Aristotle
Hermippus was the author of most of the catalogues (not merely of
Aristotle, but also of other philosophers) given by Diogenes;[19] yet
that nevertheless Diogenes himself had no direct acquaintance with
the works of Hermippus, but copied these catalogues at second-hand
from some later author, probably Favorinus. This last supposition is
noway made out.
[Footnote 17: Stahr, who in the first volume of his work Aristotelia
(p. 194), had expressed an opinion that the Catalogue given by
Diogenes is the Catalogue "der eigenen Schritten des Stageiriten, wie
sie sich in seinem Nachlasse befanden," retracts that opinion in the
second volume of the same work (pp. 68-70), and declares the
Catalogue to be an enumeration of the Aristotelian works in the
library of Alexandria. Trendelenburg concurs in this later opinion
(Prooemium ad Commentar. in Aristot. De Animâ, p. 123).]
[Footnote 18: [Greek: E(/rmippos o( Kallima/cheios e)n tô=| prô/tô|
peri\ A)ristote/lous], is cited by Athenæus, xv. 696; also v. 213.
Among the Tables prepared by Kallimachus, one was [Greek: Pantoda/pôn
Suggramma/tôn Pi/nax]; and in it were included the [Greek:
Plakountopoii+ka\ suggra/mmata Ai)gimi/ou, kai\ Ê(gêsi/ppou, kai\
Mêtrobi/ou, e)/ti de\ Phai/tou] (Athenæus, xiv. 644). If Kallimachus
carried down his catalogue of the contents of the library to works so
unimportant as these, we may surely believe that he would not omit to
catalogue such works of Aristotle as were in it. He appears to have
made a list of the works of Demokritus (_i.e._ such as were in the
library) with a glossary. See Brandis (Aristoteles, Berlin, 1853, p.
74); also Suidas _v._ [Greek: Kalli/machos], Diogen. Laert. viii. 86;
Dionys. Hal. De Dinarcho, pp. 630, 652 R.; Athenæus, viii. 336, xv.
669.]
[Footnote 19: Heitz, Die Verl. Schr. des Aristot. pp. 45-48.
Patricius, in his Discuss. Peripatetic. (t. i. pp. 13-18), had
previously considered Hermippus as having prepared a Catalogue of the
works of Aristotle, partly on the authority of the Scholion annexed
to the conclusion of the Metaphysica of Theophrastus. Hermippus
recited the testament of Aristotle (Athenæus, xiii. 589).
Both Valentine Rose and Bernays regard Andronikus as author of the
Catalogue of Aristotle in Diogenes. But I think that very sufficient
reasons to refute this supposition have been shown by Heitz, pp.
49-52. The opinion given by Christ, respecting the Catalogue which we
find in Diogenes Laertius--"illum catalogum non Alexandrinæ
bibliothecæ, sed exemplarium Aristotelis ab Apelliconte Athenas
translatorum fuisse equidem censeo"--is in substance the same as that
of Rose and Bernays. I do not concur in it. (Christ, Studia in
Aristotelis Libros Metaphysicos, Berlin, 1853, p. 105).]
It seems thus probable that the Catalogue given by Diogenes derives
its origin from Hermippus or Kallimachus, enumerating the titles of
such works of Aristotle as were contained in the Alexandrine library.
But the aggregate of works composing _our_ Aristotle is noway in
harmony with that Catalogue. It proceeds from a source independent
and totally different, viz., the edition and classification first
published by the Rhodian Andronikus, in the generation between the
death of Cicero and the Christian era. To explain the existence of
these two distinct and independent sources and channels, we must have
recourse to the remarkable narrative (already noticed in my chapter
on the Platonic Canon), delivered mainly by Strabo and less fully by
Plutarch, respecting the fate of the Aristotelian library after
Aristotle's death.
At the decease of Aristotle, his library and MSS. came to
Theophrastus, who continued chief of the Peripatetic school at Athens
for thirty-five years, until his death in 287 B.C. Both Aristotle and
Theophrastus not only composed many works of their own, but also laid
out much money in purchasing or copying the works of others;[20]
especially we are told that Aristotle, after the death of Speusippus,
expended three talents in purchasing his books. The entire library of
Theophrastus, thus enriched from two sources, was bequeathed by his
testament to a philosophical friend and pupil, Neleus;[21] who left
Athens, and carried away the library with him to his residence at the
town of Skêpsis, in the Asiatic region known as Æolis, near Troad. At
Skêpsis the library remained for the greater part of two centuries,
in possession of the descendants of Neleus, men of no accomplishments
and no taste for philosophy. It was about thirty or forty years after
the death of Theophrastus that the kings of Pergamus began to occupy
themselves in collecting their royal library, which presently reached
a magnitude second only to that of Alexandria. Now Skêpsis was under
their dominion, and it would seem that the kings seized the books
belonging to their subjects for the use of the royal library; for we
are told that the heirs of Neleus were forced to conceal their
literary treasures in a cellar, subject to great injury, partly from
damp, partly from worms. In this ruinous hiding-place the manuscripts
remained for nearly a century and a half--"_blattarum ac tinearum
epulæ_,"--until the Attalid dynasty at Pergamus became extinct. The
last of these kings, Attalus, died in 133 B.C., bequeathing his
kingdom to the Romans. All fear of requisitions for the royal library
being thus at end, the manuscripts were in course of time withdrawn
by their proprietors from concealment, and sold for a large sum to
Apellikon, a native of Teos, a very rich resident at Athens, and
attached to the Peripatetic sect. Probably this wealthy Peripatetic
already possessed a library of his own, with some Aristotelian works;
but the new acquisitions from Skêpsis, though not his whole stock,
formed the most rare and precious ingredients in it. Here, then, the
manuscripts and library both of Aristotle and Theophrastus became,
for the first time since 287 B.C., open to the inspection of the
Athenian Peripatetics of the time (about 100 B.C.), as well as of
other learned men. Among the stock were contained many compositions
which the Scholarchs, successors of **Theophrastus at Athens, had
neither possessed nor known.[22] But the manuscripts were found
imperfect, seriously damaged, and in a state of disorder. Apellikon
did his best to remedy that mischief, by causing new copies to be
taken, correcting what had become worm-eaten, and supplying what was
defective or illegible. He appears to have been an erudite man, and
had published a biography of Aristotle, refuting various calumnies
advanced by other biographers; but being (in the words of Strabo) a
lover of books rather than a philosopher, he performed the work of
correction so unskilfully, that the copies which he published were
found full of errors.[23] In the year 86 B.C., Sylla besieged Athens,
and captured it by storm; not long after which he took to himself as
a perquisite the library of Apellikon, and transported it to
Rome.[24] It was there preserved under custody of a librarian, and
various literary Greeks resident at Rome obtained access to it,
especially Tyrannion, the friend of Cicero and a warm admirer of
Aristotle, who took peculiar pains to gain the favour of the
librarian.[25] It was there also that the Rhodian Andronikus obtained
access to the Aristotelian works.[26] He classified them to a great
degree anew, putting in juxtaposition the treatises most analogous in
subject;[27] moreover, he corrected the text, and published a new
edition of the manuscripts, with a tabulated list. This was all the
more necessary, because some booksellers at Rome, aiming only at sale
and profit, had employed bad writers, and circulated inaccurate
copies, not collated with the originals.[28] These originals,
however, were so damaged, and the restitutions made by Apellikon were
so injudicious, that the more careful critics who now studied them
were often driven to proceed on mere probable evidence.
[Footnote 20: Diog. L. iv. 5; Aulus Gellius, N. A. iii. 17.]
[Footnote 21: From a passage of Lucian (De Parasito, c. xxxv.) we
learn that Aristoxenus spoke of himself as friend and guest of
Neleus: [Greek: kai\ ti/s peri\ tou/tou le/gei? Polloi\ me\n kai\
a)/lloi, A)risto/xenos de\ o( mousiko/s, pollou= lo/gou a)/xios kai\
au)to\s de\ para/sitos Nê/leôs ê)=n.]]
[Footnote 22: Strabo, xiii. 608, 609; Athenæus, v. 214. The narrative
of Strabo has been often misunderstood and impugned, as if he had
asserted that none of the main works of Aristotle had ever been
published until they were thus exhumed by Apellikon. This is the
supposed allegation which Stahr, Zeller, and others have taken so
much pains to refute. But in reality Strabo says no such thing. His
words affirm or imply the direct contrary, viz., that many works of
Aristotle, not merely the exoteric works but others besides, _had_
been published earlier than the purchase made by Apellikon. What
Strabo says is, that few of these works were in possession of the
Peripatetic Scholarchs at Athens before the time of that purchase;
and he explains thus how it was that these Scholarchs, during the
century intervening, had paid little attention to the profound and
abstruse speculations of Aristotle; how it was that they had confined
themselves to dialectic and rhetorical debate on special problems. I
see no ground for calling in question the fact affirmed by
Strabo--the poverty of the Peripatetic school-library at Athens;
though he may perhaps have assigned a greater importance to that fact
than it deserves, as a means of explaining the intellectual working
of the Peripatetic Scholarchs from Lykon to Kritolaus. The
philosophical impulse of that intervening century seems to have
turned chiefly towards ethics and the _Summum Bonum_, with the
conflicting theories of Platonists, Peripatetics, Stoics, and
Epikureans thereupon.]
[Footnote 23: Strabo, xiii. 609. [Greek: ê)=n de\ o( A)pellikô=n
philo/biblos ma=llon ê)\ philo/sophos, dio\ kai\ zêtô=n
e)pano/othôsin tô=n diabrôma/tôn, ei)s a)nti/grapha kaina\ metê/negke
tê\n graphê\n a)naplêrô=n ou)k eu)=, kai\ e)xe/dôken a(marta/dôn
plê/rê ta\ bi/blia.]]
[Footnote 24: Strabo, xiii. 609; Plutarch, Sylla, c. xxvi.]
[Footnote 25: Strabo, xiii. 609. [Greek: Turanni/ôn, o( grammatiko\s
diecheiri/sato philaristote/lês ô)/n, therapeu/sas to\n e)pi\ tê=s
biblothê/kês.] Tyrannion had been the preceptor of Strabo (xii. 548);
and Boêthus, who studied Aristotle along with Strabo, was a disciple
of the Rhodian Andronikus. See Ammonius ad Categorias, f. 8; and
Ravaisson, Essai sur la Métaphysique d'Aristote, Introduction, p.
10.]
[Footnote 26: Plutarch, Sylla, c. xxvi.]
[Footnote 27: The testimony of Porphyry in respect to Andronikus, and
to the real service performed by Andronikus, is highly valuable.
Porphyry was the devoted disciple and friend, as well as the literary
executor, of Plotinus; whose writings were left in an incorrect and
disorderly condition. Porphyry undertook to put them in order and
publish them; and he tells us that, in fulfilling this promise, he
followed the example of what Andronikus had done for the works of
Aristotle and Theophrastus. [Greek: E)pei\ de\ au)to\s] (Plotinus)
[Greek: tê\n dio/rthôsin kai\ tê\n dia/taxin tô=n bibli/ôn
poiei=sthai ê(mi=n e)pe/trepsen, e)gô\ de\ e)kei/nô| zô=nti
u(pescho/mên kai\ toi=s a)/llois e(tai/rois e)pêggeila/mên poiê=sai
tou=to, prô=ton me\n ta\ bi/blia ou) kata\ chro/nous e)a=sai phu/rdên
e)kdedome/na e)dikai/ôsa, mimêsa/menos d' A)pollo/dôron to\n
A)thênai=on kai\ A)ndro/nikon to\n Peripatêtiko/n, ô(=n o( me\n
E)pi/charmon to\n kômô|diogra/phon ei)s de/ka to/mous phe/rôn
sunê/gagen, o( de\ ta\ A)ristote/lous kai\ Theophra/stou ei)s
pragmatei/as diei=le, ta\s oi)kei/as u(pothe/seis ei)s tau)to\n