aristotle decided to leave the city. A year later, he died. He was 62.
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