Aristotle
sunagagô/n, ou(/tô dê\ kai\ e)gô\ pentê/konta te/ssarau)/nta e)/chôn
ta\ tou= Plôti/nou bi/blia diei=lon me\n ei)s e(\x e)nnea/das, tê=|
teleio/têti tou= e(\x a)rithmou= kai\ tai=s e)nnea/sin a)sme/nôs
e)pituchô/n, e(ka/stê| de\ e)nnea/di ta\ oi)kei=a phe/rôn
sunepho/rêsa, dou\s kai\ ta/xin prô/tên toi=s e)laphrote/rois
problê/masin.] (Porphyry, Vita Plotini, p. 117, Didot.) Porphyry here
distinctly affirms that Andronikus rendered this valuable service not
merely to the works of Aristotle, but also to those of Theophrastus.
This is important, as connecting him with the library conveyed by
Sylla to Rome; which library we know to have contained the
manuscripts of both these philosophers. And in the Scholion appended
to the Metaphysica of Theophrastus (p. 323, Brandis) we are told that
Andronikus and Hermippus had made a catalogue of the works of
Theophrastus, in which the Metaphysics was not included.]
[Footnote 28: Strabo, xiii. 609: [Greek: bibliopô=lai/ tines
grapheu=si phau/lois chrô/menoi kai\ ou)k a)ntiba/llontes], &c.]
This interesting narrative--delivered by Strabo, the junior
contemporary of Andronikus, and probably derived by him either from
Tyrannion his preceptor or from the Sidonian Boêthus[29] and other
philosophical companions jointly, with whom he had prosecuted the
study of Aristotle--appears fully worthy of trust. The proceedings
both of Apellikon and of Sylla prove, what indeed we might have
presumed without proof, that the recovery of these long-lost original
manuscripts of Aristotle and Theophrastus excited great sensation in
the philosophical world of Athens and of Rome. With such
newly-acquired materials, a new epoch began for the study of these
authors. The more abstruse philosophical works of Aristotle now came
into the foreground under the auspices of a new Scholarch; whereas
Aristotle had hitherto been chiefly known by his more popular and
readable compositions. Of these last, probably, copies may have been
acquired to a certain extent by the previous Peripatetic Scholarchs
or School at Athens; but the School had been irreparably impoverished,
so far as regarded the deeper speculations of philosophy, by the loss
of those original manuscripts which had been transported from Athens
to Skêpsis. What Aristotelian Scholarchs, prior to Andronikus, chiefly
possessed and studied, of the productions of their illustrious
founder, were chiefly the _exoteric_ or extra-philosophical and
comparatively popular:--such as the dialogues; the legendary and
historical collections; the facts respecting constitutional history
of various Hellenic cities; the variety of miscellaneous problems
respecting Homer and a number of diverse matters; the treatises on
animals and on anatomy, &c.[30] In the Alexandrine library (as we see
by the Catalogue of Diogenes) there existed all these and several
philosophical works also; but that library was not easily available
for the use of the Scholarchs at Athens, who worked upon their own
stock, confining themselves mainly to smooth and elegant discourses
on particular questions, and especially to discussions, with the
Platonists, Stoics, and Epikureans, on the _principia_ of Ethics,
without any attempt either to follow up or to elucidate the more
profound speculations (logical, physical, metaphysical, cosmical) of
Aristotle himself. A material change took place when the library of
Apellikon came to be laid open and studied, not merely by lecturers
in the professorial chair at Athens, but also by critics like
Tyrannion and Andronikus at Rome. These critics found therein the
most profound and difficult philosophical works of Aristotle in the
handwriting of the philosopher himself; some probably, of which
copies may have already existed in the Alexandrine library, but some
also as yet unpublished. The purpose of Andronikus, who is described
as Peripatetic Scholarch, eleventh in succession from Aristotle, was
not simply to make a Catalogue (as Hermippus had made at Alexandria),
but to render a much greater service, which no critic could render
without having access to original MSS., namely, to obtain a correct
text of the books actually before him, to arrange these books in
proper order, and then to publish and explain them,[31] but to take
no account of other Aristotelian works in the Alexandrine library or
elsewhere. The Aristotelian philosophy thus passed into a new phase.
Our editions of Aristotle may be considered as taking their date from
this critical effort of Andronikus, with or without subsequent
modifications by others, as the case may be.
[Footnote 29: Strabo, xvi. 757. Stahr, in his minor work, Aristoteles
unter den Römern, p. 32, considers that this circumstance lessens the
credibility of Strabo. I think the contrary. No one was so likely to
have studied the previous history of the MSS. as the editors of a new
edition.]
[Footnote 30: Strabo, xiii. 609: [Greek: sune/bê de\ toi=s e)k tô=n
peripa/tôn toi=s me\n pa/lai toi=s meta\ Theo/phraston, o(/lôs ou)k
e)/chousi ta\ bi/blia plê\n o)li/gôn kai\ ma/lista tô=n e)xôterikô=n,
mêde\n e)/chein philosophei=n pragmatikô=s, a)lla\ the/seis
lêkuthi/zein; toi=s d' u(/steron, a)ph' ou)= ta\ bi/blia tau=ta
proê=lthen, a)/meinon me\n e)kei/nôn philosophei=n kai\
a)ristoteli/zein, a)nagka/zesthai me/ntoi ta\ polla\ ei)ko/ta le/gein
dia\ to\ plê=thos tô=n a(martiô=n.] Also Plutarch, Sylla, c. xxvi.
The passage of Strabo is so perspicuous and detailed, that it has all
the air of having been derived from the best critics who frequented
the library at Rome, where Strabo was when he wrote ([Greek: kai\
_e)/nthade_ kai\ e)n A)lexandrei/a|], xiii. 609). The Peripatetic
Andronikus, whom he names among the celebrated Rhodians (xiv. 655),
may have been among his informants. His statements about the bad
state of the manuscripts; the unskilful emendations of Apellikon; the
contrast between the vein of Peripatetic study, as it had stood
before the revelation of the manuscripts, and as it came to stand
afterwards; the uncertain evidences upon which careful students, even
with the manuscripts before them, were compelled to proceed; the tone
of depreciation in which he speaks of the carelessness of booksellers
who sought only for profit,--all these points of information appear
to me to indicate that Strabo's informants were acute and diligent
critics, familiar with the library, and anxious both for the real
understanding of these documents, and for philosophy as an end.]
[Footnote 31: Plutarch, Sylla, c. xxvi. Spengel ("Ueber die
Reihenfolge der naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften des Aristoteles,"
München. philol. Abhandl. 1848,) remarks justly that the critical
arrangement of Aristotle's writings, for collective publication,
begins from the library of Apellikon at Rome, not from that of
Alexandria. See p. 146: "Mehr als zweihundert Jahre lang fehlt uns
alle nähere Kunde über die peripatetische Schule. Erst mit der viel
besprochenen Auffindung der Bibliothek des Aristoteles in Athen und
deren Wegführung nach Rom durch Sulla wird ein regeres Studium für
die Schriften des Philosophen bemerkbar--_und zwar jetzt eigentlich
der Schriften, weniger der Lehre und Philosophie im Allgemeinen,
welche früher allein beachtet worden ist_. Wir möchten sagen, von
jetzt an beginne das philologische Studium mit den Werken des
Aristoteles, die kritische und exegetische Behandlung dieser durch
Tyrannion, Andronikus, Adrastus und viele andre nachlfolgende," &c.]
The explanation just given, coinciding on many points with Brandis
and Heitz, affords the most probable elucidation of that obscurity
which arises about the Aristotelian Canon, when we compare _our_
Aristotle with the Catalogue of Diogenes--the partial likeness, but
still greater discrepancy, between the two. It is certain that
neither Cicero[32] nor the great Alexandrine _literati_, anterior to
and contemporary with him, knew Aristotle from most of the works
which we now possess. They knew him chiefly from the dialogues, the
matters of history and legend, some zoological books, and the
problems; the dialogues, and the historical collections respecting
the constitutions of Hellenic cities,[33] being more popular and
better known than any other works. While the Republic of Plato is
familiar to them, they exhibit no knowledge of our Aristotelian
Politica, in which treatise the criticism upon the Platonic Republic
is among the most interesting parts. When we look through the
contents of our editions of Aristotle the style and manner of
handling is indeed pretty much the same throughout, but the subjects
will appear extremely diverse and multifarious; and the
encyclopedical character of the author, as to science and its
applications, will strike us forcibly. The entire and real Aristotle,
however, was not only more encyclopedical as to subjects handled, but
also more variable as to style and manner of handling; passing from
the smooth, sweet, and flowing style--which Cicero extols as
characterizing the Aristotelian dialogues--to the elliptical brevity
and obscurity which we now find so puzzling in the De Animâ and the
Metaphysica.[34]
[Footnote 32: This is certain, from the remarks addressed by Cicero
to Trebatius at the beginning of the Ciceronian Topica, that in his
time Aristotle was little known and little studied at Rome, even by
philosophical students. Trebatius knew nothing of the Topica, until
he saw the work by chance in Cicero's library, and asked information
about the contents. The reply of Cicero illustrates the little notice
taken of Aristotle by Roman readers. "Cum autem ego te, non tam
vitandi laboris mei causâ, quam quia tua id interesse arbitrarer, vel
ut eos per te ipse legeres, vel ut totam rationem a doctissimo quodam
rhetore acciperes, hortatus essem, utrumque ut ex te audiebam, es
expertus. Sed a libris te obscuritas rejecit: rhetor autem ille
magnus, ut opinor, _Aristotelia se ignorare_ respondit. Quod quidem
minime sum admiratus, eum philosophum rhetori non esse cognitum, _qui
ab ipsis philosophis, præter admodum paucos, ignoraretur._" Compare
also Cicero, Academ. Post. i. 3, 10.]
[Footnote 33: Even the philosophical commentators on Aristotle, such
as David the Armenian, seem to have known the lost work of Aristotle
called [Greek: Politei=ai] (the history of the constitutions of 250
Hellenic cities), better than the theoretical work which we possess,
called the Politica; though they doubtless knew both. (See Scholia ad
Categorias, Brandis, p. 16, b. 20; p. 24, a. 25; p. 25, b. 5.)--We
read in Schneider's Preface to the Aristotelian Politica (p. x.):
"Altum et mirabile silentium est apud antiquitatem Græcam et Romanam
de novâ Aristotelis Republicâ, cum omnes ferè scriptores Græci et
Romani, mentione Reipublicæ Platonicæ pleni, vel laudibus vel
vituperiis ejus abundant."--There is no clear reference to the
Aristotelian Politica earlier than Alexander of Aphrodisias. Both
Hildenbrand (Geschichte der Staats- und Rechts-Philosophen, t. i. pp.
358-361), and Oncken (Staatslehre des Aristot. pp. 65-66), think that
the Aristotelian Politica was not published until after the purchase
of the library by Apellikon.]
[Footnote 34: What Strabo asserts about the Peripatetic Scholarchs
succeeding Theophrastus (viz., [Greek: mêde\n e)/chein philosophei=n
pragmatikô=s, a)lla\ the/seis lêkuthi/zein]: that they could not
handle philosophy in a businesslike way--with those high generalities
and that subtle analysis which was supposed to belong to
philosophy--but gave smooth and ornate discourses on set problems or
theses) is fully borne out by what we read in Cicero about these same
Peripatetics. The Stoics (immediate successors and rivals) accused
their Peripatetic contemporaries even of being ignorant of Dialectic: