ARATUS ăr’ ə təs (̓́Αρατος, prayed for). A Gr. poet. Born toward the end of the 4th cent. b.c. at Soli (or possibly Tarsus) in Cilicia, Aratus studied at Athens and was a friend of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. Of his many poems, the only one extant is the Phaenomena, a treatise on astronomy, which was still popular in NT times. Paul at Athens quoted from its fifth line (Acts 17:28) a phrase which Aratus had adapted from a poem by another Stoic poet, Cleanthes.