THE

WORKS OF ARISTOTLE
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH UNDER THE EDITORSHIP
OF

SIR

DAVID ROSS

VOLUME

XII

SELECT FRAGMENTS

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1952

Oxford University

Press,

Amen

House, London E.C. 4

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS CAPE TOWN

Geoffrey Cumberlege, Publisher to the University

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE
IT was suggested to me many years ago by Prof. A. E. Taylor that a translation of some of the fragments of Aristotle s lost

works would be a useful addition to the Oxford Translation of the extant works. I then thought that I had enough on my hands without this addition. In the interval, however, interest in the fragments has been quickened by the pioneer work of such scholars as Prof. Jaeger, Prof. Bignone, and Prof. Wilpert, and many passages not included in Rose s editions of the fragments have been recognized as being derived from Aristotle s lost works. A translation of the whole of the fragments included by Rose would not be of much general interest, and I have
thought
it

best to limit this selection to three of the sections

the dialogues, the logical works, and the philosophical works. The references in the notes to this trans lation are to the page and line of Rose s Teubner edition. At the
in his editions

same time I have included many other passages which have been with probability assigned to Aristotle by the scholars named above and others. I must in particular express my indebtedness to Dr. R. Walzer, who has not only published a useful edition of some of the fragments, but has called my attention to others which would otherwise have escaped my notice, and has lent me some useful books and articles. It is not intended to make any further addition to the Oxford Translation of Aristotle.

W.

D. R.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
DIALOGUES
Gryllus, or
vii

I-IO2

On

Rhetoric

Symposium
Sophistes

8-14
15

Eudemus, or On Soul
Nerinthus
Eroticus
Protrepticus On J^da//A

16-23

24 25-26 27-56 57
58

On Prayer On Good Birth

Pleasure

Education

Ow Kingship
Alexander
Politicus

Ow Po^s On Philosophy Ow Justice

59-62 63 64 65-66 67 68-71 72-77 78-99 100-2

LOGICAL WORKS On Problems

Divisions
Dissertations
Categories On Contraries

103-14 104
105 106

107-8 109-14

PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS Ow #w Gocwi On ideas On Pythagoreans

H5~49
115-23 124-33 134-46 147 148-9

^
/Ad

Philosophy of Archytas

On Democritus

CONTENTS
AUTHORS QUOTED
ROSE
S

150
155

NUMBERING OF FRAGMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

156
l6l

INTRODUCTION
THE oldest lists of Aristotle s works that have come down to us from antiquity are those written by Diogenes Laertius, in the third century A.D., and by Hesychius, probably in the
fifth.

A strong case has been made

rest
list

out by E. Howald for the

1

view that both lists (about 200 B.C.).

Diogenes

on the good authority

of

Hermippus

begins as follows:

books 2 books 3 4 Philosophy, 3 books 5 Politicus, 2 books

Justice, 4

On On On

Poets, 3

On

Rhetoric, or Gryllus, I
i

book 6

book Nerinthus, Sophistes, i book Menexenus, i book Eroticus, i book 7 Symposium, i book On Wealth, i book Protrepticits, i book On Soul* i book On Prayer, i book On Good Birth, 9 i book
In Hermes, 1920, 204-21. Cicero, p. 100 infra, refers to its four books; Suetonius, p. 100 infra, refers to the first book.
1
1

p. 73 infra, refers to book i ; Macrobius, p. 75 infra, Ps.-Plutarch, p. 76 infra, to book 3. Hesychius says 4 books Syrianus, p. 83 infra, refers to book 2; Philodemus, p. 78 infra, and Cicero, p. 97 infra, refer to book 3. 5 woAiTiKoC d j5 4 MSS. of Diogenes; irtpi irohriKov i MS. of Diogenes;

Diogenes Laertius,
2
;

to

book

noXiTiKov d Hesychius.
6
7

3 books

From pp. 11-14 */ra we may the work On Drunkenness.

8

Syrianus, p. 68 infra, refers to the second book. Hesychius. infer that this work was also known as

We

infra, that this

9

learn from Plutarch, pp. 16, 18 infra, was also called Eudemus.

and from Simplicius,

is

p. 21

Plutarch says, p. 60 infra, that the genuineness of this work

doubtful,

viii

INTRODUCTION
On
Pleasure, i book 1 Alexander, or On Colonists, i

book

On Kingship, i book On Education, i book.

The
list

goes on to

On the Good, 3 books From Plato s Laws, 3 books From the Republic, 2 books On Economy, i book On Friendship, i book,
and so on.
It is clear that the first nineteen works in Diogenes list formed for him a separate group, arranged according to the number of books each work contained, and that from it he went on to a second group similarly arranged. The same nineteen works appear at the beginning of Hesychius list, except that the Alexander appears a little later and its place
is

taken by the Economicus.

Some

of these

works are known to have been dialogues.

The works On Poets, On Philosophy, and On Soul (orEudemus) are explicitly so described by ancient authors. 2 The form of Politicus fr. i, Eudemus fr. 6, and On Good Birth frs. i, 2, 4
shows that these were dialogues.
Themistius reference to
the Corinthian dialogue 3 is usually taken to refer to the Nerinthus. The Historia Augusta says that Cicero s Hortensius was modelled on the Protrepticus* and as the Hortensius

was a dialogue 5 the Protrepticus was probably one too. There is thus good evidence that several of the nineteen works that stand at the head of Diogenes and Hesychius lists were
it may be inferred with high probability, though not with certainty, that the others were so too.

dialogues

but Stobaeus, pp.

genuineness.
1

59, 61

infra,

and Athenaeus,

p.

61

infra,

confirm

its

Diogenes has vnep dnoiKwv, Hesychius virep airoiKuZv, which is more probable. But if, as is likely, virep is used in the sense of about , the sub title probably does not go back to Aristotle, who rarely uses v-nip in this sense. 2 For On Poets, see p. 72 infra for On Philosophy, pp. 78, 82 infra for the
;
;

Eudemus, pp. 19-22

3

infra.
4

See p. 24 infra.

See p. 27 infra.

See pp. 41, 42, 46 infra.

INTRODUCTION
It

ix

seems probable that Aristotle began with short dialogues called (on the Platonic model) by one-word names (three of which are actually identical with the names of Platonic dialogues), that from these he proceeded to works which were still dialogues but began to have something of the character of treatises and are therefore designated as on so-and-so, and later still went on to the large works containing more than one book. Thus we get, tentatively, three groups
:

1.

2.

Menexenus, Symposium, Sophistes, Nerinthus, Eroticus, Gryllus, Eudemus, Protrepticus, Alexander. On Wealth, On Prayer, On Good Birth, On Pleasure, On
Kingship,
Politicus,

3.

On Education. On Poets, On Philosophy, On

Justice.

further attempt to date the dialogues, it is necessary to have in mind the various periods of Aris totle s life. From his eighteenth year to his thirty-seventh

Before

we make any

(367-348/7) he was a member of the school of Plato at Athens. The next five years he spent partly at Assos, in Mysia, and partly at Mitylene, in Lesbos. From 343/2 to about 340 he was in Macedonia, tutoring Alexander the Great, and for about five years thereafter he was pursuing his studies in his native town, Stagira. From 335/4 till his death in 323 he was actively engaged as the head of his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens. We must make one alteration in our tentative grouping. The work Alexander, or On Colonists, is, as Jaeger has pointed out, suitable only to the time at which Alexander was en

gaged in setting up colonies in Asia, from (say) 331 B.C. onwards, while the work On Kingship (also addressed to Alexander) can most suitably be dated at or before Alexan der s succession to the throne in 336. Thus the work Alexander must be removed from the first group, and placed later than On Kingship in the second group. The Gryllus must be dated after the death of Gryllus at the battle of Mantinea in 362/1, but probably not very long after it. It may therefore well be the earliest of all Aristotle s works it is worth while to note that he had a model for it
l
;

See p. i infra.

x
in Plato s Gorgias. 1

INTRODUCTION

The Eudemus must be dated after, but probably not long after, the death of Eudemus in 354/3. Thus these two works, at least, probably belong to the time
of Aristotle s

membership

of the

Academy, while the work

On Kingship and
The

the Alexander belong to the period 343-331. date of the Protrepticus has been examined by B.

Einarson and by P. Von der Miihll in the articles mentioned in our bibliography. On the basis of connexions between the dialogue and Isocrates Antidosis, Einarson has argued for a date shortly after, and Von der Miihll for a date shortly before, 353, and it is likely that one or other of these scholars

The work On Philosophy, in which Aristotle right. vigorously attacked Plato s theory of Ideas, must have been written after Plato s death and Aristotle s withdrawal from the Academy. With regard to the rest of the dialogues we
is

cannot be certain whether they were written during or after Aristotle s membership of the Academy; but it is probable that most of them were written during it for the remaining
;

twenty-five years of his life are none too long to serve for the task of founding and directing the Peripatetic school, and of composing the vast fabric of the complete works that

have survived to our day, and the very many lost works other than dialogues that are named in the ancient lists of
his works.

There

is

an important point

of

form

in

which some

of

Aristotle s dialogues differed from Plato s. Plato never ap pears as a speaker in any of his dialogues. Cicero in one 2 passage speaks of the Aristotelian plan, in which the parts

are so assigned to others that the writer himself has the 3 principal part But in another passage he describes his own
.

De

Orator e as Aristotelian in method, though he is not in that work the chief speaker. Aristotle s practice, therefore, must have varied. The only dialogue in which it is certain that he

must have appeared as a speaker himself

is

the Politicus, in

which Cicero says expressly 4 that he did so. But there are phrases in fragments from the Eudemus* and the work On
1

As he had
Q- Fr-

for the
2

Eudemus
infra.

in the

Phaedo, and for the Protrepticus in the

3
5

Euthydemus.
4

Alt. 13. 19. 4, p. 3 infra.

Fam.
fr.

i. 9.

23, p. 3 infra.

3- 5- !

P-

68

2, p. 17 infra.

INTRODUCTION
1

xi

Philosophy which suggest that there too Aristotle appeared

Pseudepigraphus and in his Berlin edition fragments Rose included the work On Kingship and the Alexander among the dialogues (for him, the pseudoAristotelian dialogues), but in his Teubner edition he places these works partly among the speeches and partly among the letters in the latter case his ground seems to have been the occurrence of the phrase arrcaraXKOTaiv ( the senders ) in an extract from Strabo. 2 In this he was mistaken. Diogenes
of the
;
TU>V

in person. In his Aristoteles

expressly distinguishes these two works, which come in the first section of his list of Aristotle s works, from the four

volumes of letters to Alexander, which come near the end of the list and Hesychius places the two works near the be ginning of his list, but the letters to Alexander among the pseudographa at the end of his life. The phrase the senders proves nothing a dialogue, no less than a letter, might have been sent to Alexander. The pseudo-Ammonius distinguishes the two works in question from the letters, 3 and describes the work On Kingship as a single- volume book 4 and Cicero
; ; ;

also calls

it

a book. 5

Rose includes among the dialogues the work On the Good and the Magicus. But there is ample evidence that the former was not a dialogue, but Aristotle s record of Plato s famous lectures on the Good. As for the Magicus, Suidas s.v. Avrtcrdfrrjs says that some people assign it to Aristotle, but he himself assigns it to Antisthenes; it occurs nowhere in Diogenes list, and in Hesychius list only at the end, in a list of works which he describes as spurious. Of the works other than dialogues included in our selection, the most important were those On the Good and On Ideas. The former was Aristotle s record of the lectures in which
Plato unfolded the latest phase of his theory of Ideas, the theory of Ideal numbers and every fragment of it that we possess is of interest as helping to give us some understanding of that mysterious theory. Again, the researches of Jaeger and Wilpert have shown that the criticism of the ideal theory
;

frs. TO,

n, pp.

82, 83 infra.
*

p. 67 infra.
p. 65 infra.
5

p. 65 infra.

p. 65 infra.

xii

INTRODUCTION

Metaphysics A. 9 is in all probability based on an earlier and much fuller criticism in the work On Ideas, which, with the work On Philosophy, formed Aristotle s earliest expres sion of his breakaway from the Platonic system. Wilpert has been able to show that much more of On the Good and On Ideas (and also of On the Pythagoreans] can be recovered from the pages of the Greek commentators on Aristotle than had previously been recognized. The best existing commentary on the Eudemus, the Protrepticus, and the work On Philosophy is to be found in
in

Jaeger

s Aristoteles.

The ransacking

Aristotle has been carried further

of ancient literature to find fragments of by E. Bignone in many

articles catalogued in our Bibliography, and in his massive work L Aristotele Perduto e la Formazione Filosofica di

doubtful whether Greek or Latin literature has More is to be expected from the still unexplored field of Arabic literature on philosophy, and here a beginning has been made by R. Walzer (see pp. 23, 26 infra] who has also published a scholarly text of the fragments of the Eudemus, the Protrepticus, and the work
Epicuro. It
is

much more

to yield in this kind.

Philosophy. In our numbering of the fragments, R2 refers to Rose s to Walzer s Berlin edition, R 3 to his Leipzig edition, edition. In the notes on readings, R refers to Rose s Leipzig

On

edition.

DIALOGUES
TESTIMONIA
ARIST. Ph. i94 a 35-36: see p. 99 infra. ARIST.

De An. 404 b i8-2i:

see p. 83 infra.

ARIST. Poet. I454 b i5-i8. All these rules one must keep in mind throughout, and further, those also for such points of stage-effect as directly depend on the art of the poet, since in these, too, one may of ten make mistakes. Enough, however,

has been said on the subject in our published writings.

Cic. Inv. 2. 2. 6. Aristotle so greatly excelled in charm and brevity of speech the inventors of rhetoric themselves, that no one knows their precepts from their own books, but all who wish to understand their precepts return to him as to

an expositor much more suited to their needs.

Cic.DeOr. 1. 11.49. For this reason, if the natural philosopher Democritus was eloquent (as is commonly held and as I myself think), while his matter was that of a natural philo sopher his eloquence must be deemed to be that of an orator. And if Plato has, as I admit, spoken like a god about matters far removed from political controversy if Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Carneades were, on the subjects they discussed,
eloquent, charming, and polished in their language then, though the subjects they discuss belong to other studies, their language itself belongs to this single art which we are

speaking about and inquiring into.

if anyone ever comes forward who can, manner, put forward both sides on every subject, and can with knowledge of Aristotle s precepts

Ibid. 3. 21. 80.

But

in the Aristotelian

i.e.

in the

dialogue

On

Poets.

FRAGMENTS

develop two contrary speeches on every question, or who can in the manner of Arcesilaus and Carneades argue against any proposition that is put forward, and who adds to that method this practice and training in speaking, let us agree that he
is

the true, the perfect, the only orator.

For this reason I approve all the more your judgement, Brutus, in following the Academic school, in whose doctrine and precepts methodical discussion is united with charm and fluency of speech although that very practice of the Peripatetics and Academics in the matter of speaking is such that, while there cannot be a perfect orator without it, it does not by itself make a perfect orator. For as the language of the Stoics is too terse and a little too much
Cic. Brut. 31. 1 20-1.

of

compressed to appeal to the ears of the public, so the lan guage of those others is too free and expansive for the prac tice of the courts and the forum. Who is richer in style than Plato? The philosophers say Jove speaks so, if he speaks Greek. Who is more sinewy than Aristotle, more charming than Theophrastus ?
3. The obscurity of Aristotle s Topics has re and the great rhetorician replied, I fancy, that he did not know the works of Aristotle. I have, indeed, been

Cic. Top.

i.
;

pelled

you

very little surprised that a rhetorician did not know a philo sopher who is unknown to philosophers themselves, all but a very few; for which they are the less to be pardoned because they ought to have been attracted not only by the things he has said and discovered, but also by the incredible
fluency and charm of his style.
Cic. Fin. 5. 5. 12. Since there are two kinds of books, written in popular style, and called by them exoteric,

one

and

another more precise kind which they left in the form of treatises, Aristotle and Theophrastus seem not to be always consistent with themselves on the subject of the supreme good.
Cic. Lucullus 38. 119 (Plasberg)
:

see p. 92 infra.

DIALOGUES
Cic. Fant.
I. g.

23. 1

manner
in

(at least

have written, therefore, in the Aristotelian that was what I wanted to do), three books

my

discussion or dialogue

On

the Orator.

Cic. Alt. 4. 16. 2.

You know

have put into the mouths

Manilius the discussion
I

the style of dialogues. ... I of Africanus, Philus, Laelius, and

my

On the State which I have started; And so I planned, in have added some young men. having a preface in each book, as Aristotle does in the books which he calls exoteric, to do something that would justify me in appealing to him which I believe will please you; heaven grant that I may complete my effort
.
. .

Ibid. 13. 19. 3-4. If I had represented Cotta and Varro as disputing with one another, as your last letter advises me to do, my role would have been a silent one. This has a good
effect

when

characters from antiquity are introduced

Hera-

elides

has used the device in many works, and we have done so in our six books On the State. There are also three books of ours On the Orator which I think very highly of in those, too, the persons are such that it was right for me to be silent. I am supposed to be a boy when that dialogue starts, so that I could have no part of my own. But what I have now written follows the Aristotelian plan, in which the parts are so assigned to others that the writer himself has the principal part. I have completed in this manner five books On Ends.
7
;
. . .

Cic. Q. Fr. 3. 5. i

see p. 68 infra.

QUINT. 10. i. 83. What shall I say of Aristotle? I doubt whether I admire him more for his knowledge, for the
copiousness of his writings, for the charm of his language, for his keenness of invention, or for the wide range of his

works.

Dio CHR.

Or. 53. i. Indeed Aristotle himself, from whom they say criticism and grammar took their origin, discusses the poet in several dialogues, for the most part admiring and honouring him.

FRAGMENTS
a.

PLU. Mor. 447 f-448

Why

is

it

that in philosophical in

by others and often changing one s ground is not always painful, and that Aristotle him self, Democritus, and Chrysippus gave up without fuss or ill-feeling, and indeed with pleasure, some of their former opinions? It is because no passion opposes the part of the soul that contemplates and learns in such cases the irrational part remains calm and does not concern itself, so that reason willingly turns towards the truth when it appears, and abandons what is untrue.
quiries the process of being led
;

Ibid. 1115 b-c.

totle

With regard to the Ideas, about which Aris chides Plato, misrepresenting them completely and

bringing every possible objection against them, in his ethical works, in his metaphysical works, in his physical works, in his popular dialogues, he seemed to some to be polemical
trine, as
;

rather than philosophical in his attitude towards this doc though his object was to belittle the Platonic philo
far

sophy so

was he from following

it.

DIOG. Oen. fr. 4, col. i. y-col. 2. 8. WTien they say that things cannot be apprehended, what else are they saying than that we ought not to study nature who will choose to look for what he can never find ? Aristotle and the members of his school say nothing can be known, since owing to the mere speed of their fluxion things escape our apprehension.
;

14. 6. 9-10. Cephisodorus, when he saw his master Isocrates being attacked by Aristotle, was ignorant of and unversed in Aristotle himself, but, seeing the repute which

Eus. P.E.

Plato s views enjoyed, he thought that Aristotle was follow ing Plato; so he waged war on Aristotle but was really attacking Plato. His criticism began with the Ideas and finished with the other doctrines things which he himself

did not

know; he was only guessing

at the

meaning

of the

opinions held about them. This Cephisodorus was not fight ing the person he was attacking, but was fighting the person he did not wish to attack.
1
1

i.e.

not Aristotle but Plato.

DIALOGUES
THEM. meant
Or.

319

c.

And so Aristotle

for the multitude, are full

is

popular works, which arc of light and translucent

; ;

not unmixed with enjoyment and pleasure Aphrodite and the Graces blossom on them.
their usefulness

BASIL, Ep. 135.

Even

of secular philosophers those

who wrote

dialogues, Aristotle and Theophrastus, at once got to grips with the facts, because they were conscious of their lack of

the Platonic graces.

in Cat. 6. 25-27. 4. We say that the Philosopher has evidently expressed his views in different ways. In the acroamatic works he is, as regards the thought, terse, com

AMM.

and full of questions, and as regards the language quite ordinary, owing to his search for precise truth and clearness he sometimes even invents words if necessary. In
pressed,
;

the dialogues, which he has written for the many, he aims at a certain fullness, a careful choice of diction and metaphor,

and modifies the

in short

style of his diction to suit the speakers, and does everything that can beautify his style.
14. Of the general works, some are hypothose which the philosopher put together to memory and with a view to submitting them to
4.
1
.

SIMP, in Cat.

mnematic,
aid his

viz.

own

19-20. Alexander says these works have been hastily put together and do not aim at one end; for which reason, and to distinguish them from these, he says
further testing.
.
.

the others are called systematic. Of these some are in dialogue form, while in others Aristotle speaks in his own person.

SIMP, in

discussions Aristotle

Caelo 288. 31-289. 2. By popular philosophical means those originally intended for the many, which we are wont also to call exoteric, as we call the more serious books acroamatic and systematic Aristotle
;

De

speaks of this in the books

On

Philosophy.

ELI AS in Cat. 114. 15. In some of his systematic works Aris totle speaks in his own person (and these are also called
1

i.e.

of Aphrodisias.

FRAGMENTS

acroamatic), while others are in dialogue form, and are also called exoteric. The former class, as being works in which he

speaks in his own person, are opposed to the dialogues, and as being acroamatic they are opposed to the exoteric works. For, wishing to benefit all men, Aristotle wrote both in his own person, for philosophical students ... 22 and in dialogue form, for those who were not. In the acroamatic works, since he was addressing people who were prepared to think philo sophically, he used conclusive arguments, while in the 115. 3-5. Alexander dialogues he used probable arguments mentions another difference between the acroamatic works and the dialogues, that in the former Aristotle says what he thinks and what is true, while in the latter he expresses the
false opinions of others.

124. 3-6. In those of the general works which are dialogues, i.e. the exoteric works, he is clear, because he is arguing for non-philosophers, but because he is arguing
Ibid.

among

dialecticians he

is

versatile in his impersonations, full

of Aphrodite

and overflowing with the Graces.

GRYLLUS,

or

ON RHETORIC
R 3 68)

1 (R 2 57,

DIOG. LAERT. 2. 6. 55. Aristotle says that a host of people wrote encomia and funeral speeches on Gryllus, partly in the wish to please his father.
1

2 (R 2 58, R 3 69)

Let us pass, then, to the question that was not doubted whether rhetoric is an art. This by any of those who have handed down rules for oratory. With these most of the Stoic and the Peripatetic philosophers agree. ... 4. I, for my part, think that those who argued against this were not so much saying what they really thought as wishing to exercise their wits by dealing with a difficult subject. ... 5. Some want rhetoric to be a natural from gift. ... 7. They maintain that nothing which proceeds n. that that art can have existed before the art did which a man does without learning to do it has nothing to do with art, but that even men who have not learned to speak do speak. ... 14. Aristotle, according to his wont, from

QUINT,

hist. 2. 17. i.

follows,

sheer love of inquiry worked out in the Gryllus some argu ments which show his usual subtlety. But he also wrote three books on the art of rhetoric, and in the first of them admits that rhetoric is not merely an art; he assigned to it an

element of political science, as well as one of dialectic.

2 3 3 (R 133, R 139)

13. The most famous of Gorgias disciples was although the authorities are not agreed on the question who Isocrates teacher was but we believe Aristotle.

Ibid. 3.

i.

Isocrates

i.e.

Xenophon.

SYMPOSIUM
TESTIMONIA
PLU. Mor. 612 d-e. To forget entirely what has been said and done in wine seems not only to conflict with the reputed

tendency of the table to promote friendliness, but also to have the witness of the most famous philosophers against it Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and Speusippus, Epicurus, Prytanis, Hieronymus, and Dion the Academic, who have thought it worth some trouble to record sayings made at the
wine-table.

MACROB.
either to

Sat. 7. 3. 23. I advise you at your feasts propound or yourselves to resolve questions

suit

to the occasion. This kind of thing the ancients were so far from thinking ridiculous that both Aristotle and Plutarch and your Apuleius wrote on such ques

able

tions.

I 1 (R 2 175,

R 3 IOO)

ATH. 178

e-f. Homer, exact in all things, did not omit even this small thing, that we ought to tend and wash our poor bodies before going to a meal. At least he says of Odysseus

that before the feast at the Phaeacian court The house 2 And of Telemachus keeper straightway bade him bathe he went to the companions says, They polished baths and bathed 3 For it was unbecoming, as Aristotle says, to go to the drinking-party covered with sweat and dust a man of taste, as Heraclitus says, should not be slovenly or unwashed
. .

or delight in mire.
1

Rs s
Od. Od.

fr.

99

is

is

right, there is
2
3

no reason

omitted because, even if Nauck s emendation ^piaroreAouj for supposing the passage to refer to Aristotle s

Symposium.
8.

449

4. 48.

SYMPOSIUM
2 (R 2 I08, R 3 IOI)

ATH. 674 6-675 a. Sappho bids those who do sacrifice to be crowned with chaplets, as being something gayer and more
pleasing to the gods.

And Aristotle in his Symposium says that nothing mutilated to the gods, but things perfect and whole now that which is complete is perfect, and garlanding oneself signifies a sort of completion. Homer says The and The god young men crowned the bowls with wine crowns his beauty with words 2 those who are unshapely in aspect, he means, are made good by the charm of speech.
we
offer
;

what the garland seems to mean. Accordingly grief we arrange things in the opposite way in fellow-feeling for the departed we disfigure ourselves by cutting our hair and giving up our garlands.
This, then,
is

on occasions of

Cf. Schol. in Theocr. 3. 21.

2 3 3 (R 98, R I02)

ATH. 40 c-d. Seleucus says it was the ancient custom not to take wine, beyond the ordinary, or to enjoy any other luxury, except in honour of the gods. It was for this reason feast that they used the words festivity and drunken ness the first because they thought it was in honour of the
,

gods that we ought to drink wine, the second because it was in honour of the gods that they assembled and came together 3 (this is what Homer s rich feast means), while drunken ness, Aristotle says, is so called because it is the taking of wine after sacrifices to the gods. 4
PHILO, De Plant. 34. 141. What the lawgiver said about drunkenness we shall later see precisely let us now examine 5 what others thought. The question was much debated by
;

wise
1

many of the philosophers, and is propounded thus: Will the man get drunk ? Getting drunk has two meanings
;

II. i.

470.
is

Od.

8. 170.

Od.

3. 420, etc.

4
5

The common element

Reading
in

the theta in dtos, Ooivj, QaXia, 6v.v,

R. 99. 13

<ftpevvrjowntv,

with Cohn and Wendland.

io
in

FRAGMENTS
one
it is

silly

when

in wine.

equivalent to being in wine in the other to being Of those who attacked the problem, some
;

said the wise man would neither drink too much strong drink nor become maudlin. ... 35. 144. The others declared that being in wine was becoming even to a good man, while 38. 154. Unmixed drink the being maudlin was not. ancients called not only wine but also liquor at all events the name is often used in poetry, so that if synonyms ( wine and liquor ) are names for a single thing, words derived
. . .

from them ( being in wine and being in liquor ) will differ 1 155. If the good man is to be in wine, he only in sound will also get drunk. 156. We have mentioned one argu ment to show that the wise man will get drunk the second is as follows. ... 39. 160. My purpose has been to show that people do not now take strong drink in the way the ancients did. 161. Our fathers began every good work with sacred
. . . . .
.

thinking that so the result would be most propitious, because they had begun with prayer and sacrifice and even
rites,
;

the need for action was urgent, still they waited, thinking that more haste is sometimes less speed. Speed without fore sight was, they thought, harmful, while leisureliness with good hope for the future was advantageous. Knowing, then,
if

that even 2 the enjoyment and use of wine needs much care, 3 they did not take strong drink to their fill nor at all times,

manner and in due season. They first prayed and propitiated the divine power, and purified their bodies and souls, the former with baths and the latter with the streams of laws and right education, and then turned, cheerful and rejoicing, to a relaxed way of 4 life they often did not return to their homes but continued in the temples in which they had sacrificed, so that, remem bering the sacrifices and respecting the place, they might feast in the manner most befitting to a sacred place, erring neither in word nor in action. It is from this, indeed, that
but in
fitting

and

offered sacrifices

Reading

in

R.

v7TOK(ifj.evov Ae yerai,

KaQ 99. 23-24 e /i^epo/itvov, aiar tl TOL avvatw^ovvra oivos xai fi.f6v, Kai TO. OLTTO TOVTWV ovotv OTI firj

tvos
ais

4>a>i

oioiad novov, TO re olvovoOai Kal TO pfOveiv [ev], with 2 Reading in R. 100. 8 on *cal 17, with Cohn and
J

Reading Reading

in
in

R. R.

100.
100.

Cohn and Wendland. Wendland. 9 aoyv, with Cohn and Wendland. 16 SiareAoCvrey, with Cohn and Wendland.

SYMPOSIUM
1

ii

they say getting drunk gets its name, because it was the custom of our forefathers to take wine after sacrifice. To whom, then, could the manner we have described of using 2 strong drink be more fitting than to wise men, to whom the sacrifice that precedes the drinking is also fitting ? For one might almost say that no bad man really performs the sacred rites, even if without cessation he brings ten thousand oxen
to the altar every day. For the most necessary sacrifice, his mind, is blemished, and it is not lawful for blemished persons to touch the altar. This is the second argument. ... 40. 165-6. The third depends 3 on a different guess at the etymology. Some people think that drunkenness is so called not only because it is achieved after sacrifice, but also because it

causes relaxation of soul. 4

foolish
is

Now when

the reasoning of the

relaxed, that leads to the strengthening of many errors, but when that of the wise is relaxed, it leads to the enjoyment of relaxation, contentment, and cheerfulness. For

man who has taken wine becomes sweeter-tempered than he was when sober, so that in this respect too 5 we should make no mistake in saying that he will get drunk.
a wise
Cf.

PLU. Mor. 503 6-504 b.

2 3 4 (R 99, R 103)

(Keller). Aristotle in his book on drunkenness says that Andron of Argos, though he ate many salty and dry foods, remained all through his life without thirst and without drink. Besides, he twice travelled to Ammon through the desert, eating dry barley-groats but taking no liquid.
Cf.
i.

APOLLON. Mirab. 25

ATH. 44
84.

d,

DIOG. LAERT.

9.

n.

81,

SEXT. EMP. Pyrr.

fidh tn-

fitrd-\-0vfiv

1 J

Omitting vvv in R. 100. 22, with Cohn and Wendland. Reading in R. 100. 28-101. 2 rpiros ijprTj/^Vos, with Cohn and
. . .

Wend

land.
in

Reading

R.

101. 8 oi55

av Tavry, with

Cohn and Wendland.

12

FRAGMENTS
3 2 5 (R IOO, R 104)

ATH. 641 d-e. Aristotle

these, as

in his

book on drunkenness
words:

calls 1

must we do, second consider that a sweetmeat differs entirely from food, as much as 2 an eatable differs from a "sucket" (the old Greek name for a sweetmeat when it is served as dessert) 3 so that the
tables, in these
;

We

person to speak of "second tables" seems to have been justified for the eating of sweets is a sort of extra dinner, and a sweet course forms a second meal.
first
;

Ibid. 641 b. Aristotle in his book on drunkenness says that sweetmeats were called by our ancestors suckets they were a kind of extra dinner.
;

Cf. Schol. in Aristoph.

Pacem

I.

772.

6 (R 2 2l8, R 3 I05)
Ps.-JuL. Ep. 391 b-c. The fig is not only pleasant to the but also better for the digestion. It is so useful to man kind that Aristotle even calls it an antidote to every poison,

taste,

and says it is just for that reason that at meals 4 it is served both as an hors-d oeuvre 5 and as dessert, as though it were being wrapped round the iniquities of the food in preference
to any other sacred antidote. And indeed that the fig is dedicated to the gods, is placed on the altar in every sacrifice, and is a better incense than any frankincense, this is not my account only; anyone who has learned its use knows that this is the account any wise man skilled in sacred rites would
give.
3 2 7 (R ioi, R io6)

ATH. 447 a-b. As Aristotle says in his book on drunkenness, those who have drunk the barley liquor called beer fall on
1

1
3

4
5

Reading in R. 102. 9 npoaayopevfi, with Kaibel. Reading in R. 102. 11 oaov, with the MSS. Omitting TO. ^pia^ara in R. 102. 12 with Kaibel. Reading in R. 102. 26 KO.V rofs Sdnvois, with Hercher. Reading in R. 102. 27 irpo-nap<ni9(a9ai, with Hercher.

SYMPOSIUM
their
;
:

13

The liquor made from barley called backs he says beer has a certain peculiarity people who are intoxicated
;

by other

to the liquors fall in all sorts of directions to the right, on their faces, on their backs; only those
fall

left,

who
on

are intoxicated with beer always their backs.

Cf.

backwards and

lie

ATH. 34

b.

8 (R 2 102, R 3 107)

ATH. 429 c-d. Aristotle in his book on drunkenness says: If the wine is boiled down to a moderate extent it is less the force of the liquor, he says, is weakened intoxicating by the boiling down. The old he adds, are intoxicated most quickly, owing to the scarcity and weakness of the natural heat in them. But also those who are very young are intoxicated fairly quickly because of the abundance of the inherent heat they are easily overcome by the added heat from the wine. Of dumb animals, too, pigs get intoxicated if they are fed with masses of pressed grapes; ravens and
; ,
;

dogs if they eat the wine-plant monkeys and elephants if they drink wine. This is why they capture monkeys and ravens by intoxicating the former with wine or the latter with wine-plant.
;

2 3 9 (R 103, R 108)

PLU. Mor. 650 a. Florus was surprised at the fact that who has written in his book on drunkenness that old men are overtaken most easily, and women least easily, by drunkenness, did not work out the reason, a thing he was not wont to fail to do.
Aristotle,

10 (R 2 104, R 3 109)
ATH. 429 f. The cup called Samagoreion made from three pints mixed will, according to Aristotle, intoxicate more than forty men.

i4

FRAGMENTS
II (R 2 105-6,

R 3 IIO-Il)

ATH. 464 c-d. Aristotle in his book on drunkenness says: The so-called Rhodian cups are introduced at drinking parties both because of the pleasure they give and because when they are heated they make the wine less intoxicating they are made by boiling water in which myrrh and rushes and the like have been thrown, and when they are poured into the wine the drinkers get less intoxicated. Elsewhere he says: The Rhodian cups are made of myrrh, rushes, dill, saffron, balsam, cardamom, and cinnamon boiled together; the cup made from these 2 when poured into the wine, checks intoxication, so that it even restrains people from sexual
;

intercourse,
Cf. ibid.

by
f.

cooling

down

their spirits.

496

12
PLU. Mor. 651 f-652 a. notion that wine is cold.
our view?
I

want to learn whence came our

You
then
?

think

said

I,

that that

is

he said. Well, I remember/ said I, happening not lately but quite a while ago on a discussion of this problem by Aristotle.
is it,
1

Whose

Reading in R. 104. 19 a\oivov, dvrjOov, with Wilamowitz. Omitting KCU in R. 104. 20, with the MSS.

SOPHISTES
1 (R2
3 54 R 6 5 )
,

DIOG. LAERT.

8. 2.

Empedocles

first

57 (3). Aristotle says in the Sophistes that discovered rhetoric, and Zeno dialectic.

Cf. ibid. 9. 5.

25

(4),

and SEXT. EMP. Dogtn.

2 (R 2 55, R 3 66)

i.

6-7.

DIOG. LAERT. 8. 2. 63 (9). Aristotle, too, says that Empedocles was free-minded and averse to all rule, since he declined the kingship which was offered him (as Xanthus says in his
account of him)
life.

no doubt because he preferred the simple

2 3 3 (R 56, R 67)

DIOG. LAERT. 9. 8. 54 (5). The first of his books that Prota goras read in public was that about the gods. ... He read it at Athens, in the house of Euripides, or, as some say, in that
of Heraclides, while others say it was in the Lyceum his pupil Archagoras the son of Theodotus read it for him. He
;

was accused by Pythodorus son of Polyzelus, one of the Four Hundred though Aristotle says his accuser was Euathlus.
;

EUDEMUS,
1 (R 2 32,

or

ON SOUL

R 3 37,

l)

Cic. Div. ad Brut. I. 25. 53. What? Is the great, the almost divine, intellect of Aristotle in error, or does he wish others to fall into error, when he writes that his friend Eudemus of Cyprus while on a journey to Macedonia came to Pherae, a Thessalian town of considerable note at the time, but held in cruel subjection by the tyrant Alexander. In that town

Eudemus fell so ill that all the doctors feared for He dreamed that a handsome young man told him

his

life.

that he

would soon recover, that in a few days the tyrant Alexander would die, and that in the fifth year thereafter Eudemus himself would return home. Aristotle writes that the first two predictions were fulfilled forthwith Eudemus recovered and the tyrant was killed by his wife s brothers. But towards the end of the fifth year, when the dream had led him to hope that he would return from Sicily to Cyprus, he died in battle at Syracuse. And so the dream had been interpreted as meaning that when Eudemus soul had left his body, it had returned to its home.
;

22. 3. With Dion acted many of the politicians, of the philosophers Eudemus the Cyprian, to whom after his death Aristotle dedicated his dialogue On Soul, and

PLU. Dion

and

Timonides the Leucadian.

2 (R 2

33>

R 3 38, W2)
Of the arguments that Plato

THEM, in De An,

106. 29-107. 5.

used about the immortality of the soul, pretty much the greater number and the most weighty find their basis in the reason. This is true both of the argument from self-move

ment (for it was shown that only the reason is self-moved, if we take movement to mean activity), of that which assumes learning to be recollection, and of that which speaks of the

EUDEMUS,
soul s likeness to God.

or

ON SOUL

17

Of the other arguments those thought

the more convincing could be without difficulty referred to the reason, and also the more convincing of those worked out by Aristotle himself in the Eudemus. From these facts
it is

clear that Plato, also, takes reason alone to be immortal.

2 3 3 (R 33, R

39>

w
1

3)

ELI AS in Cat. 114. 25. Aristotle establishes the immortality of the soul in his acroamatic works as well, and there he establishes it by conclusive arguments, but in the dialogues he naturally uses probable arguments. ... 32. In his dialogues he says that the soul must be immortal because we all instinctively make libations to the departed and swear by the departed, but no one can make a libation to that which is completely non-existent, or swear by it. 115. 11-12. It is chiefly in his dialogues that Aristotle seems to announce
.
. .

the immortality of the soul.

3 2 4(R 34 R 4 o,
,

4)

Plato joined the soul to the body immediately, cutting out all the problems about the descent d. Nor will he tell us here what happens after of the soul.
c.
. .
.

PROCL. in Tim. 338

the departure of the soul confines himself to what

because

is

(as I will maintain) he fitting to the purpose of the

dialogue, and admits here just so much of the theory of the soul as is physical, describing the soul s companionship with the body. Aristotle in emulation of him treats physically of

the soul in the De Anima, saying nothing either about its descent or about its fortunes but in his dialogues he dealt 2 separately with those matters and offered the preceding
;

argument.
5 (R 35,
2

R 3 4 i,

ws)

349. 13-26 (Kroll). The divine Aristotle, also, states the reason why the soul on coming hither from

PROCL. in Remp.
1

2.

i.e.

scientific

works representing Aristotle

i

teaching to the

members

of

his school.
*

Reading

in R. 47.

*aT/3aATo, with Diehl.

645.29

i8

FRAGMENTS
1

yonder forgets the sights it saw there, but on going from here remembers yonder its experiences here. We must accept the argument for he himself says that on their journey from health to disease some people forget even the letters they had learned, but that no one ever has this experience when passing from disease to health; and that life without the
;

body, being natural to souls, is like health, and life in the body, as being unnatural, is like disease. For there they live according to nature, but here contrary to nature so that it 2 naturally results that souls that pass from yonder forget the things there, while souls that pass yonder from this world continue to remember the things in it.
;

6 (R 2 40, R 3 44,

w 6)

PLU. Mor. 115 b-e. Many wise men, as Grantor says, not only recently but long ago have bewailed the human lot, thinking life a punishment, and merely to be born a man the greatest
of misfortunes. Aristotle says that even Silenus revealed this to Midas when caught by him. But it is better to record the

Eudemus

philosopher s very words. He says this in the work called or On the Soul: Wherefore, best and most blessed of all men, not only 3 do we think the dead happy and blessed, and think it impious 4 to say anything untrue about them and to slander them, since they have already become better

and greater

among

this custom is so ancient and long established us that absolutely no one knows either the time of
;

or who first established it it seems to have been followed continuously for endless ages not only that, but you see the saying that has been current in the mouths of men for many years. 5 What is that? said the other. And he said in answer: Why, that not to be born is best
its origin

of all, and death better than life to many a man has the heavenly voice so testified. This, they say, is what happened
;

2
r}v

Reading Reading

yap eVei fiaivfiv, with Kroll. 3 Omitting in R. 48.

4
5

R. 47. 7 diroSe/creoi with Kroll. R. 47. 12-13 vyifia, rr/v 8e ev aa>fj.aaiv, tvravBa 8e irapa fj.fv Kara iftvaiv avrds,
in
,

in

ios

napa
<I>ar

(f>vaiv,

vooai.

<f>votv

eiKorws av/x-

n *cai before irpos, with one MS. Omitting jyovfjifda in R. 48. 14, with Bernays. 20 in R. 48. (for woAai) TTO^WV (rwv, with Paton. Reading

EUDEMUS,
to the

or

ON SOUL

19

famous Midas when he had caught Silenus and asked him what is the best thing for men and the thing most desirable of all Silenus at first would not say anything but maintained unbroken silence but when at last by using every device Midas had with difficulty induced him to say something, he said under compulsion: "Shortlived seed of a toilsome spirit and of a hard fate, why do you force me to say what it is better for you not to know ? The most painless
;
; 1

that lived in ignorance of one s own ills. To men it is quite impossible for the best thing of all to happen, nor can they share in the nature of the best (for it is best for all men and women not to be born), but the next best, and the best
life is

achievable for men, 2

may

be."

It is clear
is

spent in death

having been born, to die as soon as by this he meant that the time better than that spent in life.
is,

that 3

3 2 7 (R 4i, R 45,

wy)
having blamed alike having said nothing

PHILOP. in
all

those

De An. 141. who had spoken

22. Aristotle,

of the soul, for

about the body which was to receive it. ... 30 naturally goes on to link with this his opinion about the soul. Some thinkers looked to the same fact, that it is not a body of any chance constitution 4 that shares in soul, but it needs a definite con stitution, 5 just as attunement is not produced by any chance state of the strings but needs 6 a definite degree of tension of them they thought, therefore, that the soul too is an attune ment of the body, and that the different kinds of soul answer to the 7 different attunements of the body. This opinion Aristotle states and refutes. At first he merely records the opinion itself, but presently he sets forth the arguments that
;

led

them to it. He had already opposed this opinion else where, in the dialogue Eudemus, and before him Plato in the Phaedo had used some five arguments against this view.
. .

Reading Reading Reading Reading Reading Reading Reading

in

in in
in in

in
in

R. 49. 2 avayKa.6nfvov, with Paton. R. 49. 8 dvdpu>iroi$, with Wilamowitz. R. 49. 9-10 brjXov ovv on toy, with Reiske. R. 49. 17 ervxev tx ov w i tn Hayduck. R. 49. 17-18 8drai rotrjo&t xpaaccus, with Hayduck. R. 49. 19 Sctrat, with Hayduck. with Hayduck. R. 49. 20 rd?
<Ls
>

8ia<f>6povs,

20
144. 21.

FRAGMENTS

These are Plato s five objections. Aristotle himself, as I have already said, has used in the dialogue Eudemus the two following objections. One goes thus: Attunement he says, has a contrary, lack of attunement, but the soul has no contrary. Therefore the soul is not an attunement. One might reply to this that there is strictly no contrary to 2 attunement, but rather an indefinite privation, and the soul, as being a form, has an indefinite opposite, and as we say in the case of music that a certain kind of lack of attune ment changes into attunement, 3 so a certain kind of privation 4 changes into soul. Aristotle s second objection is this: The of the attunement of the is the lack of attune contrary body ment of the body, and the lack of attunement of the living
, 1

is disease, weakness, and ugliness; of which, disease is lack of attunement of the elements, weakness lack of attune ment of the tissues, ugliness lack of attunement of the

body

organs.

If,

then, lack of attunement

is

disease, weakness,

and
;

ugliness, attunement is health, strength, and beauty; but soul is none of these, neither health nor strength nor beauty

even Thersites, the ugliest of men, had a soul. Therefore the soul is not an attunement. This is what Aristotle says in the Eudemus. But here 5 he has used four objections to refute this opinion, of which the third is the second of those in the Eudemus. 145. 21. Aristotle says in public dis cussions He must mean either his unwritten discussions with his associates or the exoteric writings (among which are the dialogues, e.g. the Eudemus}, which are called exoteric because they were not written for his genuine disciples, but
for
. . . .

147. 6-10. It is advantage of the many. more appropriate to call health (or generally the good state of the body) an attunement than to assert this of the soul.

for the general

is the third objection (the second in the Eudemus}. That health is an attunement he has shown in the Eudemus from its being the contrary of disease we have stated above

This

the course of the syllogism.

Omitting in R. 50. 8 evavrtov after Kvpiius, with Hayduck. Reading in R. 50. 9 oAAa /idAAov areprjai?, with Hayduck. Reading in R. 50. II roiavSe dvapfioariav /lera/SaiVeiv tls TTJV apjj.oviav, with 4 Reading in R. 50. 12 Scurepov, with Hayduck. Hayduck.
1

i.e.

in the

De Anima.

EUDEMUS,
SIMP, in

or

ON SOUL

21

53. 1-4. By the arguments used in public discussion Aristotle means those of the arguments used which are adapted to the intelligence of most people, hinting

De An.

perhaps at those in the Phaedo, but meaning also those used by himself in the dialogue Eudemus to refute the attunement
theory.

THEM, in De An. 24. 13. Another opinion about the soul has been handed down, which is as plausible as any, and has rendered account of itself and been examined both in public and in private discussions. Some people say soul is an attune ment for attunement is a mixture and combination of con traries, and the body is composed of contraries, so that that which brings these into concord and harmonizes them hot and cold, moist and dry, hard and soft, and all the other
;

contrarieties of the elements

is

nothing other than soul, just

as the attunement of notes blends low notes with high. The argument is plausible, but has been refuted in many places

both by Aristotle and by Plato. The soul, they say, is prior to body, but harmony is posterior the soul rules and over sees the body and often fights it, but harmony does not fight with the things that have been harmonized harmony admits
;
;

of

harmony, so long as it is preserved, does not admit disharmony, but soul admits wickedness if the disharmony of the body is disease, ugli ness, or weakness, the harmony of the body must be beauty, health, and strength, not soul all these things have been said by the philosophers elsewhere but what Aristotle says now is this. ... 25. 23-25. That those who say the soul is a harmony would seem to be neither very near to nor very far from the truth is clear, then, both from what Aristotle has said now and from what he has said elsewhere.
less,
;

more and
;

soul does not

in Phd. 173. 20 (Norvin). Aristotle in the Eudemus objects as follows: Disharmony is contrary to harmony, but soul has no contrary, since it is a substance the conclusion

OLYMP.

the disharmony of the elements of an animal is disease, their harmony must be health, not soul. 30. The third argument is the same as the second in the
is

obvious. Again,

if

Eudemus.

22

FRAGMENTS
much so as any of those that are recorded.

SOPHON. in De An. 25. 4-8. There has been handed down yet another opinion about the soul, which many people find
plausible, as
It has,

however, already been brought to account and refuted by appropriate arguments which have been published both by our arguments addressed to Eudemus and by those in Plato s Phaedo but none the less they will be criticized now as well. Some say the soul is a harmony.
;

8 (R 2 42, R 3 46,
SIMP, in

8)

De An. 221. 20-33. Plato is in every case accustomed to call by the same name the Forms and the things that are formed according to them. But Aristotle, when the thing
formed

is divisible, avoids using the same name, because of the great difference between the divisible thing and the indivisible form. The reasoning soul he describes not only

for as it is between the in being in a sense both, so too it is between the limit and the limited, exhibiting both characters the latter as moving discursively, the former because it always moves in obedience to limits and because all that has been unfolded is gathered into one in this respect it is likened to the limiting reason. And because of this he says in his dialogue on the soul called Eudemus that the soul is a form, and praises those who describe the soul as receptive of forms not the whole soul but the rational soul, as knowing the forms that have the second degree of truth for

as limited but also as a limit

divisible

and the

divisible,

it is

to reason,

which

is

greater than soul, that the really true

forms correspond.
3 2 9 (R 3 8, R 43)

PLU. Mor. 733 c. Aristotle has recorded that in CiliciaTimon s grandmother hibernated two months in each year, giving no
sign of
life

except by breathing.

10
PLU. Mor. 382 d-e. The knowledge of that which is knowable, pure, and simple, flashing like lightning through the soul,

EUDEMUS,
it

or

ON SOUL
see.

23

This is why Plato and grants Aristotle call this part of philosophy a mystic vision, inas much as those who forsake these confused and various objects
at times to touch

and

of opinion leap in thought to that primary, simple, and immaterial object, and, gaining true contact with the pure truth about it, think that, as though by initiation into the

mysteries, they have attained the end of philosophy.

II
AL-KiNDi, cod. Taimuriyye Falsafa 55. Aristotle tells of the Greek king whose soul was caught up in ecstasy, and who for many days remained neither alive nor dead. When he came to himself, he told the bystanders of various things in the invisible world, and related what he had seen souls, forms, and angels; he gave the proofs of this by foretelling to all his acquaintances how long each of them would live. All he had said was put to the proof, and no one exceeded the span of life that he had assigned. He prophesied, too, that after a year a chasm would open in the country of Elis, and after two years a flood would occur in another place and everything happened as he had said. Aristotle asserts that the reason of this was that his soul had acquired this know ledge just because it had been near to leaving his body and had been in a certain way separated from it, and so had seen what it had seen. How much greater marvels of the upper world of the kingdom would it have seen, then, if it had
;

really left his

body!

AL-KINDI, cod.
the soul that

Aya
it

is

Sofia 4832, fol. 34. Aristotle asserts of a simple substance whose actions are

manifested in bodies.

12
SERV. in Aen. 6. 448. Caeneus, now a woman. Caenis was a girl who won from Neptune as the price of her shame a change of sex. Virgil refers to the Platonic or Aristotelian view that souls often by metempsychosis change their sex.
. . .

NERINTHUS
I

(R* 53, R3 64)

man, after some slight association amusements whichever you call them had almost the same experience as the philosopher Axiothea, Zeno of Citium, and the Corinthian farmer. Axiothea, after reading a book of Plato s Republic, migrated from Arcadia to Athens and attended Plato s lectures for a long time with

THEM.

Or. 295 c-d. This

with

my

studies or

out being discovered to be a woman like Lycomedes Achilles. The Corinthian farmer after coming into contact with Gorgias not Gorgias himself but the dialogue Plato

wrote in criticism of the sophist forthwith gave up his farm and his vines, put his soul under Plato s guidance, and made it a seed-bed and a planting ground for Plato s philosophy. This is the man whom Aristotle honours in his Corinthian dialogue. The facts about Zeno are well known and are recounted by many writers that the Apology of Socrates brought him from Phoenicia to the painted Stoa.
1 The work Nerinthus, which occurs in the lists of Aristotelian works preserved by Diogenes Laertius and Hesychius, is not mentioned under that name by any other ancient writer, nor does the name Nerinthus occur else where. The identification of the work with the Corinthian dialogue named by Themistius, and of Nerinthus with the Corinthian farmer is purely conjectural, but not unlikely to be right.
,

EROTICUS
I (R 2

3 QI, R 96)

ATH. 564
of the

b. Aristotle

body

of their beloved

says that lovers look at no other part than the eyes, in which modesty

dwells.

2 (R 2 92, R 3 97) PLU. Pel. 18. 4. It is said also that lolaus, who was the beloved of Hercules, shares in the contests of the Thebans and throws the spear with them. Aristotle says that even in his time lovers and their beloved still pledged their troth on
the

tomb

of lolaus.

Cf.

PLU. Mor. 761 d-e.

2 3 3 (R 93, R 98)

PLU. Mor. 760 6-761 b. You know, I suppose, the death of Cleomachus of Pharsalus in battle.

what
.

led to

He came

with the Thessalian army as an ally to the people of Chalcis, when their war with the Eretrians was at its height. The Chalcidians thought their infantry strong, but the repulsing of the enemy s cavalry was a formidable task so his allies called on Cleomachus, whose courage was famous, to lead the attack against the cavalry. He asked his beloved, who was present, whether he was going to watch the contest.
;

the young man said greeted him lovingly, and nodded consent, Cleomachus, emboldened by this, called the best of the Thessalians together round him, made a brilliant charge, and fell on the enemy with such vigour as to throw the cavalry into confusion and rout them. When as a result
"Yes",
1 R* s fr. 95 is omitted, because eV SeoW/xu tpwnxwv seems to refer not to the Eroticus, which both Diogenes Laertius and Hesychius describe as having one book, but to the Ototis tpuiriKai, which they both describe as having

When

four books.

26

FRAGMENTS
;

of this the hoplites also took to flight, the Chalcidians gained a mighty victory but it so happened that Cleomachus was
killed.

in their market-place his tomb, on which to this day the great pillar stands and to the love of boys, which formerly they had reprehended, they from that time gave more devotion and honour than others do. Aristotle, however, says that Cleomachus died in other
;

The Chalcidians show

fashion after defeating the Eretrians in battle, that the lover in question was a Chalcidian from Thrace who was sent to

help the Chalcidians in Euboea, and that this is the origin of the Chalcidian song "Children, heirs of Graces and of splendid fathers, grudge not to the good the company of youthful prime; for along with courage limb-loosing love flourishes in the cities of the Chalcidians".

AL-DAILAMI, cod. Tubingen Weisweiler 81.

certain

It is said in

book

assembled While I was standing on a hill I saw a youth, who stood on a terrace roof and recited a poem, the meaning of which was:

of the ancients that the pupils of Aristotle before him one day. And Aristotle said to them:

Whoever
there
Issos:
is

no good

dies of passionate love, let him die in this manner in love without death. Then said his pupil
;

love.

O philosopher, inform us concerning the essence And Aristotle replied: Love is an impulse which
;

of
is

generated in the heart when it is once generated, it moves and grows; afterwards it becomes mature. When it has

become mature it is joined by affections of appetite whenever the lover in the depth of his heart increases in his excitement, his perseverance, his desire, his concentrations, and his wishes. And that brings him to cupidity and urges him to
demands, until it brings him to disquieting grief, continuous sleeplessness, and hopeless passion and sadness and destruc
tion of mind.

PROTREPTICUS
TESTIMONIA
Hist.

Aug.

2.

97.

20-22 (Hohl). Nor,

suppose, are the argu

ments unknown which Cicero used he modelled on the Protrepticus.

in his Hortensius,

which

NONIUS

394. 26-28. (Lindsay), s.v. contendere, intendere. Cicero in the Hortensius: for great mental effort must be

applied to the explaining of Aristotle,

if

you are

to read him.
to philo

MART. Cap.
sophize
is

5. 44. The question whether discussed in the Hortensius.

we ought

1 (R 2 47,

R3

50,

l)

STOB. 4. 32. 21. From Teles Epitome. Zeno said that Crates, as he sat in a shoemaker s workshop, read aloud the Pro trepticus, which Aristotle had written to Themison king of Cyprus, saying that no one had greater advantages for be coming a philosopher he had great wealth, so that he could
;

afford to spend money as well. As he read, the

on philosophy, and had reputation shoemaker listened while he went on

with his stitching, and Crates said: I think, Philiscus, that I shall inscribe a Protrepticus to you for I see you have more advantages for the study of philosophy than were his for
;

whom

Aristotle wrote.
2 (R 2 50,

R 3 51,

W 2)

ALEX. APH. in Top.

149. 9-17. There are cases where, which ever interpretation we adopt, we can on the basis of it refute the proposition proposed. Suppose someone said we ought not to pursue philosophy. Then, since even to inquire whether

we ought

in the Protrepticus)
1

to philosophize or not is (as Aristotle himself said to philosophize, and since to pursue
Reading
in

R.

56. 21

77

a!,

with Diels.

28

FRAGMENTS
is

also to philosophize, by showing that philosophical insight each of these two things is natural to man we shall on all

counts refute the proposition proposed. In this case our proposition can be proved on both counts, but in the examples first quoted it cannot be proved on all counts or on each of 2 two, but only on one or more.
1

Cf. Schol. in

An.

Pr., cod. Paris. 2064,

f.

263

a,

and Olymp.

in Ale. p. 144 (Creuzer).

ELI AS in Porph. 3. 17-23. We may also reason as Aristotle does in his Protrepticus, in which he encourages young men
to philosophize. He says this: If we ought to philosophize we ought to philosophize, and if we ought not to philosophize we ought to philosophize in either case, therefore, we ought
;

to philosophize. For 3 if philosophy exists we ought certainly to philosophize, because philosophy exists and if it does not
;

exist,

even so we ought to examine why it does not exist, and in examining this we shall be philosophizing, because examination is what makes philosophy.

DAVID, Proll. 9. 2-12. Aristotle, too, in a hortatory work in which he encourages young men to study philosophy, says that whether we ought or ought not to philosophize, we ought
to philosophize, so that in either case
phize.

we ought

to philoso

That is, if someone says philosophy does not exist, he will have used arguments destructive of philosophy, but if he has used arguments he is clearly philosophizing (for philosophy is the mother of arguments). But if he says philosophy exists, he again philosophizes for he will have
;

used arguments to prove that philosophy exists. In either case, then, they philosophize, both he who denies and he who does not deny that philosophy exists for each has used arguments to justify what he says, and if he uses arguments
;

Reading Reading

in R. 57. 4 TOVTOV, with Wallies. in R. 57- 6 OVK eV iravrutv 77 eVare pou dAA
in

17

TIVOS

f/

fK TIVWV,

with Wallies.
3

Omitting Tovrtartv

R.

57. 21,

with Busse.

PROTREPTICUS

29

he clearly philosophizes; for philosophy is the mother of arguments. Cf. LACT. Inst. 3. 16, and CLEM. AL. Strom. 6. 18, 162. 5.
2 3 (R 89, R3 57,

w 3)
Seeing the misfortune
1

PAP. OXYRRH. 666

of these

STOB.

3. 3. 25.

men, we ought to avoid it and to consider that happiness depends not on having many possessions but on the condition of the soul. For one would say that it is not the body which is decked with splendid clothing that is happy, but that which is healthy and in good condition, even if it has none of these things and in the same way, if the soul has been disciplined, such a soul and such a man are to be called happy, not a man splendidly decked with outer things but himself worthless. It is not the horse which has a golden bit and costly harness, but is itself a poor creature, that we think worth anything what we praise is the horse
; ;

that

good condition. Besides, when worthless men get abundant possessions, they come to value these more than the good of the soul which is the basest of all conditions. If a man were inferior to his own servants, he would become
is

in

contemptible so too those for whom possessions are more important than their own nature must be considered miser able. This is indeed so; surfeit, as the proverb says, breeds insolence possessions without discipline breed folly. For to those who are ill-disposed in soul neither wealth nor strength nor beauty is a good the more lavishly one is endowed with these conditions, the more grievously and the more often do they hurt him who possesses them but has not wisdom. Give not a sword to a boy means do not entrust riches to bad
;
;

All men would admit that wisdom comes from learning and from seeking the things to which philosophy gives the key surely, then, we should sincerely pursue philosophy.
.

men

4 (w 4 )
IAMBL. Protr.
furnished for
b. 37. 3-22.
life

the

The things with which we are body and bodily things are provided
rovratv Bfuipovvras drvxiav

1 Reading in R. 67. 4 with Wilamowitz.

8f

rrjv

favyuv xal

vo^it,(iv,

30

FRAGMENTS
is

as tools, and the use of them the contrary effect, for those

who do

dangerous they have rather not use them fittingly.

;

to acquire it and if we are to attain all these aright good results. must, therefore, philosophize if we are to be good citizens, and to lead our own life usefully. Further, there are some

We

ought therefore to desire knowledge

it

to use

We

branches of knowledge that produce each of the advantages in life, others that use this first kind, others that minister to them, others that commend them to our obedience and
;

authoritative, consists the true good. If, then, only the science that has correctness of judge ment, that which uses reason, that which envisages good as
in these last, as being

more

a whole

which

is

philosophy

can use and

commend

all

things according to nature, we ought to philosophize in every possible way, since philosophy alone comprises right

judgement and impeccable commanding wisdom.

5 (RS 52, IAMBL. Comm. Math. 26

w 5)

(79. 1-81. 7 Festa). There have been some ancients and some moderns who have maintained the

contrary view about mathematics, condemning it as com pletely useless and as contributing nothing to human life. Some people attack mathematics thus If the end for whose sake philosophers say we ought to study it is useless, much more must the study itself be vain. Now about the end all who are thought to have attained the greatest precision in mathematics are pretty much agreed. Some say the end is the knowledge of injustice and justice, of evil and good, which they think akin to geometry and the kindred sciences others think the end is wisdom with regard to nature and the likethe kind of wisdom introduced by the schools of Anaxagoras and Parmenides. He who is to consider these matters must therefore not fail to observe that all things good and useful for human life depend on use and action, not on mere knowledge. We become healthy not by knowing the things that produce health but by applying them to our bodies we become wealthy not by knowing wealth but by
:

possessing

much

substance; most important of

all,

we

live

PROTREPTICUS
well not
;

31

by knowing something but by doing well for this is true well-being. It follows that philosophy too, if it is to be profitable, must be either a doing of good things or useful as a means to such acts. Now, that neither philosophy nor any other of the aforesaid sciences is a doing of actions is clear to all that it is not useful as a means to action can be
;

We have the best example in the between the sciences akin to philosophy and the doctrines that come under them. Take the things that geometers study by way of demonstration; we do not see them capable of doing any of these things. Land-surveyors can divide an estate, they can by virtue of experience deal with all the other properties of areas and regions but those who concern themselves with mathematical proofs know how they ought to act, but cannot act. The same is true of music and of all the other arts in which the role of knowledge is distinct from that of experience. For those who have studied the proofs and syllogisms about harmony and such like matters are (like the philosophers) accustomed to specu lation but take no part in practice; if perchance they can handle any of these matters practically, when they have learned the proofs they at once, as if on purpose, do their jobs worse. On the other hand, those who do not know the theories, but have become habituated by training and hold sound opinions, are altogether superior for practical purposes. So too with regard to astronomical subjects the sun, the moon, and the other stars those who have studied the
seen from what follows.
difference
;

theoretical explanations

kind,

while those

know nothing that is useful to man who have what these others call the

navigational sciences can foretell for us storms, winds, and many other phenomena. Thus such sciences will be com pletely useless for practical purposes, and if they fall short
of correct practice the love of learning misses the greatest

goods. To these objections we reply that there are mathematical sciences and that they are capable of being acquired.

IAMBL. Protr. 6

(37.

26-41. 5

Pistelli).

of acquiring the sciences that deal with the just

That we are capable and the

32

FRAGMENTS

expedient, and also those that deal with nature and the rest
it is easy to show. The prior is always more knowable than the posterior, and that which is naturally better more knowable than that which is worse. For knowledge is

of reality,

more concerned with things that are defined and ordered than with their contraries, and more with causes than with effects now good things are more denned and ordered than evil things, just as a good man is more defined and ordered than a bad man there must be the same difference. Besides, things that are prior are causes, more than things that are posterior for if the former are removed the things that have their being from them are removed, lines if numbers are
1
; ; ;

removed, planes if removed, so-called

lines are

removed,
if

syllables

solids if planes are the letters are removed. 2

Therefore if soul is better than body (being more of the nature of a first principle), and there are arts and branches of knowledge concerned with the body, namely medicine and gymnastic (for we reckon these as sciences and say that some people possess them), clearly with regard to the soul too and its virtues there is a care and an art, and we can

we can do this even with regard to things which our ignorance is greater and knowledge is harder to come by. So too with regard to nature it is far more necessary to have knowledge of the causes and the elements than to have knowledge of what follows from them for the latter are not among the highest objects, and the first prin ciples do not arise from them, but from and through the first principles all other things manifestly proceed and are constituted. Whether it be fire or air or number or other natures that are the causes and originals of other things, if
acquire these, since
of
; ;

them we cannot know any of the other could one recognize speech if one did not know the syllables, or know these if we knew none of the letters ? On the theme that there is knowledge of truth and of

we

are ignorant of

things.

How

excellence of soul, and that we can acquire these, let this suffice. That it is the greatest of goods and the most valuable
1

Reading Reading

in

R.

60. 22 tariv
I

i)

r<Zv

ivavrtiuv,

In, with

Pistelli.

in R. 6l.

(after firtirc&wv) OTOixeiwv Sf at ovo^a^o^tvai avAAa/Scu,

with Wilpert.

PROTREPTICUS
of all things will be clear

33

from what

follows.

We all agree that

;

man and the man of strongest character ought to and that the law alone is ruler and supreme now the law is a form of wisdom, a form of words proceeding from wisdom. Again, what standard, what determinant, of what is good have we, other than the man of practical wisdom ? The things that such a man would choose if his choice followed his knowledge are good, and their contraries evil. Now since all men choose by preference what accords with
the best
rule,

characters, the just man choosing to live justly, man to live bravely, the temperate man to live temperately, similarly it is clear that the wise man will
their

own

the brave

choose above

all things to think wisely, that being the exercise of this faculty. It is clear, then, that according to the most authoritative opinion wisdom is the greatest of goods. ought, therefore, not to flee philosophy, if it

We

we think, the acquisition and use of wisdom, and wis dom is among the greatest goods and if in pursuit of gain we run many risks by sailing to the pillars of Hercules, we
is,

as

should not shrink from labour or expense in the pursuit of wisdom. Indeed, it is the part of a slave to desire life rather than the good life, to follow the opinions of the many instead of expecting the many to follow one s own, to seek gain and pay no heed whatever to what is noble.
1

About the value and the greatness of the thing I think we have proved our case. That the acquisition of wisdom is

much

easier than that of other goods, one might be con vinced by the following argument. Those who pursue philo sophy get no reward from men to spur them to the efforts they make they may have spent much on other branches of knowledge, yet in a short time their progress in philosophy outstrips their progress in other branches: that seems to me a sign of the easiness of philosophy. So too the fact that all men feel at home in philosophy and wish to spend their lives in the pursuit of it, leaving all other cares, is no small evidence that devotion 2 to it is pleasant for no one is willing to suffer pain for long. Besides, the practice of philosophy is
;
;

Reading Reading

in

in

R. R.

62. 9 ov&l Sef, with Pistelli. 63. 6 wpoaeSpei a, with Pistelli.

645.29

34

FRAGMENTS
in that its followers

need no tools or places for work; wherever in the whole world one sets one s thought to work, it is surrounded on all sides by the presence
pre-eminent
their of truth.
it has been proved that philosophy is possible, that the greatest of goods, and that it is easy to acquire, so that on all counts it is fitting that we should eagerly lay hold of it.
it is

Thus

PROCL. in End. 28. 13-22 (Friedlein). That to those who it mathematics is desirable for its own sake is shown, as Aristotle somewhere says, by the fact that, though no reward is held out to those who pursue it, facility in the study of mathematics increases so rapidly, and also by the fact that all who have had even a slight experience of what it can give one feel at home in it and are willing to spend their time in it, neglecting all else, so that those who despise the knowledge of mathematics can never themselves have
pursue
1

tasted

its delights.

6(w6)
IAMBL. Protr. 7 (41. 15-43. 25 Pistelli). Part of us is soul, part body the one rules, the other is ruled the one uses, the other is present as its instrument. Therefore the use of the subject,
;

i.e.

of the instrument, is always directed to that which rules and uses. In the soul, reason is that which naturally rules and judges of our own interest the other element follows and its nature is to be ruled. It is in accordance with its
;

proper excellence that everything is well arranged; for to attain this excellence is a good. Further, when the chief parts, the supreme and most honourable parts, possess their proper excellence, then is a thing well arranged; therefore the natural excellence of that which is naturally better is the better. Now that which is by nature more originative and authoritative is the better, as man is in relation to the other animals; therefore soul is better than body (being more authoritative), and of soul, that which has reason and
1

Reading

in

R.

63. 8 -yvuoews,

with the MSS.

PROTREPTICUS
thought
;

35
forbids,

for

such

is

that which

commands and

and

says what we ought to do or not to do. Whatever excellence, then, is the excellence of this part must be, for all beings in
general and for us in particular, the most desirable of all things for one would (methinks) maintain that this part is, either alone or above all other things, ourselves. Further,
;

when a thing
accident but

achieves in the best

way

that which

is,

not by

nature, its work, then that thing must be said to be good, and that excellence in virtue of

by

its

own

which each thing can achieve this result must be termed supreme excellence. Now that which is composite and divisible into parts has several different activities, but that which is by nature simple and whose being does not consist in a relation to something else must have only one proper excellence. If then man is a simple animal and his being is ordered according to reason and intelligence, he has no function other than the attainment of the most exact truth, truth about reality but if he is composed of several faculties, it is clear that where a thing naturally produces several results
its
;

of the doctor,
of the soul,
is
it

them is always its proper work health is the work and safety that of the steersman. Now we can name no better work of thought, or of the thinking part
the best of
;

than the attainment of truth. Truth therefore the supreme work of this part of the soul. Now this work does simply in virtue of knowledge, or rather in virtue of
is

what

of this

is

more completely knowledge, and the supreme end contemplation. For when of two things one is

worthy of choice for the sake of the other, the latter is better and more worthy of choice, e.g. pleasure than pleasant things, health than wholesome things for these are said to be productive of those. Now than thought, which we main tain to be the faculty of the supreme element in us, there is nothing more worthy of choice, when one state is compared with another for the part that knows, whether taken alone or in combination with other parts, is better than all the rest of the soul, and its excellence is knowledge. Therefore none of the particular excellences is its work for it is better than all of them, and the end produced is always better than
; ; ;

the knowledge that produces

it.

Nor

is

every excellence of

36 the soul the work of

FRAGMENTS
if

wisdom in this way, nor is happiness. an excellence is to be productive, it will produce results different from itself e.g. the art of building produces a house but is not part of a house but wisdom is a part of
For
; ;

and of happiness for we say that happiness either comes from wisdom or is it. According to this argument also, then, knowledge cannot be productive for the end must be better than that which is coming to attain it, but nothing is better than wisdom, unless it be one of the things we have named but none of these is a product distinct from wisdom. Therefore we must say that this form of knowledge is contemplative, since that which is the end cannot be a process of production. Thinking and contemplation, therefore, are the work of virtue, and this is of all things the most worthy of choice for men, as (methinks) sight is for eyes; one would choose to have sight even if nothing other than sight itself were to result from it.
excellence
; ;

7(W7)
IAMBL. Protr. 7
for its
(43.

25-45. 3
is

Pistelli).

Further,

if

we love sight

men love thinking and knowing most of all. Again, if we love one thing because some property attends on it, clearly we shall wish more for that to which this property belongs in greater degree e.g. if a man happens to choose walking because it
own
sake, that
sufficient evidence that all
;

is

healthy, but running

is

more healthy

for

him and he can

get it, he will (if he knows this) prefer running and choose it rather than walking. If, therefore, true opinion is like know
since true opinion is worthy of choice in respect ledge, then of being, 2 and in so far as it is, like knowledge by reason of

being true if knowledge is more true, it is more worthy of choice than true opinion. But living is distinguished from not living by sense-perception it is by the presence and power of this that life has its distinctive character if this is
; ;

taken away life is not worth living it is as though life itself were extinguished by the loss of sense-perception. Now of
1

Reading p&nov fan, suggested by Pistelli. Reading ravrrf, suggested by Vitelli.

PROTREPTICUS

37

sense-perception one kind the power of sight is distin guished by being the clearest, and it is for this reason that

we

prefer

it

to the other senses

but every sense acquires

knowledge by means

by means

of the body, as hearing perceives sound of the ears. Therefore if life is worthy of choice
it

for the sake of perception,

knowing, and we choose

and perception is a kind of because the soul can come to

know by means
that
is

of

it,

and

(as

we

said before) of

two things

always preferable which possesses the desirable quality more fully, then of the senses sight must be the most worthy of choice and honourable but knowledge is preferable to it and to all the other senses, and to life itself, since it has a
;

stronger grasp of truth

2
;

so that all

men aim

at knowing,

most

of all things.

knowing; they sake of perception, and above all for the sake of sight they evidently love this faculty in the highest degree because it is, in comparison with the other senses, simply a kind of
;

in loving life they love thinking and value life for no other reason than for the

For

knowledge.

8 (R 2

i,

R3 53,

w 8)

Cic. Tusc. 3. 28. 69. Therefore Aristotle, criticizing the old

philosophers

who had thought philosophy completed by

their intellectual labours, says they were either very stupid or very conceited, but that he sees that, since great progress

has been made in a few years, philosophy be brought to completion.

will in a short

time

IAMBL. Comm. Math. 26 (83. 6-22 Festa). The study of pre cision with regard to the truth is admittedly the youngest of all pursuits. For after the catastrophe of the flood men

were compelled to think first about food and the preservation life when they had become better provided they worked out the arts that conduce to pleasure music and the like and it was only when they had acquired more than enough
of
; ;

of the necessities of
1

life

that they essayed philosophy.

But

Reading on Suotv, with Jaeger. Reading xvpitarepa (ovoa), with Jaeger.

38
those

FRAGMENTS
who concern themselves with geometry and
calculation

and the other sciences have from small beginnings made by now such progress in a very short time as no other race has made in any of the arts. Yet while all men join in promoting the other arts by giving them public honour and rewarding the artists, we not only do not encourage mathematicians,
but often even put difficulties in their way make most advance, because they have
1
;

yet these studies a natural prece

is

dence; for that which

essence and perfection.

is

later in

coming to be

prior in

9 (R 55,

w 9)

IAMBL. Protr. 8 (45. 4-47. 4 Pistelli). It is worth while to point out that the view in question follows from common opinions, from views that are clearly held by all men. To everyone this much is plain, that no one would choose to live in receipt of the greatest wealth and power from men but deprived of thought and mad not even if one were to

be pursuing 2 with delight the most violent pleasures, as some madmen do. All men, then, it seems, shun above all things
the loss of their wits.
the contrary of witlessness is is to be avoided, the other to be chosen as illness is to be avoided, so health is to be chosen. Thus according to this argument, too, in the light of common opinion, it seems that wisdom is most of all to

Now

wisdom and
;

of

two contraries one

be chosen, not for the sake of any 3 of its consequences. For even if a man had everything, but were destroyed and diseased in his thinking part, his life would not be worth not profit him. living, since even the other good things could
Therefore
all

men,

in so far as

they are conscious of thinking

and can

taste its savour/ reckon other things as nothing, and for this reason not one of us would endure being drunk or

a child throughout his life. For this reason too, though sleep is a very pleasant thing, it is not a thing to choose even if
R. 64. 12 -nXfiarov, with Festa. R. 65. ^ SIOIKUV for wv, with Diels. R. 65. 13-14 ou Si Irtpov n, with the MSS. 4 KOI ytveodai Svrarrai in R. 65. 1819 oloBdvovrat TOU rovrov TOV irpdyfiaros, ovbfv otovrcu, with the MSS.
1

2
3

Reading Reading Reading Reading

in

in

in

<f>povttv

PROTREPTICUS
we suppose

39

the sleeper to have all possible pleasures, because the images of sleep are false, while those of waking life are true. Sleep and waking differ in nothing but the fact that the soul when awake often knows the truth, but in sleep is always deceived for the whole nature of dreams is an image
;

and a

lie.

Again, the shrinking of most men from death shows the For it shrinks from what it does not know, from darkness and obscurity, and naturally seeks what is manifest and knowable. This is, above all, the reason
soul s love of learning.

say we ought to honour and revere supremely, as authors of our greatest goods, the authors of our seeing the sun and the light our fathers and mothers; these are, it seems, the authors of our thinking and seeing. It is for the

why we

same reason that we delight in things and men that are familiar, and call dear those whom we know. These things, then, show plainly that that which is knowable, manifest, and clear is a thing to be loved, and if that which is knowable and clear, then also knowledge and thought are equally
1

necessary to us. Besides this, just as in the case of property it is not the same possession that conduces to life and to happy life, so
too in the case of thought we do not, methinks, need the same with a view to mere life and with a view to the good life. The bulk of mankind may well be pardoned for doing as they do while they pray for happiness they are content if they can but live. But unless one thinks one ought to endure living on any terms whatever, it is ridiculous not to endure 2 every labour and bestow every care to gain the wisdom
;

which

will

know

the truth.

10 a (R 2 49, R3 59,
IAMBL. Protr. 8

10 a)

this even (47. 5-21 Pistelli). from the following facts, if one viewed human life in a clear light. For one will find that all the things men think great are mere scene-painting whence it is rightly said that man
;
1

One might know

Reading Reading

in
in

R. R.

KOI TO ofjXov dyairq-ro v, 66. 9 TO 66. 18 TTOVOV un-o/jeVeiv, with the MSS.
<j>avtpov

with the MSS.

40
is

FRAGMENTS

nothing, and nothing human is stable. Strength, size, beauty are a laugh and nothing more, and beauty 1 seems to be beauty only because we see nothing accurately. If one

could have seen as clearly as they say Lynceus did, who saw through walls and trees, would one ever have thought any man endurable to look at, when one saw 2 of what poor materials he is made ? Honours and reputation, these much envied things, are, even more than other things, full of
indescribable folly; for to him who catches a glimpse of things eternal it seems foolish to busy himself with these things. What is there among human things that is long-lived

or lasting ? It is owing to our weakness, methinks, and the shortness of our life that even this appears great.

BOETH. Consol.
those

slight, how fragile is the tenure of of bodily goods! Can you surpass the elephant in size, the bull in strength, the tiger in speed? Look to the vastness, the durability, the speed of the heavens,
3. 8.

How

who boast

and cease to marvel at those cheap possessions. No less than for these qualities, the heavens are admirable for the reason by which they are ruled. As for beauty, how swift is its
passing more fleeting than the flowers of spring! If, as Aristotle says, men had had the eyes of Lynceus, so that their sight could pierce through obstacles, would not the body of Alcibiades, so fair on the surface, have seemed most foul when its inward parts were seen ? So it is not your own
nature, but the weakness of the eyes which see you, that makes you seem beautiful. But consider how excessive is

your desire of bodily goods, when you know that that which you admire can be dissolved by the paltry fire of a tertian
fever.

Cic. Tusc.

i.

39. 94.

But what age can

truly be called old?

.

What

Because we have nothing more, we call this lasting all these things are called long or short according to the proportion of each that is given to each of us. By the river Hypanis, which flows into
possession of
is

man

lasting
;

Reading Reading

in

in

R. R.

70. 6
70.

*aAAos
6p<ut>,

re, with the MSS. with the MSS.

PROTREPTICUS

41

the Pontus from the direction of Europe, Aristotle says there are born little creatures which live for but one day. One of
these that has died at the eighth hour has died at an ad vanced age one that has died at sunset is decrepit, especially
;

if it is

on a midsummer day. Compare our longest life with we shall be found as short-lived as these little eternity
;

creatures.

SEN. Brev.
things
is

Vit. i. 2. Aristotle s quarrel

with the nature of

most unsuitable to a wise man. He says that nature

has indulged the animals so much that they live for five of our generations, while man, born to so many and such great achievements, has so much nearer a limit fixed for him.

10 b (R 2 36, R 3 60,
IAMB. Protr. 8
these facts,
of us, all of

10

b)

(47. 21-48. 9 Pistelli). Which of us, looking to would think himself happy and blessed which

whom

(in

the

first

place) are

from the

start (as

they say in the initiation rites) born as though for punish ment ? For it is an inspired saying of the ancients that the
soul pays penalty

great sins.

and that we live for the punishment of The conjunction of the soul with the body looks
like this.

very

much

For as the Etruscans are said often to

torture captives by chaining dead bodies face to face with the living, fitting part to part, so the soul seems to be ex

tended throughout and aifixed to

of the body.

all

the sensitive

members

AUG. C.

lul. Pel. 4. 15. 78.

How much

better

and nearer the

truth than yours were the views about the generation of men held by those whom Cicero, as though led and compelled by

the very evidence of the facts, commemorates in the last part of the dialogue Hortensius After mentioning the many facts we see and lament with regard to the vanity and the
!

unhappiness of men, he says:

1

From which

of

human

life

it

results that

errors and cares sometimes those ancients

whether they were prophets or interpreters of the divine

1

Reading

in

R.

71. 16 infelicitate,

with Migne.

42

FRAGMENTS
the transmission of sacred rites

mind by

who

said that

we

are born to expiate sins committed in a former life, seem to have had a glimpse of the truth, and that that is true which
Aristotle says, that we are punished much as those were a time, when they had fallen into the hands of Etruscan robbers, were killed with studied cruelty their

who once upon

1 bodies, the living with the dead, were bound as exactly as so one another: our bound minds, possible against together

with our bodies, are

Cf.

like the living joined

i. 7. 4.

with the dead.

CLEM. AL.

Protr.

10
IAMBL. Protr. 8

c (R 2 48,

R3

61,

w 10 c)
Mankind has nothing
;

(48.

9-21

Pistelli).

worthy of consideration as being divine or blessed, except what there is in us of reason and wisdom this alone of our possessions seems to be immortal, this alone to be divine. By virtue of being able to share in this faculty, life, however wretched and difficult by nature, is yet so cleverly arranged that man seems a god in comparison with all other creatures. For reason is the god in us (whether it was Hermotimus or Anaxagoras that said so), and mortal life contains a portion of some god We ought, therefore, either to pursue philo sophy or to say farewell to life and depart hence, since all other things seem to be great nonsense and folly.
.

Cic. Fin. 2. 13. 39-40. I shall hold that we must first exclude the opinions of Aristippus and the whole Cyrenaic school,

afraid to place the supreme good in the pleasure which moves our senses most delightfully, and spurned the freedom from pain of which you speak. They did not see that as the horse is born to run, the ox to plough, the dog to follow a scent, so man (as Aristotle says) is bora as a sort of mortal god to do two things for understanding and for
action.

who were not

AUG. Trin. 14. 19. 26. Commending this contemplative wisdom Cicero says at the end of the dialogue Hortensius
.

Reading

in

R.

71. 25 aptissime,

with the MSS.

PROTREPTICUS
To us
.

43

who spend our lives in philosophy this is a great hope that if that by which we feel and think is mortal and and a rest from perishable, we shall have a happy setting
. .

on the other hand, as the ancient, the greatest and far the most famous, philosophers thought, we have minds eternal and divine, then we should reflect that the more these minds have been constant in their courses in the use and the less they of reason and in the desire of discovery have mixed and implicated themselves in the vices and errors of mankind, the easier will be their ascent and return to heaven. Then, adding this very clause and summing up his argument, he says: Wherefore to bring my speech at last to an end if we wish either to be quietly extinguished when we have lived our life in this prison, or to move without delay from this to a far better home, all our interest and concern must be bestowed on these studies.
life;
if,

II (w
IAMBL. Protr. 9

n)

(49. 3-52. 16 Pistelli). Of things that come some come from thought and art, e.g. a house or a ship (for the cause of both of these is a certain art and process of thought), while others come into being through no art, but by nature nature is the cause of animals and plants, and all such things come into being according to nature. But some things, also, come into being as a result of chance for of most of the things that come into being neither by art nor by nature nor of necessity, we say that they come into being by chance Now of the things that come into being by chance none comes into being for the sake of anything, nor have they an end but in the case of things that come into being by art there is an end and an object of purpose

into being

(for he who possesses the art will tell you the reason why he wrote, and for what purpose he did so), and this is better than that which comes into being for its sake. I speak of the

things of which art is the cause by its own nature and not by accident for we should describe the art of medicine as pro
;

perly the art of health and not of disease, and architecture as the art of making houses, not of pulling them down.

44

FRAGMENTS

Everything, therefore, that is according to art comes into being for the sake of something, and this is its best end, but that which comes into being by chance does not come into being for the sake of anything something good might come into being by chance, yet in respect of chance and in so far as it results from chance it is not good that which comes into being by chance is always indeterminate. But that
;

which comes into being according to nature does so for an end, and is always constituted to better purpose than the product of art; for nature does not imitate art, but vice versa art exists to aid nature and to fill up its deficiencies. For some things nature seems able to complete by itself without assistance, but others it does with difficulty or can not do at all in the matter of birth, to take an obvious example some seeds generate without protection, whatever ground they fall into, others need the art of farming as well and similarly some animals attain their full nature by them selves, but man needs many arts for his preservation, both at birth and in the matter of nutrition later. If, then, art imitates nature, it is from nature that the arts have derived
; ;

the characteristic that

;

all their

products come into being for

an end for we should describe as coming into being for an end everything that comes into being rightly. Now that which comes into being beautifully comes into being rightly and everything that comes into being or has come into being according to nature comes into or has come into being beautifully, since that which is contrary to nature is bad and contrary to that which is according to nature natural coming into being, 2 therefore, is for an end. This one can see from any one of our parts if you were to consider the eyelid, you would see that it has come into being not at random but to aid the eyes to give them rest and to ward off things that are falling on to them. Therefore that for the sake of which something has come into being is the same as that for which it ought to have come into being if it was right that a ship
;

should come into being to provide transport by sea, it is for that reason that it has come into being. Now either absolutely
1

Omitting nyv. Reading rut Kara

tfivcnv

tvavriov

17

ovv Kara

<f>vatv

yevtois,

with

Vitelli.

PROTREPTICUS
all
1

45

animals belong to the class of things that have come into being by nature, or the best and most honourable of them do for it makes no difference if someone thinks most animals
;

have come into being contrary to nature, to destroy and do mischief. Now man is the most honourable of the animals
in the world, so that clearly
;

he has come into being by nature

and according to nature and knowledge is that for the sake of which nature and God have brought us into being. Pytha goras, when asked what this end is, said to observe the heavens and used to say he was an observer of nature and it was for this that he had come into being. And they say that Anaxagoras, when asked for what end one would choose to come into being and to live, replied to observe the heavens and the stars, moon, and sun in them everything else being nothing worth. If, then, the end of each thing is always better than the thing (for everything that comes into being does so for the sake of its end, and its end is better and the best of all things), and if that which is completed last in order
, ,

of generation

end,
first

this proceeds continuously is the natural that the bodily parts of men are completed and the mental parts later, and the completion of the

when

we note

is, one may say, always later than its generation. Therefore soul is later than body, and wisdom is the latest of the qualities of the soul for we see that by nature it is the latest faculty to come into being for men that is why

better

old age lays special claim to this alone of good things there fore some form of wisdom is by nature our end, and the exercise of it the final activity for whose sake we have come
;

into being. Now if we have come into being in order to exercise it and to learn, we also exist for that end. According to this argument, then, Pythagoras was right in saying that every man has been created by God in order to know and

to observe.

But whether the object of this knowlege is the world or something whose nature is different, we must con sider later what we have said suffices as a first conclusion for if wisdom is our natural end, the exercise of it must be the best of all things. Therefore the other things we ought to do, we ought to do for the sake of the goods that come
;
;

Reading

in

rwv

(f>vaei

yeyxmrjfjifvwv,

with the MSS.

46

FRAGMENTS
wisdom

into being in oneself, 1 and of these the bodily actions should be done for the sake of the mental, and virtue should be

practised for the sake of

for this

is

the supreme end.

12 (R 3 58,

12)

AUG. Trin.
thus:
If

14. 9. 12. Cicero in his dialogue

Hortensius argues

we,

when we depart 2

this life,

were permitted to

live for ever, as the fables say, in the islands of the blest,

what need should we have

of eloquence when there were no causes to be pleaded or even of the virtues themselves? We should not need courage, where no task or danger was

prescribed to us, nor justice, where there was no property of another for us to seek, nor temperance, to rule non-existent

should not need even prudence, where no choice evils was held out to us. We should be blessed by the possession of one thing only science and knowledge of nature, for which alone the life of the gods is to be praised. From this it may be seen that other things are matters of necessity, and only this a matter of choice.
lusts.

We

between goods and

Thus that great

orator,

when he was preaching philosophy by

repeating and expounding splendidly and persuasively what he had received from the philosophers, said that it is only in this life, which we see to be full of cares and errors, that
all

the four virtues are necessary.

IAMBL. Protr. 9 (52. 16-54. 5 Pistelli). To seek from all knowledge a result other than itself, and to demand that knowledge must be useful, is the act of one completely ignor ant of the distance that from the start separates things good from things necessary they stand at opposite extremes. For of the things without which life is impossible those that are loved for the sake of something else must be called necessities and contributing causes, but those that are loved for them selves even if nothing follows must be called goods in the strict sense. This is not desirable for the sake of that, and that for the sake of something else, and so ad infinitum there is a stop somewhere. It is completely ridiculous, therefore, to
; ;

Reading Reading

avria.

in R. 68. 3 emigraverimus, with the

MSS.

PROTREPTICUS

47

demand from everything some benefit other than the thing and What itself, and to ask What then is the gain to us ? is the use ? for in truth, as we maintain, he who asks this is in no way like one who knows the noble and good, or who distinguishes causes from accompanying conditions. One would see the supreme truth of what we are saying, if some
one carried us in thought to the islands of the blest. There there would be need of nothing, no profit from anything there remain only thought and contemplation, which even now we describe as the free life. If this be true, would not any of us be rightly ashamed if when the chance was given us to live in the islands of the blest, he were by his own fault unable to do so ? Not to be despised, therefore, is the reward that knowledge brings to men, nor slight the good that comes from it. For as, according to the wise among the poets, we
1
;

receive the gifts of justice in Hades, so (it seems) we gain those of wisdom in the islands of the blest. It is nowise
strange, then, if wisdom does not show itself useful or ad vantageous we call it not advantageous but good, it should be chosen not for the sake of anything else, but for itself. For as we travel to Olympia for the sake of the spectacle itself, even if nothing were to follow from it (for the spectacle itself is worth more than much wealth), and as we view the Dionysia not in order to gain anything from the actors (indeed we spend money on them), and as there are many other spectacles we should prefer to much wealth, so too the contemplation of the universe is to be honoured above all the things that are thought useful. For surely it cannot be
;

right that

we should take great pains to go to see men imitating women and slaves, or fighting and running, just for the sake of the spectacle, and not think it right to view
without payment the nature and reality of things.

13 (W 13)
IAMBL. Protr. 10
(54.

10-56. 12

Pistelli).

That theoretical
advantages for
ci

wisdom
1

also provides us with the greatest

Aeyo/xev in
TU>

Reading after

R.

69.

oi)8ev

IOIKCV 6 TOIOUTO?
TSoi 8

KayaQov o58e ri ainov SiayiyvcuffK-ovri nai avvainov. pdX\ov dXrjOrj ravra. Xeyopfv, (I ns crA., with the MSS.

dv rt?

Scm KaXov on TTO.VTOS

48

FRAGMENTS
will discover easily from studying the arts. as all skilful physicians and most gymnasts agree that
life,

human
For
those

one

who are to be good physicians or gymnasts must have experience of nature, so it is agreed that good legislators must have experience of nature, and indeed much more than the former. For the former are producers only of bodily excellence, while those who are concerned with the excellences of the soul and undertake to give instruction about the wellbeing and the ill-being of the state need philosophy far more. As in the mechanical arts the best instruments have been borrowed from nature (e.g. in carpentry the ruddled line, the rule, and the lathe were suggested by the surface of

water and by the rays of

these that

light,

and

it

is

by

reference to

we
,

test

what

is

to our senses sufficiently straight

or smooth) similarly the statesman must borrow from nature and reality certain limits by reference to which he will judge

what
all

is just, noble, or advantageous for as these tools excel others, so the law that conforms best with nature is the
;

best.

Now this he cannot do unless he has practised philo sophy and learned the truth. And in the other arts men do not take their tools and their most accurate calculations from the originals themselves and so attain something approaching to knowledge they take them from copies at second or third hand or at a distant remove, and base their reasonings on experience. The philosopher alone copies the exact originals he is a spectator of them and not of copies. As, then, he is not a good builder who does not use a straight rule or any other such instrument but compares his own building with others, so, presumably, if one either lays down laws for cities or does actions of his own, looking to and copying other actions or human constitutions, whether of Sparta or of Crete or of any other state, he is not a good lawgiver nor a virtuous man for an imitation of what is not good cannot be good, nor can an imitation of what is not divine and durable in its nature be immortal and durable
; ; ; ;

it is

clear 2 that to the philosopher alone

among craftsmen
is

belong laws that are durable and actions that are right and
1

The

text

is

corrupt, but the general sense

SijXov

clear.

Reading dAAd

on

KT\.,

with

Vitelli.

PROTREPTICUS
noble.
1

49

For he alone lives with his eye on nature and the divine, and like a good steersman directs his life in depen dence on what is eternal and unchanging, and lives his own master. This knowledge is theoretical indeed, but it enables us to frame all our practice in accordance with it. For as sight makes and shapes nothing (since its only work is to judge and to show us everything that can be seen), and yet it enables us to act as it directs, and gives us the greatest assistance towards action (for we should be almost entirely
motionless
ledge
is
it,

if

deprived of

it),

so

it is

clear that,

though know

theoretical, yet

we do

a host of things in accordance

with

gain as a result of

choose some actions and avoid others, and in general it all the goods we possess.

14 (w 14)
IAMB. Protr. (56. 13-59. *& Pistelli). That those who have chosen the life according to reason also enjoy life most will be clear from the following argument. The word live seems to be used in two senses, one implying a potentiality, the other an actuality for we describe as seeing both those animals which have sight and are born capable of seeing, even if they happen to have their eyes shut, and those which
;

and looking definitely at something. Similarly with cognition or knowing we sometimes mean by it the use of the faculty, actual contemplation, and sometimes
are using this faculty
;

tinguish

the possession of the faculty of knowledge. If, then, we dis life from non-life by the possession of perception,

and perception has two meanings, meaning properly the using of the senses, but in another significance the being able to use them (it is for this reason, it seems, that we say
even a sleeping

man

perceives),

it is

clear that

live

will

correspondingly have two meanings; a waking man must be said to live in the true and proper sense, a sleeping man must be said to live because he is capable of passing into the activity in virtue of which we say that a man is waking and perceiving something it is for this reason and with reference
;

Reading oprf, with the MSS. 2 It is not necessary to assume the existence of a lacuna here. For japfv Xtyovres cf. L. and S. s.v. fa pi II. 2.
1

9UM

50
to this that
of

FRAGMENTS
we
describe
1

him as living. When, therefore, each two things is called by the same name, and one of the two 2 is so called by virtue of acting or being acted on, we shall assign the name by preference to this one we shall use the word know rather of him who is using than of him who merely possesses knowledge, and see rather of him who is directing his sight than of him who merely can do so. For we apply the comparative degree not only to that which possesses more completely an attribute that has a single definition, but also to that whose possession of the attribute is prior; e.g. we say that health is better than wholesome things, and that which is by its own nature worthy of choice than that which tends to produce this, though we see that
;

it is

not by virtue of the definition

being predicable of both

we describe both useful things and virtue as good. Thus we must assign life in a higher degree to a waking man than to a sleeping one, to a man who is exercising his soul than to one who merely possesses a soul for it is because of the former that we assign life also to the latter, because he is such as to act, or be acted on, in the former way. 3 The exercising of
that
;

anything, then,
realization,
if

is this:

if

the faculty admits only of one

it

is

exercised

the faculty admits of

when one does just that thing; more than one realization, it is exer

when one brings about its best realization; e.g. one uses the flute either only, or most completely, when one is actually playing it for presumably it is on the basis of this
cised
;

that the

uses

of

it

by other people

are called uses. So

uses a thing aright uses it in a 4 higher degree, since the natural purpose and the natural manner belong to the man who uses the thing well and

we must say

that he

who

Now thinking and reasoning are, either alone or above everything else, the work of the soul. It is a simple inference, one that anyone can easily draw, that the man who thinks aright lives in a higher degree than others, that he who reaches truth in the highest degree lives in the
accurately.
1

Placing the

full

2
3

Reading Reading Reading

TO) Troiefv

stop after jSAeWrey, not after TU-OJ. rw irdaxfw? with the MSS. 17

eVetVws, as suggested
c<f>

by

Pistelli.

5,

with the MSS.

PROTREPTICUS
;

51

highest degree, and that this is the man who thinks and theorizes according to the most precise knowledge and it is

then and to these ascribed to those

capacity to think.
its

men that living who think and to

completely must be those who have the

Now
is

true being,

it

if living is, alike for every animal, clear that the thinker will be in the

highest degree
all

and

in the

most proper
of all

when he
is

is

exercising this faculty

what

the

most knowable

and most of and contemplating things. But further,

sense,

perfect and unimpeded activity contains in itself delight, so that the activity of contemplation must be the most pleasant
of
all.

Further,

there

is

a difference between enjoying

oneself while drinking and enjoying drinking; for there is nothing to prevent a man who is not thirsty, or is not getting

the drink he enjoys, from enjoying himself while drinking, not because he is drinking but because he happens at the

same time to be looking

he
sits.

So we

shall say that

at something, or to be looked at, as such a man enjoys himself, and

enjoys himself while drinking, but not because he is drinking, nor that he is enjoying drinking. In the same way we shall say that walking, sitting down, learning, any activity, is pleasant or painful, not if we happen to feel pain or pleasure in the presence of these activities, but if we are all pained

by their presence. Similarly we shall call that life pleasant whose presence is pleasant to those who have it we shall say that not all who have pleasure while living
or pleased
;

enjoy living, but only those to

whom

life itself is

pleasant

and who

we who we

rejoice in the pleasure that comes from living. assign life to the man who is awake rather than to
is

Now

asleep, to

thoughtless,

him him who thinks rather than to him who is and we say the pleasure of living is the pleasure
life.

get from the exercise of the soul; that is true then, there are more than one exercise of the soul, chief of all is that of thinking as well as possible. 1 It

If,

still

the

is clear,

then, that the pleasure arising from thinking and contempla tion is, alone or most of all, the pleasure of living. Pleasant
life

sophers, or to

and enjoyment, therefore, belong in truth only to philo them most of all. For the activity of our truest
1

Reading on

/toAicn-a,

with Walzer.

52

FRAGMENTS
is

thoughts, that which

realities,

and preserves steadfastly

is

replenished from the most real for ever the perfection it

receives, this

of all activities the

Thus even

men

for the sake of enjoying true and of sense ought to practise philosophy.

most productive of joy. good pleasures

15 (W 15)
IAMBL. Protr. 12
(59.

19-60. 15

Pistelli). If

we ought

to

draw

this conclusion not only from considering the elements of well-being, but also start higher up and establish it by con

sidering well-being as a whole, let us say explicitly that as philosophizing is related to well-being, so is it related to the acquisition by us of anything good or bad. For it is as leading
for all

to this or as following from it that the existence of anything is men worthy of desire, and some of the things through

which we have well-being are such because they are neces sary, some because they are pleasant. Now we define wellbeing either as thoughtfulness (a sort of wisdom), or as virtue, or as the extreme of enjoyment, or as all of these together. If
it is

pily
will

thoughtfulness, clearly philosophers alone will live hap if it is excellence of the soul or enjoyment, then, too, it
;

in us

belong to them alone or most of all for the highest element is virtue, and thinking is the most pleasant of all single things. Similarly, if one says that all these things together are well-being, well-being must be denned as thinking. Therefore all who can should practise philosophy for this
1
;

is

either complete good life, or of all single things most truly the cause of good life for souls. In this world, I suppose because life in it is unnatural to our race, learning and in 2 sight are difficult, and perception scarcely to be obtained

because of our awkward and unnatural mode of life but if we can ever escape back to the place from which we have
;

come,

it

is

clear that

we

shall all

do these things more

pleasantly and more

easily.

16 (R 2 77, R 3 90,
ATH. 335
1

W 16)
by
Pistelli.

f.

enjoying the
-ru>

life

of Sardanapallus, son of

Reading Reading ^oAu dv

(f>poveiv.

aladdvoiro, suggested

PROTREPTICUS
Anacyndaraxes, whom Aristotle described as even than the name of his father would suggest.
1

53
sillier

How then can a life be pleasant from which prudence and moderation are absent ? We see from this the error of Sardanapallus, the wealthy king of Syria, who ordered these words to be engraved on his tomb What I ate and what sated lust drained to the dregs, that I What else have; many a famous deed lies left behind. Aristotle says, would you have inscribed on the grave, not of a king but of an ox ? He says he had in death the things which even in life he had no longer than for the moment of
Cic. Tusc. 5. 35. 101.
:

enjoyment.
Cf.

STRABO

14. 5. 9, p.

C 672

Cic. Fin.

2.

32. 106.

17 (R 54)
CHALC. in Tim. 208-9 (Wrobel). In
saying that children at
first,

this Aristotle also agrees,

still un weaned, think all and all women their mothers, but as they grow up come to draw distinctions, and yet sometimes fail to do so, since they are often taken in by false images and hold out their hands to a mere simulacrum. He calls all these

while

men

their fathers

opinions unmanly; those who hold them think that the things that hurt us are beneficial and those that help us

noxious; they are led towards pleasure that destroys, and take offence at healthy toil. This would certainly never have happened if they had not trusted too much to the senses, which by nature are most lively when they deceive. To make the whole matter plain, Aristotle uses an example of crystal
clearness.

The height

of

madness

is

reached when a

man

not

only

and

ignorant, but does not know what he is ignorant of, therefore gives his assent to false images and takes those
is
;

that are true to be false

as

when men think

that vice profits

.
. .

them and

virtue acts to their prejudice and ruin. These men Aristotle calls old children, because their mind differs very little from a child s.
1

Reading

in

R.

91. 2 eu-ai

fj

Kara, with Madvig.

54

FRAGMENTS
18 (w 18)

unfolded

The case of the Peripatetics has been apart from the views of Theophrastus and those who, following him, show a weak dread of and shrinking from pain the rest may do what they in fact practically do, to
Cic. Tusc. 5. 30. 85.
;

exaggerate the importance and dignity of virtue. When they have extolled it to the skies, which these eloquent men are wont to do at length ... 31. 87 according to the reasoning of
these

men

the

happy

life will

follow virtue even

it

if it

leads to

torture,

and
;

will

descend with

Aristotle,

Xenocrates, courage it it will never, seduced by threats or blandish ments, desert virtue.
Ibid. 5. 10. 30. I

into the tyrant s bull, 1 with Speusippus, and Polemon, to en

do not, therefore, readily allow

my

friend

Brutus, or our common masters, or the ancients, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemon, when they count as evils the things I have enumerated above, at the same time to say that the wise man is always happy. If this noble and
beautiful

most worthy of Pythagoras, Socrates, and them bring themselves to despise the things by whose splendour they are attracted strength, health, beauty, riches, honours, power and to count their
title,

Plato, delights them, let

of opposites as nothing then they will be able with a voice crystal clearness to profess that they are terrified neither by the onslaught of fortune, by the opinion of the multitude, by nor by poverty, that everything lies in themselves, that
;

is nothing outside their power which they should reckon as a good.

pain, there

Cf. ibid. 5. 13. 39.

But since the happy life is sought for, and the one thing that philosophy ought to consider and pursue is the question whether happiness is entirely in the power of the wise man, or whether it can be weakened or snatched from
Cic. Fin. 5. 5. 12.
1

Phalaris

brazen

bull.

PROTREPTICUS
him by

55

adversity, on this point there seems to be sometimes variation and doubt among philosophers. This impression is produced most strongly by Theophrastus book on the happy life, in which a great deal is ascribed to fortune. If this were true, wisdom could not guarantee a happy life. This seems to me, so to speak, a softer and more timid line of thought than that demanded by the force and dignity of virtue. Let us, therefore, cling to Aristotle and his son Nicomachus but let us follow Theophrastus in most things, only allowing virtue more firmness and strength than he did. 14 Our own Antiochus seems to me to follow most faithfully the opinion of the ancients, which was (he maintains) com mon to Aristotle and to Polemon.
.
.
.

19 (R 25,
CENSOR,

19)

c. 18. n. There is, too, a year which Aristotle calls not the great but the greatest, which the spheres of the sun, the moon, and the five planets complete when they return

together to the same constellation with which they were

formerly in conjunction.
Cic. N.D. 2. 20. 51-52. Most admirable are the motions of the five stars which we wrongly call wandering stars. ... It is on the basis of their diverse motions that mathematicians

have given the name

pleted
to the

when the
same

of great year to that which is com sun, the moon, and the five wandering

stars, the course of all of

them completed, have returned

relative positions.
it

How

long this period

is,

is

a great question, but

Cf. Cic. Hortensius,
fr.

must be

certain

and

definite.

35 Miiller; TAG. Dial. 16.

7.

20
TERT. De An. 46. How many writers have commented on this matter 2 and asserted its existence Artemon, Antiphon,
1

Reading

Aristotelis,

sc. interpretation of

with some MSS. dreams.

56

FRAGMENTS

Strato, Philochorus, Epicharmus, Serapion, Cratippus, Dionysius Rhodius, Hermippus, the whole literature of the age!
If I laugh at anyone it will be at the writer who thought he could persuade us that Saturn was the first to dream; he could be this only if he was the first to live. Aristotle, pardon

my

laughter!

ON WEALTH
1
2 (R 86, R3 56)

PLU. Pel. 3. i. Of the general run of people, as Aristotle says, some through meanness do not use their wealth, others through extravagance misuse it; the latter are permanent
slaves to their pleasures, the former to their business.

PLU. Mor. 527 a. Aristotle says that some men do not use wealth, others misuse it, implying that both are wrong; the former get no benefit or grace from what they have, the latter derive injury and disgrace.
2 (R 2 87, R3 89)
Cic. Off. 2. 16. 56-57. much more weight and truth is in Aristotle s reproach to us for not wondering at

How

there

these lavish sums spent on cajoling the mob! That men besieged by an enemy should be forced into paying a mina for a pint of water, that (he says) seems incredible when we
first
it

hear of

it,

and we

all

marvel at

it,

we pardon

their necessity; in these vast

but when we consider and boundless

expenditures there is nothing that much surprises us, and that though there is no relief of necessity, no increase of dignity, and the very delight of the multitude is shortlived and derived from the meanest objects, and when satiation
of the pleasure dies. He sums up when he says these things gratify children and mere women, slaves and freemen who are like slaves, but can in no way be approved by a serious man who weighs

comes the very memory

the matter well

events with solid judgement.

3
PHILOD. Pap. Here. 3, p. 41, col. 211. Which happened to Aristotle (as Metrodorus proved) in respect of the argument,

work On Wealth, to show that the good man is also a good money-maker, and the bad man a bad money-maker.
in the

ON PRAYER
i (R Z 46,

R3

49,

w i)

De Caelo 485. 19-22. That Aristotle has the notion something above reason and being is shown by his saying clearly, at the end of his book On Prayer, that God is either reason or something even beyond reason.
SIMP, in
of

ON GOOD BIRTH
R 3 Ql) From Aristotle On Good Birth. With regard
1 (R 2 82,

STOB.
to

4.

29 A 24.

good birth, I for my part one should call well-born.

am
is

quite at a loss to say

whom

Your
the

difficulty

I said,

many and even more among

quite natural for both among the wise there is division

;

and obscurity of statement, particularly about the significance of good birth. What I mean is this: Is it a precious and good thing, or, as Lycophron the sophist
of opinion

wrote, something altogether trivial? Comparing it with other goods, he says the attractiveness of good birth is obscure, and its dignity a matter of words; i.e. that the
1

preference for

it is a matter of opinion, and in truth there no difference between the low-born and the well-born.

is

2 (R 2 83,

R 3 92)

STOB.

what

Just as it is disputed disputed who those are who ought to be called well-born. Some think it is those born of good ancestors, which was the view of Socrates; he said that because Aristides was good his daughter was nobly born. They say that Simonides, when asked who it is that are well-born, said "those whose family has long been rich"; but at that rate Theognis caustic observation is wrong, and
4.

29 A 25. In the same book.

2 good, so

size is

it is

is that of the poet who wrote "Mortals honour good birth, but marry rather with the rich". 3 Good heavens, is not a man who is rich himself preferable to one who had a rich great-grandfather or some other rich ancestor, but is himself

so

poor ?
Surely,

he

said.

And one ought

the well-born; for
1

to

marry with the

6

it is

rich rather than with people of long ago that were well-

sc. in

Reading in R. 92. 4 Avxojpwv any given type of thing.

ao^ar^

fypo^e, with the

MSS.
399 Nauck.

Eur.

fr.

60

FRAGMENTS

born, but people of today that are more powerful. Is it not much the same, then, if one supposes that it is not those born of rich ancestors but those born of good ancestors that
are well-born?

One would suppose that

recent goodness

is

better than ancient, that a man has more in common with his father than with his great-grandfather, and that it is preferable to be good oneself rather than to have a great

grandfather or some other ancestor You are right/ he said.

in either of these things, see what it consists in ?

who was

good.

Well then, since we see that good birth does not consist
should

we not look elsewhere

to

We

should, he said.

I suppose, something praiseworthy and having a good face or good eyes means, on this showing, something excellent or beautiful. Certainly, he said. Well then, having a good face means having the goodness proper to a face, and having good eyes means having the goodness proper to eyes, does it not ? Yes/ he said. But one stock is good, another bad and not good. Certainly/ he said. And we say each thing is good in virtue of the excellence
"Good"

means,

excellent

e.g.

proper to it, so that a stock Yes/ he said.

Clearly, then/ I said,

is

good

in the

same way.

good birth

is

excellence of stock/

3 (R* 84, R3 93)

DIOG. LAERT. 2. 5. 26 (10). Aristotle says Socrates married two wives first Xanthippe, who bore him Lamprocles, and then Myrto, daughter of Aristides the Just, whom he took though she had no dowry, and who bore him Sophroniscus and Menexenus.

PLU. Aristid. 27. 2. Demetrius of Phaleron, Hieronymus of Rhodes, Aristoxenus the writer on music, and Aristotle (if the work On Good Birth is to be reckoned among his genuine

ON GOOD BIRTH

61

works) relate that Myrto, granddaughter of Aristides, lived with the Sage Socrates, who was married to another woman but took Myrto under his protection because she was a widow, poor and lacking in the necessities of life.

ATH. 555 d-556

those

who

and Myrto

a. Starting from these facts, one must blame assign to Socrates two wedded wives, Xanthippe the daughter of Aristides not Aristides the Just,

do not permit of this, but the third in descent from him. These writers are Callisthenes, Demetrius of
for the dates

Phaleron, Satyrus the Peripatetic, Aristoxenus Aristotle gave them the keynote by relating this in his work On Good
;

Birth.

4 (RZ 85, R3 94)

STOB.
is

4.

29 c 52.
,

From

Aristotle s

work On Good

Birth.

It

evident, then I said, from our previous discussion, why those born of a long line of rich or good ancestors are thought
to be better born than those whose possession of these ad vantages is recent. A man s own goodness is nearer to him

than that of a grandfather, and on that basis it would be the good man that is well-born. And some writers have said this, claiming to disprove by this argument the merits of good birth Euripides, for example, says that good birth belongs not to those whose ancestors have long been good, but to him who is himself good, simply. That is not so those are right who give the preference to ancient virtue. Let us state
1
;

the reasons for this.

Good birth is excellence of stock, and excellence belongs to good men and a good stock is one in which there have been many good men. Now this happens
;

for an origin has the of producing many products like itself; this is the function of an origin to produce many results like itself.
;

when

the stock has had a good origin

power

When,

stock, a man so ness, that stock

then, there has been one man of this kind in the good that many generations inherit his good
is is

men

if

the stock

bound to be good. There will be many good human, many good horses if it is equine,
1

fr.

345 Nauck.

62

FRAGMENTS
so too with the other animals.

and
rich

Thus

it is

natural that not

those whose ancestors have long been rich or good, should be well-born. The argument has the origin counts more than anything its eye on the truth else. Yet not even those born of good ancestors are in every case well-born, but only those who have among their ances tors originators. When a man is good himself, but has not
;

men nor good men, but

the natural power to beget

in such a case the
. . .

many

like

him, the origin has not

not

power we have ascribed to it. People are well-born if they come of such a stock
is

if

their father

well-born, but

is so.

For

it is

not by his

own

the originator of the stock strength that a father begets

if

a good man, but because he

came

of such a stock.

ON PLEASURE
I
1

(R

72, R3 83)

ATH. 6
calls

d.

Others

call

Philoxenus a fish-lover, but Aristotle

him simply a

dinner-lover.

He

also writes

somewhere

they are making speeches to crowded audiences they spend the whole day in relating marvels, and that to people who have just returned from the Phasis or the Borysthenes, 2 when they have themselves read nothing but Philoxenus Banquet, and not the whole of that.
as follows:
1 Rose places this fragment under the work On Justice, but it seems to have no connexion with that subject. It is in connexion with the love of bodily a pleasures that Philoxenus is mentioned in Eth. Eud. I23i 5~i7, and alluded a b to in Eth. NIC. 32- i, so that the description of him as a dinner-lover is more likely to have occurred in the dialogue On Pleasure. In what work of Aristotle the words actually quoted by Athenaeus occurred, it is impossible

When

m8

to say.
2

The Rion or the Dnieper.

ON EDUCATION
1 (R 2 51,

R 3 62)

PLU. Mor. 734 d. Florus was full of problems himself, and he used to share them with his associates, bearing witness
to
Aristotle
s

saying

that

much

learning

brings

many

vexations.

2 (R 2 52, R 3 63)

DIOG. LAERT. 9. 8. 53 (4). Protagoras was the first to discover the so-called knot on which porters carry their burdens so Aristotle says in his work On Education for Protagoras was a porter, as Epicurus also says somewhere. It was in this
;

way

that Protagoras was brought to the notice of

Demo-

critus,

who saw how he had bound

c.

his logs together.

Cf.

ATM. 354

ON KINGSHIP
TESTIMONIA
I find noth 2. I often try a letter of advice have, indeed, with me the books both of Aris totle and of Theopompus addressed to Alexander. But what resemblance is there ? They wrote what was both honourable

Cic. Att. 12. 40.

ing to say.

to

them and acceptable

?

to Alexander

do you

find

anything

of that sort here

Ibid. 13. 28. 2.

Nothing comes into

my

mind.

You

see

what

the advice sent to Alexander by eloquent and learned men 2 a is concerned with. They exhort to honourable conduct

young man kindled by desire for the truest glory, wishing for some advice that shall redound to his eternal praise.
Ps.-AMM. in Cat. (Ven. 1546, f. gb). Those works are per sonal which were written to some individual in particular, as for instance letters or what Aristotle wrote at the request of Alexander of Macedon about kingship and about the right

way

of establishing colonies.

I (R 2 78, R3

646)

Ps.-AMM. in Cat. (Ven. 1546, f. 56). Aristotle wrote to Alexander also about kingship, in a one-volume book, in structing him how he ought to rule.
Vit. Arist Marc. p. 430. 15-431. 2 (Rose). In order to confer a benefit on all men, Aristotle writes a book addressed to Alexander on kingship, instructing him how he should rule. This had such an effect on Alexander s mind that when he had failed to confer a benefit on anyone he said: Today I have done good to no one. I have not been king
;

To

Caesar.
in

Reading

R. 408. 24 cohortantur ad decus, with the MSS.

845.29

66

FRAGMENTS
2 (R 2 79, R3 647)

THEM. Or. 107 c-d. Plato, even if in all other respects he was divine and admirable, was completely reckless when he uttered this saying, that evils would never cease for men until either philosophers became rulers, or kings became philosophers. His saying has been refuted and has paid its
should do honour to Aristotle, who words and made his counsel truer; merely unnecessary for a king to be a philosopher, but even a disadvantage what he should do was to listen to and take the advice of true philosophers, since then he filled his reign with good deeds, not with good

account to time.

We

slightly altered Plato s he said that it was not

words.

ALEXANDER
1 (R 2 80,

R3 648)
gb). See p. 65 supra.

Ps.-AMM. in Cat. (Yen. 1546,

f.

2 (R 2 8i, R 3 658) PLU. Mor. 329 b. Alexander did not do as Aristotle advised play the part of a leader to the Greeks and of a master to the barbarians, care for the former as friends and kinsmen, and treat the latter as beasts or plants, and so fill his reign with
wars, banishments, and factions
;

he behaved alike to

all.

STRABO i. 4. 9, p. C 66. At the conclusion of his memoran dum, Eratosthenes refuses to praise those who divided the whole human race into two Greeks and barbarians and
as enemies
virtue

advised Alexander to treat Greeks as friends, but barbarians he says it is better to draw the division between
;

vice. Alexander did not ignore his advisers but took their advice and acted accordingly, looking to the
. .
.

and

intention of those

who had

sent

it.

POLITICUS
TESTIMONIUM
Cic. Fin. 5. 4. ii. Aristotle and Theophrastus had, each of them, taught what sort of man the ruler in a state should be.

I (R 2 70, R3 78)

Cic. Q. Fr. 3. 5. i. When these books were being read over to me in Tusculan villa in the hearing of Sallust, I was

my

advised by him that something much more authoritative could be said on these matters if I were myself to speak about the state especially because I was not a Heraclides Ponticus but a man of consular rank and one versed in the greatest affairs of state. What I put into the mouth of such ancient authorities would be seen to be fictitious. Finally, he remarked that Aristotle himself says in his own name what he has to say about the state and the rule of it by the
; .
. .

outstanding

man.
2 (R3 79)

SYRIAN, in Metaph. 168. 33-35. At all events Aristotle in the second book of his Politiciis says expressly The good is the most accurate measure of all things
. .

2 3 (R 94-95, R3 80)

SEN.

De

Ira
;

i. 3. 3.

Aristotle s definition
is

is

not far removed

from ours he says anger

the desire to repay pain.

Ibid. i. 9. 2. Anger, Aristotle says, is necessary,

nor can any

battle be

the

won without it unless it fills the mind and kindles spirit. But we must treat it not as a commander but as
1

a soldier.
Reading praestanti, with Wesenberg.

POLITICUS
Ibid.
if

69

i. 17. i.

Aristotle says certain passions serve as weapons,

aright.

we use them

Ibid. 3. 3. i. But, as I have said in former books, Aristotle stands as the defender of anger and forbids the expulsion of it from our nature. He says it is the spur to virtue, and if it is taken from us the mind becomes unarmed, and too sluggish and inert for great endeavours. 5. There is, then, no reason why you should think that I am wasting time on useless
.
.

matters, and that anger is disgraceful, as though it were a thing of doubtful repute among men, when there is someone, a famous philosopher indeed, who assigns definite functions
to
it,

and invokes

it

as useful,

and as supplying

spirit for

battle, for active

life,

for everything that

demands a

certain

heat.

Ibid.

i.

7. i. Is

anger to be called to our aid?

;

It

has often

been useful.

It raises

nothing splendid in flamed by anger, unless anger has goaded men into boldness in face of danger. Some therefore think it best to temper anger, not to root it out to reduce it to healthy proportions by eradicating what is excessive, but to retain that without
;

and excites the spirits courage does war without it nothing unless it is in

which action would languish and the force and vigour mind be relaxed.
Cic. Tusc. 4. 19. 43.

of the

What

shall

we say

of the Peripatetic

view that those perturbations which we think should be extirpated are not only natural, but even a useful gift of
nature
of anger
is what they say: First, they say much in praise they call it the whetstone of courage and say that, whether it be against an enemy or against a bad citizen, the
?

This
;

reaction of an angry man is far more vigorous. They make light of the petty reasonings of those whose thoughts took
It is right that this battle be fought it is fitting to fight for law, for liberty, for country. These thoughts, they say, have no force unless courage is fanned into a blaze

this form:

by

anger.

Nor do they argue only about

strict

soldiers in battle

they think no

discipline

is

possible without

some

70

FRAGMENTS

bitterness of anger. Finally, they think little of a speaker unless, in defence as well as in attack, he feels the sting of anger. Even if anger is not there, they think it must be

simulated in language and in gesture, that the speaker s action may kindle the hearer s anger. In short, they say he seems no man who does not know how to be angry, and what we call mildness they call by the opprobrious name of
sluggishness. Nor, indeed, is it only this craving that they for anger, as I have just denned it, is craving for revenge they say that craving or desire in general is a most

praise

useful gift of nature, since no one can do supremely well what he does not desire to do. 20. 45. They say that pain itself ... is established by nature to a most useful end, in order that in their ill-doing men should feel the suffering of
. .
.

punishment, blame, and disgrace. For those who bear with out pain disgrace and infamy seem to be granted immunity
for their sins
;

it is

better to suffer the gnawing of conscience.

to help others
of pain also have their and relieve undeserved

...
uses
;

46.

They say the other forms

pity leads
;

men

even envy and disparagement are not without use, one has gained less than another, or that another has gained as much as oneself if anyone took from us fear, he would take with it all diligence, which is greatest
suffering

when one

sees that

in those

who fear the laws, the magistrates, poverty, dis grace, death, pain. In their discussions they admit that desires must be pruned, but say that they neither can nor
need be completely uprooted, and that in almost
the
all

things

mean

is

the best.

p. 65. 31-66. 2 (Wilke). Some at least of the Peripatetics, as we have previously indicated by reference to individuals, say that those who remove anger and temper

PHILOD. De Ira,

cut outright the sinews of the soul that without these things that there would be neither punishment nor vengeance
;
.

men would

not engage in wars without anger, which makes them bold and takes away all shrinking and cowardice, and makes men steadfast even to death. So, too, anger produces the spirit of vengeance on enemies, 1 the existence of which
1

Reading

in

R.

84. 33-85. i TI^WPTJTIKOV

TWV

e xtfpwv,

with Wilke.

POLITICUS
is

71

noble, just, privately pleasant to boot.

and publicly advantageous, and

A hare that makes its appearance among hounds cannot escape (Aristotle says) nor can that which is deemed shameless and despicable survive among men.
PHILOD.
Voll. Rhet. 2. 175, fr. 15. 1-6.
,

PAP. HERC. 1020. From these facts, they say, it follows that wise men (as Aristotle says) cannot be deceived or err, and

do

all

things well.

ON POETS
TESTIMONIA
ARIST. Poet. I454b i5~i8. All these rules one must keep in mind throughout, and, further, those also for such points of stage-effect as directly depend on the art of the poet, since in these too one may often make mistakes. Enough, however,

has been said on the subject in our published writings.

Vita Arist. Marciana p. 427. 3-7 (Rose). While young, he received the education of a free man, by his Homeric Questions, by the edition of the he gave to Alexander, by the dialogue On Poets,

he was
as
is

still

shown

Iliad which

the Poetics,

and the
Cf.

rhetorical treatises.

Vita Arist. vulgo (ante ps.-Ammon. in Cat.}.

Or. 53. i: see p. 3 supra.
1 (R 2 59, R3 70)

Dio CHR.

DIOG. LAERT.

8. 2.

57-58

(3).

In his work

On

Poets Aristotle

describes Empedocles as Homeric, and an artist in language, skilled in metaphor and in the other devices of poetry; he

adds that Empedocles wrote, besides other poems, one on Xerxes crossing of the Hellespont, and a prelude to Apollo, but that a sister or, as Hieronymus says, a daughter burned the prelude by accident, and the Persian poem in tentionally, because it was unfinished. Aristotle adds, in general terms, that he also wrote tragedies and works on
politics.

2 (R 2 60, R 3 71)
8. 2. 51-52 (i). Empedocles, according to Hippobotus, was the son of Meton son of Empedocles, and Eratosthenes in his list of belonged to Agrigentum.
.

DIOG. LAERT.

ON POETS
;

73

Olympic winners says that Meton s father was successful in the seventy-first Olympiad his authority is Aristotle. Apollodorus the grammarian in his chronicles says Empedocles was the son of Meton, and Glaucus says he went to Thurii Those just after its foundation Then a little later he says: who relate that he fled from home to Syracuse and fought with the Syracusans against the Athenians seem to me to be completely mistaken for he was either no longer alive or in extreme old age, which, however, does not seem to have been the case. For Aristotle and also Heraclides say he died at the age of sixty. The Empedocles who won a horse-race in the seventy-first Olympiad was his grandfather and namesake, so that Apollodorus indicates his date as well
. ;

as his parentage.
Cf. ibid. 8. 2.

74 (n).
2 3 3 (R 61, R 72)

DIOG. LAERT.
the
first

3.

48

(32). It is said
;

that Zeno the Eleatic

was

to write dialogues but Aristotle in the first book of his work On Poets says it was Alexamenos of Styra or of

Teos, as Favorinus also says in his Memoirs. But Plato seems to me, by bringing the genre to perfection, to deserve the first prize for the invention, as well as for the beauty of his
execution.

ATH. 505 b-c. The writer who has utterly condemned the others recounts the praises of Meno; in the Republic he banishes Homer and imitative poetry, but he himself wrote his dialogues in an imitative way. He was not even the in ventor of this type; for before him Alexamenos of Teos invented this type of writing, as Nicias of Nicaea and Sotion thus: Are we testify. Aristotle in his work On Poets writes then to deny that the so-called mimes of Sophron, which are not even in metre, 2 are stories and imitations, or the 3 dialogues of Alexamenos of Teos, which were written before
1

i.e.

Plato.
in

Reading Reading

in

R. R.

78.

78. 13 -nportpov,

inntrpovs omas TOVS, with Kaibel. suggested by Kaibel.

74

FRAGMENTS

the Socratic dialogues ? Thus the great savant Aristotle says outright that Alexamenos wrote dialogues before Plato.
2 3 4 (R 62, R 73)

DIOG. LAERT.
Plato
s

3.

37
lies

(25).

Aristotle says that the genre of

dialogues

between poetry and prose.

5 (R
2

63, R3 8l)

PROCL. in Remp.
discuss Plato
s

i.

42. 2 (Kroll).

We must

first

mention and
.

10. reason for not admitting poetry. Secondly, what can be the reason why he specially excludes tragedy and comedy, though these contribute to the purifica
.
.

tion of the passions, which can neither be completely re pelled nor safely gratified to the full, but need seasonable
exercise, the

achievement of which

in listening to

drama
. . .

saves us from being troubled by them at other times? 49. 13. The second point was that the expulsion of tragedy
is paradoxical, since by means of them it is possible to gratify the passions in due measure and, by doing so, to have them at our service for the purpose of education,

and comedy

having cured what was diseased in them. This objection, which gave to Aristotle a great handle for criticism, and to the defenders of these forms of poetry a starting-point for
their

arguments against Plato, we

shall, in

continuation of

what we have already

said, refute. ... 50. 17-26.

We

shall

agree, then, that the statesman must devise some outlets for these passions, but not so as to intensify our leanings towards them on the contrary, so as to bridle them and keep
;

the exercise of

them within due

limits

but these forms of

poetry, which in addition to their garishness make an un measured appeal to these passions, are far from serving the

purpose of purification for purification depends not on excess but on restrained exercise, and has little likeness to the passions which it purifies.
;

IAMBL. Myst. i. (Parthey). The powers of the human passions in us, hemmed in everywhere, wax stronger, but if they are permitted a modest exercise, within the limits of

ON POETS

75

due proportion, they have a measured enjoyment and are satisfied, and being thereby purified they come to a stop in obedience to persuasion, and not to force. Therefore, both in comedy and in tragedy, by looking at the passions of others we stay our own passions, make them more moderate, and purify them.
Ibid. 3. 9. This
is by no means to be called an elimination, or a purification and a cure for it is innate in us not as a result of disease or superfluity or excess it is divine.
; ;

6 (R 2 64, R 3 74)

MACR.

5. 18. 16.

That

it

was the custom

of the Aetolians to

go to war with only one foot shod is shown by the famous tragic writer Euripides, in whose tragedy Meleager a messen ger is introduced describing the dress of each of the captains

matter

who had come together to capture the boar. 19. In this we shall not fail to point out a fact known to very few, that Euripides was criticized by Aristotle, who
. .

maintained that this was Euripides ignorance the Aetolians had not their left foot bare, but their right. That I may not make an assertion without proving it I will quote the very words of Aristotle in the second book of his work On Poets, where he says this about Euripides Euripides says the sons "In their left of Thestius went with their left foot unshod step they were unshod of foot, while the right was shod so that they should have one knee light". The custom of the
;

Aetolians

is just the opposite; their left foot is shod, the right unshod, I suppose because the leading foot should be

light

but not that which remains

fixed.

2 7 (R 65, R3 75)

2. 5. 46. Socrates had as rivals (so Aristotle says in the third book of his work on poetry) a certain Antilochus of Lemnos and Antiphon the soothsayer, as Pythagoras had Cylon of Croton; Homer while alive had

DIOG. LAERT.

Syagrus, and
1

when dead Xenophanes

in

of Colophon.
with Eyssenhardt.

Hesiod

Reading

R.

79. 3

secundum

scripsit,

76

FRAGMENTS
alive
1

when

had Cecrops, and after death the aforesaid Xenophanes; Pindar had Amphimenes of Cos, Thales had Pherecydes, Bias had Salarus of Priene, Pittacus had Antimenidas and Alcaeus, Anaxagoras had Sosibius, and Simonides had Timocreon.
8 (R 2 66, R3 76)
Ps.-PLU. Vit. Horn. 3-4. Aristotle in the third book of his work on poetry says that in the island of los, at the time when Neleus the son of Codrus ruled this Ionic colony, a certain girl who was a native of the island became pregnant by a spirit which was one of the companions of the Muses in the dance. When she saw the signs of her pregnancy she

was ashamed

of

what had happened and betook

herself to

a place called Aegina. Pirates raided the place, captured the girl, and took her to Smyrna, which was then under the Lydians this they did as a favour to Maeon, who was the king of Lydia and their friend. He fell in love with the girl for her beauty and married her. While she was living near
;

the Meles the birth-pangs came upon her and she gave birth to Homer on the bank of the river. Maeon adopted him and brought him up as his own son, Critheis having died im

mediately after her delivery. Not long after, Maeon himself died. Wlien the Lydians were being oppressed by the Aeolians and had decided to leave Smyrna, and their leaders had called on any who wished to follow them to leave the town, Homer (still an infant) said he too wished to follow for which reason he was called Homer 2 instead of Melesigenes. When he had grown up and already become famous for his poetry, he asked the god who were his ancestors and whence he came, and the god replied thus los is thy mother s native island, which will receive thee dead; but beware of
; :

Not long after, while sail the riddle of young men. ing to Thebes, to the festival of Kronos (this is a musical
.
. .

contest which they hold), he came to los. Here he sat on a rock and watched the fishermen sailing in, and asked them
1

Reading
d/XT/petV

in
"

R.

79. 17 AfufrifjLfvTjs,

with the MSS.

ON POETS
if
1

77

they had anything. They had caught nothing, but were

:

picking lice off themselves, and owing to the difficulty of What we caught we left what we this chase they replied did not catch we bring with us intimating that the lice they had caught they had killed and left behind, and those they
; ,

had not caught they were carrying in their clothing. Homer failed to interpret the riddle and died of discouragement. The people of los buried him and inscribed on his tomb the high-sounding words: Here earth covers the sacred head, Homer, divine glorifier of heroes.
Cf.

CELL.

3.

n.

and Homeri Opera,

ed. Allen, 5. 244, 247,

251-2.

Rose
Poetics.

s fr.

77

is

to the dialogue

On

omitted, because it seems to belong not Poets, but to the lost second book of the

Reading

in

R.

80. 22

tf>6(ipi,(o9at,

with most of the MSS.

ON PHILOSOPHY
TESTIMONIA
PHILOD.
Piet. 7 b 4~8. ... in the third

book

of Aristotle s

work

On

Philosophy.

PRISC. LYDUS 41. 16-42. 3. Our materials have been taken and put together from Plato s Timaeus and from Aris totle s Physics, De Caelo, De Generatione et Corruptione, and Meteorologica, and similarly from the De Somno and the De Somniis, and from what he wrote in dialogue form On Philo sophy and On the Worlds.
.

SIMP, in

De

Caelo 288. 31-289. 2: see p. 5 supra.

ASCL. in Metaph. 112. 16-19. About the first principles and (Aristotle says) we have already spoken in the Physics he promises to speak about these in Book a, and to raise and solve the problems about them in the work On Philosophy.
;

1 (R 2 4,

R3

I,

l)

Of the inscriptions at Delphi that which was thought to be the most inspired was Know thyself it
PLU. Mor. 1118
c.
;

was

this, as Aristotle

has said in his Platonic works, 2 that

induced in Socrates this

mood of uncertainty and questioning.

3,

2 (R 2

R3

2,

W 2)

DIOG. LAERT. 2. 5. 23 (7). Aristotle says that Socrates went to Delphi; but also to the Isthmus, as Favorinus relates in the first book of his Memoirs.

3 (R

5,

R3

3,

w 3)
2

PORPH. apud STOB.

1

3. 21. 26.

injunction at Delphi, which bids

Of the Metaphysics.

What and whose was the sacred him who is to seek anything
i.e.

his dialogues.

ON PHILOSOPHY
.
.

79
. .

Whether it was Phemonoe from the god to know himself ? or Phanothea ... or Bias or Thales or Chilon that set it up ... or whether we should give credence rather to Clearchus, who says the injunction was that of the Pythian oracle and was
. .

given to Chilon
learn
;

when he inquired what

it

was best

for
it

men to
was
al

or whether even before the time of Chilon

1

ready inscribed in the temple that was founded after the temple of feathers and that of bronze, as Aristotle has said in his work On Philosophy
. .

CLEM. AL. Strom, i. 14. 60. 3. The saying Know thyself some have ascribed to Chilon, while Chameleon in his work on the gods ascribes it to Thales, and Aristotle ascribes it
to the Pythian priestess.

4 (R
CLEM. AL. Strom,
excess!
is

6,

R3

4,

W 4)
. . .

i. 14. 61. i. Again, the saying Nothing in Give ascribed to Chilon the Lacedaemonian.

a pledge, and ruin waits you is cited by Cleomenes in his The Aristotelian tradition ascribes it to work on Hesiod. Chilon, while Didymus assigns the advice to Thales.
. .

5 (R

7,

R3 5,

w 5)

Etymol. Magn. 722. 16-17 (Sylburg) s.v. ao^iarijs. Properly one who practises sophistry but Aristotle uses it of the
;

Seven Sages.
6 (R 2
DIOG. LAERT.
his
8, 29,

R3

6, 34,

w 6)

i Prooem. 8 (6). Aristotle in the first book of work On Philosophy says that the Magi are more ancient even than the Egyptians, and that according to them there are two first principles, a good spirit and an evil spirit, one called Zeus and Oromasdes, the other Hades and Areimanius.

PLINY, N.H. 30.

1

3.

The

art of

magic undoubtedly began with

it is

Zoroaster in Persia, as the authorities agree. But

Cf.

not

Paus.

10. 5.

The second temple was made by bees out

of

wax and

feathers.

80
quite clear

FRAGMENTS

whether there was only one Zoroaster, or a later one as well. Eudoxus, who claimed it to be the most illus trious and most beneficial of the sects of philosophy, related that this Zoroaster lived six thousand years before the death
of Plato; Aristotle agrees.

birth, the

PLU. Mor. 370 c. Of the planets, which they call the gods of Chaldaeans describe two as beneficent, two as
. .

maleficent, the other three as intermediate and neutral. Aristotle calls the one form, the other privation.

7 (R*

9,

R3

7,

w 7)
;

PHILOP. in De An. 186. 14-16. Aristotle says so-called because the poems are thought not to be the work of Orpheus Aristotle himself maintains this in the books On Philosophy the opinions are those of Orpheus, but it is said that Onomacritus spun them out in verse.
1

Cic. N.D. i. 38. 107. Aristotle says the poet Orpheus never existed; the Pythagoreans ascribe this Orphic poem to a certain Cercon. 2

8 (R 2

2,

R3

13,

W 8)

Enc. 22. 85 c. ... if indeed a proverb is a wise thing; and why should those things not be wise which Aristotle describes as relics, saved by their conciseness and cleverness when ancient philosophy perished in the wide

SYNES.

Calvit.

spread destruction of mankind

PHILOPONUS in Nicom. Isagogen

i.

i.

Wisdom
,

(ao<f>ia)

was

so called as being a sort of clearness (adfoia) inasmuch as it makes all things clear. This clearness, being, as it were, some has acquired its name from that of light thing light
((f>aes),

because it brings hidden things to light. Since, then, as Aristotle says, things intelligible and divine, even if they are most clear in their own nature, seem to us dark
((f>dos,
<f>a>s),

Reading Reading

in in

with Hayduck. R. 26. 19 R. 26. 22 Cerconis, with the MSS.

<f>aoiv,

ON PHILOSOPHY
and dim because
us,

81

of the mist of the

body which hangs over

men naturally gave to the knowledge which brings these things into the light for us the name of wisdom. But since we use the words wisdom and wise in a general way, it must
be realized that these words are ambiguous. They have been taken by the ancients in five ways, which Aristotle mentions in his ten books On Philosophy. For you must know that men perish in diverse ways both by plagues and famines and earthquakes and wars and various diseases and by other causes, but above all by more violent cataclysms, such as that in the time of Deucalion is said to have been it was a great cataclysm but not the greatest of all. For herdsmen and those who have their occupation in the mountains or
;

the foothills are saved, while the plains and the dwellers in them are engulfed so, at least, they say that Dardanus was
;

swept by the flood from Samothrace to what was afterwards called Troy, and thus was saved. Those who are saved from the water must live on the uplands, as the poet shows when he says: First Zeus the cloud-gatherer begat Dardanus, and he stablished Dardania, for not yet was holy Ilios built upon the plain to be a city of mortal men, but still they dwelt on slopes of many-fountained Ida. The word still shows that they had not yet courage to live in the plains. These survivors, then, not having the means of sustenance, were forced by necessity to think of useful devices the grinding of corn,
1

sowing, and the like and they gave the name of wisdom to such thought, thought which discovered what was useful with a view to the necessities of life, and the name of wise to anyone who had had such thoughts. Again, they devised
arts arts, as the poet says, at the prompting of Athene not limited to the necessities of life, but going on to the production of beauty and elegance and this again men have called wisdom, and its discoverer wise, as in the phrase A wise craftsman framed it 2 knowing well by Athene s 3 For, because of the excellence of the promptings of wisdom discoveries, they ascribed the thought of these things to God. Again, they turned their attention to politics, and invented
; ,
.

Horn.

//. 20.

215-18.

Cf. ibid. 23. 712.

Cf. ibid. 15. 412,

Od.

16. 233.

645.29

82
laws,

FRAGMENTS
;

and all the things that hold a state together and such thought also they called wisdom; for such were the Seven Wise Men men who attained political virtues. Then they went farther and proceeded to bodies themselves and the nature that fashions them, and this they called by the
special name of natural science, and its possessors we describe as wise in the affairs of nature. Fifthly, men applied the name
in

pletely unchangeable,

connexion with things divine, supramundane, and com and called the knowledge of these things the highest wisdom.

9 (W
SEXT. EMP. Phys.
others deny this
.

9)

2,
. .

45-46.

Some say

that

movement
1

exists,

Parmenides and Melissus, whom Aristotle has called immobilists and nonphysical thinkers immobilists because they maintain the

namely the followers

of

immobility of being, non-physical because nature is the source of movement, and in saying that nothing moves they denied the existence of nature.

10 (R 2 10, R 3

8, vv 10)

PROCL. apud PHILOP. De Aet. Mundi, p. 31. 17 (Rabe). It looks as though there were nothing in Plato that Aristotle rejected so firmly as the theory of Ideas, not only in his logical writings ... 20 but also in his ethical writings ... 21

and

Metaphysics

in his physical writings ... 32. i and much more in his 5-8 and in his dialogues, where he asseverates
. .
.

most
if

clearly that he cannot agree with this doctrine, even he lays himself open to the charge of opposing it from love

of polemic.

PLU. Mor. 1115 b-c: see

p.

4 supra.

11 (R 2 II, R 3 9,

II)

SYRIAN- in Metaph. 159. 33-160. 5. Aristotle himself admits that he has said nothing against the hypotheses of the
1 Omitting r-fjs jvoews, with some MSS. This seems to be a punning use of the word araaituTys.

ON PHILOSOPHY

83

Platonists and quite fails to keep pace with the doctrine of the ideal numbers, if these are different from the mathematical.

This is shown by the words in the second book of the work On Philosophy: Thus if the Ideas are a different sort of number, not mathematical number, we can have no under
standing of
it
;

comprehends any other number ?

for of the majority of us, at all events, who Thus in fact he has

addressed his refutation to the multitude who know no num ber other than that which is composed of units, and did not begin to grasp the thought of these divine thinkers.

ALEX. APH. in Metaph. 117. 23-118. i. Aristotle sets out the Platonic dogma, which he has also stated in the work On Philosophy. Wishing to reduce realities (which is what he always means by substances to the first principles which they assumed (the great and the small, which they called the indefinite dyad), they said the first principles of length were the short and long (the assumption being that length takes its origin from a long and short, i.e. from a great and small, or that every line falls under one or other of these), and that the first principles of the plane were the narrow and wide, which are themselves also great and small.
)

De An. 404b i6-24. In the same way Plato, in the Timaeus, fashions the soul out of his elements for like, he holds, is known by like, and things are formed out of the
ARIST.
;

1 principles or elements. Similarly also in the the Animal itself it was set forth that sophy

work On Philo

of the

Idea

itself of

the

is compounded One together with the primary

2

length, breadth, and depth, everything else being similarly constituted. Again, he puts his view in yet other terms:

Mind is the monad, knowledge the dyad (because it goes undeviatingly from one point to another), opinion the num ber of the plane, sensation the number of the solid.
SIMP, in

De An.
1

Philosophy to his work

sc. sc.
2

28. 7-9. Aristotle now applies the name On On the Good (taken down from plato s
so that the soul

must be so
cognition.

too.

the objects of

its

84
lectures), in

FRAGMENTS
which he relates both the Pythagorean opinions

about reality and those of Plato.

Cf.

PHILOP. in De An. 75. 34-76.

i (see p.

116 infra).

Ps. -ALEX, in Metaph. 777. 16-21. The principle of the One they did not all introduce in the same way. Some said that the numbers themselves introduced the Forms into spatial

magnitudes, the number 2 doing so for the line, the number 3 for the plane, the number 4 for the solid (Aristotle relates this about Plato in the work On Philosophy, and that is why he here summarizes only briefly and concisely the theory of
the Platonists)
spatial
;

magnitudes by participation
12 a (R 2 12, R 3 10,

while others explained the form of the in the One.

I2fl)

SEXT. EMP. Phys. i. 20-23. Aristotle used to say that men s thought of gods sprang from two sources the experiences of the soul, and the phenomena of the heavens. To the first

head belonged the inspiration and prophetic power of the soul in dreams. For when (he says) the soul is isolated in sleep, it assumes its true nature and foresees and foretells the future. So is it too with the soul, when at death it is severed from the body. At all events, Aristotle accepts even
as having observed this for Homer has represented moment of his death, as foretelling the death of Hector, and Hector as foretelling the end of Achilles. It

Homer

Patroclus, in the

was from such events (he says) that men came to suspect the existence of something divine, of that which is in its nature akin to the soul and of all things most full of know ledge. But the heavenly bodies also contributed to this be lief seeing by day the sun running his circular course, and by night the well-ordered movement of the other stars, they came to think that there is a God who is the cause of such
1 ;

movement and
Cic. Div.

order.
i.

Such was the

belief of Aristotle.

ad Brut.

30. 63.

When,

the

mind from the

1

society
in

and contact

therefore, sleep has freed of the body, then it

Reading

R.

28. 13 Otiov,

with Mutschmann.

ON PHILOSOPHY
remembers the
;

85

past, discerns the present, and foresees the future for the body of a sleeper lies like that of a dead man, and so when death but his mind is active and alive
.

approaches it is much more divine. ... 64. That dying men have foreknowledge Posidonius confirms by the example he Another instance of this is Homer s Hector, adduces. who when dying announces the approaching death of
.

Achilles.

12 b (R 2 13, R 3

u,

12

b)

SEXT. EMP. MtUh.g(Phys. i) 26-27. Some men, when they come to the unswerving and well-ordered movement of the heavenly bodies, say that in this the thought of gods had its origin for as, if one had sat on the Trojan Mount Ida and seen the array of the Greeks approaching the plains in good order and arrangement, horsemen first with horses and chariots, and footmen behind such a one would certainly have come to think that there was someone arranging such an array and commanding the soldiers ranged under him, Nestor or some other hero who knew how to order horses and bucklered warriors 2 And as one familiar with ships, as soon as he sees from afar a ship running before the wind with all its
; 1
, .

sails well set,

steering

it 3

looked up

knows that there is someone directing it and to its appointed harbours, so those who first to heaven and saw the sun running its race from

its rising to its setting,

and the orderly dances of the stars, looked for the Craftsman of this lovely design, and surmised that it came about not by chance but by the agency of some
mightier and imperishable nature, which was God.
2 3 13 (R 14, R 12,

13)

Cic. N.D. 37. 95-96. Great was the saying of Aristotle: Suppose there were men who had lived always underground, in good and well-lighted dwellings, adorned with statues and pictures, and furnished with everything in which those who are thought happy abound. Suppose, however, that they had
2.
1

Horn.

//. 4. 297.

Ibid.

2.

554.

Reading

in

R.

29. 6 Kardycav,

with Mutschmann.

86

FRAGMENTS

never gone above ground, but had learned by report and hearsay that there is a divine authority and power. Suppose that then, at some time, the jaws of the earth opened, and they were able to escape and make their way from those hidden dwellings into these regions which we inhabit. When
they suddenly saw earth and seas and sky, when they learned the grandeur of clouds and the power of winds, when they saw the sun and learned his grandeur and beauty and the power shown in his filling the sky with light and making day when, again, night darkened the lands and they saw the whole sky picked out and adorned with stars, and the
;

moon as it waxes and wanes, and the and settings of all these bodies, and their courses and immutable to all eternity; when they saw those things, most certainly they would have judged both that there are gods and that these great works are the works of gods. Thus far Aristotle.
varying lights of the
risings settled

PHILO, Leg. Alleg.

3. 32.

97-99.

The

earliest thinkers inquired

how we came

to recognize the divine. Later, the most highly esteemed philosophers said that it was from the world and

its parts and the powers inherent in these that we came to grasp their cause. If one saw a house carefully furnished with entrances, colonnades, men s quarters, women s quarters, and all the other buildings, he would acquire an idea of the archi tect, since he would reflect that the house could not have been completed without the art of a craftsman and so too with a city, a ship, or any structure small or great. So also if one comes into this world as into a vast house or city, and sees the heavens revolving in a circle and containing all things within them, planets and un wandering stars moving uni formly in orderly and harmonious fashion for the good of the whole, earth occupying the midmost region, streams of water and air in between, living things also, mortal and immortal, varieties of plants and crops he will surely reason that these things have not been framed without perfect skill, but that there both was and is a framer of this universe God. Those, then, who reason thus grasp God by way of his shadow, apprehending the Craftsman through his works.
;
;

ON PHILOSOPHY
Cf.

87
Spec. Leg.
i.

PHILO, De Praem.

et

Poen.

7.

40-46, De

35.

185-36. 194.

14 (R* 44, R3 14,

14)

SEN. Q.N. 7. 30. Aristotle says excellently that we should nowhere be more modest than in matters of religion. If we

how much compose ourselves before we enter temples more should we do this when we discuss the constellations, the stars, and the nature of the gods, to guard against saying anything rashly and imprudently, either not knowing
.

it

to be true or

knowing
c-f.

it

to be false

Cf.

PLU. Mor. 477

15 (RZ 45, R3 15,

SYNESIUS, Dio.
10.

15)

... as Aristotle claims that those who are being initiated into the mysteries are to be expected not to learn anything but to suffer some change, to be put into a certain condition, i.e. to be fitted for some purpose.
48
a.

MICHAEL PSELLUS,

Schol. ad Joh. Climacum (Cat. des Man. Alch. Grecs, ed. Bidez, 1928), 6. 171. I undertook to teach the you what I have learned, not what I have experienced one is matter for teaching, the other for mystical experience.
.
.

The

reason

comes to men by hearing, the second comes when has experienced illumination which Aristotle described as mysterious and akin to the Eleusinian rites (for in these he who was initiated into the mysteries was being
first

itself

moulded, not being taught).

16 (R* 15, R 3 16,

SIMP, in

16)

work On
is

Caelo 289. 1-15. Aristotle speaks of this in the Philosophy. In general, where there is a better there

De

a best. Since, then,

is

among

existing things one

is

is

better
will

than another, there

1

also

something that

best,

which

Reading

in

R.

31. 7-8 de sideribus, de stellis, de

deorum natura disputamus,

with Gercke.

88

FRAGMENTS
Now
that which changes

be the divine.

is changed either by something else or by itself, and if by something else, either by something better or by something worse, and if by itself, either to something worse or through desire for something better but the divine has nothing better than itself by which it may be changed (for that other would then have been more divine), nor on the other hand is it lawful for the better to be affected by the worse besides, if it were changed by some thing worse, it would have admitted some evil into itself, but nothing in it is evil. On the other hand, it does not change itself through desire for something better, since it lacks none of its own excellences; nor again does it change itself for the worse, since even a man does not willingly make himself worse, nor has it anything evil such as it would have acquired from a change to the worse. This proof, too, Aristotle took over from the second book of Plato s Republic.
;

2 3 17 (R 16, R 17,

17)
.

Schol. in Proverb. Salomonis, cod. Paris, gr. 174, f Aristotle belongs the following: There is either

46 a. To one first

principle or

many.
if

If

there

looking for;
disordered.

there are
if

is one, we have what we are many, they are either ordered or

Now

they are disordered, their products are

;

more

and the world is not a world but a chaos besides, that which is contrary to nature belongs to that which is by nature non-existent. If on the other hand they are ordered, they were ordered either by themselves or by some outside cause. But if they were ordered by themselves, they have something common that unites them, and that is the first
so,

principle.

18 (R 2 17, R 3 18,
PHILO,

18)

De Aet. Mundi 3. 10-11. Aristotle was surely speaking piously and devoutly when he insisted that the world is
ungenerated and imperishable, and convicted of grave un godliness those who maintained the opposite, who thought that the great visible god, which contains in truth sun and moon and the remaining pantheon of planets and unwander-

ON PHILOSOPHY
;

89

ing stars, is no better than the work of man s hands he used to say in mockery (we are told) that in the past he had feared lest his house be destroyed by violent winds or storms beyond

the ordinary, or by time or by lack of proper maintenance, but that now a greater danger hung over him, from those who by argument destroyed the whole world.
3 19 a (R 19,

19 a)

PHILO, De Act. 5. 20-24 -The arguments which prove the world to be ungenerated and imperishable should, out of respect for the visible god, be given their proper precedence and placed earlier in the discussion. To all things that admit of being destroyed there are ordained two causes of destruc tion, one inward, the other outward. Iron, bronze, and such like substances you will find being destroyed from within
rust invades and devours them like a creeping disease, and from without when a house or a city is set on fire and they catch fire from it and are destroyed by the fierce rush of flame; and similarly death comes to living beings from themselves when they fall sick, and from outside when they have their throats cut or are stoned or burned to death

Mundi

when

or suffer the unclean death

by hanging. If the world, too, is destroyed, it must be either by something outside or by one of the powers in itself. Now each of these is impossible.
For there is nothing outside the world, since all things have contributed to its completeness. For so will it be one, whole, and ageless; one because only if something had been left out of its composition would there be another world like the present world whole because the whole of being has been
;

expended on it ageless and diseaseless because bodies caught by disease and old age are destroyed by the violent assault from without of heat and cold and the other contrary forces, of which none can escape and circle round and attack the
;

world, since all without exception are entirely enclosed within it. If there is anything outside, it must be a complete

void or an impassive nature which cannot suffer or do any thing. Nor again will the world be destroyed by anything within it firstly because the part would then be both

90

FRAGMENTS
is

greater and more powerful than the whole, which

;

the most

incredible of all things for the world, wielding unsurpassable power, directs all its parts and is directed by none secondly
;

because, there being two causes of destruction, one within and one without, things that can suffer the one are necessarily susceptible also to the other. The evidence? Ox and horse

by

and man and such-like animals, because they can be destroyed iron, will also perish by disease. For it is hard, nay im possible, to find anything that is fitted to be subject to the external cause of destruction and entirely insusceptible to the internal. Since, then, it was shown that the world will not be destroyed by anything without, because absolutely nothing has been left outside, neither will it be destroyed

by anything
is

the effect that that which

within, because of the preceding argument to is susceptible to the one cause

also susceptible to the other.

3 19 b (R 20,

19

b)

PHILO, DeAet. Mundi6. 28 7. 34. This may be put in another way. Of composite bodies all that are destroyed are dissolved into their components but dissolution is surely nothing but
;

reduction to the natural state of the parts, so that conversely where there is composition, it has forced into an unnatural state the parts that have come together. And indeed it

seems to be so beyond a doubt. For we men were put to gether by borrowing little parts of the four elements, which belong in their entirety to the whole universe earth, water, air, and fire. Now these parts when mixed are robbed of
natural position, the upward-travelling heat being the earthy and heavy substance being made light and seizing in turn the upper region, which is occupied by the earthiest of our parts, the head. The worst of bonds
their

forced down,

by violence this is violent and broken sooner by those who have been bound, because they shake off the noose through longing for their natural movement, to which they hasten. For, as the Things born of earth return to earth, tragic poet says,
is

that which

is

fastened

shortlived, for

it is

Reading

in

R.

35. 13-14 tear cao6flays,

with Diels.

ON PHILOSOPHY

91
;

things born of an ethereal seed return to the pole of heaven nothing that comes into being dies; one departs in one 2 direction, one in another, and each shows its own form.
1

things that perish, then, this is the law and this the when the parts that have come together in rule prescribed the mixture have settled down they must in place of their

For

all

natural order have experienced disorder, and must move to the opposites of their natural places, so that they seem to be in a sense exiles, but when they are separated they turn

back to their natural sphere. Now the world has no part in the disorder we have spoken of for let us consider. If the world is perishing, its parts must now each be placed in the region unnatural to it. But this we cannot easily suppose; for to all the parts of the world have fallen perfect position and harmonious arrangement, so that each, as though fond of its own country, seeks no change to a better. For this
;

reason, then, was assigned to earth the midmost position, to which 3 all earthy things, even if you throw them up, descend. This is an indication of their natural place for in
;

that region in which a thing brought thither stays and rests, when under no compulsion, there it has its home. Secondly, water is spread over the earth, and air and fire have moved

from the middle to the upper region, to air falling the region between water and fire, and to fire the highest region of all. And so, even if you light a torch and throw it to the ground, the flame will none the less strive against you and lighten itself and return to the natural motion of fire. If, then, the
cause of destruction of other creatures is their unnatural 4 situation, but in the world each of its parts is situated according to nature and has had its proper place assigned to it, the world may justly be called imperishable.

19

c (R 3 21,

19

c)

PHILO, De Aet. Mundi 8. 39-43. The most conclusive argu ment is that on which I know very many people to pride
themselves, as on something most precise and quite irrefutable.
1

Reading
a
*

in

R.

35. 23 irpos oAAo,

with the MSS.

ragis
3 Reading in R. 36. n TWV dAAcuv, with Cohn.

Eur.

836 Nauck. Reading in R. 36. 20-1

fr.

5v.
t<f>

ij

-napa

<f>v<jiv

92

FRAGMENTS
ask,

They

Why
what

should

God

destroy the world?

Either

to save himself from continuing in world-making, or in order to make another world. The former of these purposes is alien

him is to turn disorder into order, and further, he would be admitting into himself repentance, an affection and disease of the soul. For he should either not have made a world at all, or else, if he judged the work becoming to him, should have rejoiced in the product. The second alternative deserves full examina tion. For if instead of the present world he is to make an other, the world he makes will be in any case either worse or better than the present world, or like to it, and each of
to
;

God

for

befits
;

not order into disorder

these possibilities
artificer will

is open to objection, (i) If it is worse, its be worse but the works of God are blameless,
;

exempt from criticism, incapable of improvement, fashioned as they are by the most perfect art and knowledge. For, as the saying goes, not even a woman is so lacking in good 2 judgement as to prefer the worse when the better is avail able 3 and it is befitting for God to give shape to the shapeless and to deck the ugliest things with marvellous beauties. (2) If the new world is like the old, its artificer will have laboured in vain, differing in nothing from mere children,
;

who

often, when they make sand-castles on the shore, build them up and then pull them down. It were far better, instead of making a new world like the old, neither to take away nor

to add anything, nor change anything for better or for worse, but to leave the original world in its place. (3) If he is to

make a

better, so that

better world, the artificer himself must become when he made the former world he must have

been more imperfect both in art and in wisdom which it is not lawful even to suspect. For God is equal and like to him self, admitting neither slackening towards the worse nor intensification towards the better.

20 (R 2 18, R 3 22,
Cic. Lucullus 38. 119 (Plasberg).
1

W 20)
your wise Stoic has

When

2
3

Reading Reading Reading

with Gomperz. R. 36. 27 in R. 37. 12 xpetov , with Meineke. in R. 37. 13 dpftvoTtputv naptovrwv, with Mangey.
in
<j>6tpei,

ON PHILOSOPHY
said
all

93

come
is

these things to you syllable by syllable, Aristotle will with the golden flow of his speech, to say that the Stoic
;

talking nonsense he will say that the world never came into being, because there never was a new design from which so noble a work could have taken its beginning, and that it
is

great

so well designed in every part that no force can effect such movements and so great a change, no old age can come
fall

upon the world by lapse

world should ever

of time, so that this beauteous to pieces and perish.

LACT. hist. 2. 10. 24. If the world can perish as a whole because it perishes in parts, it clearly has at some time come
into being and as fragility proclaims a beginning, so it pro claims an end. If that is true, Aristotle could not save the
;

itself from having a beginning. Now if Plato and Epicurus wring this admission from Aristotle, then in spite of the eloquence of Plato and Aristotle, who thought the world would last for ever, Epicurus will force from them the

world

same unwilling conclusion,

has also an end.

since

it

follows that the world

21 (R 2 19-20, R 3 23-24,
Cic.

2l)

15. 42. Since some living things have their origin in earth, others in water, others in air, Aristotle thinks it absurd to suppose that in that part which is fittest to
2.

N.D.

generate living things no animal should be born. Now the stars occupy the ethereal region and since that region is the least dense and is always in movement and activity, the
;

animal born in
swiftest

it must have the keenest perception and the movement. Thus, since it is in ether that the stars
it is

are born,

and

intelligence.

proper that in these there should be perception From which it follows that the stars must

be reckoned among the gods.

is to be praised, too, for judging that things that move do so either by nature or by compulsion or by choice, and that the sun and moon and all the stars are in movement, and that things that move by nature move

Ibid. 16. 44. Aristotle

all

94
either

FRAGMENTS
downwards by
virtue of weight or

of lightness, neither of because their movement

it

upwards by virtue which could happen to the stars, is in an orb or circle. Nor again can

be said that some greater force makes the stars move contrary to nature for what power can be greater ? What remains, then, is that the movement of the stars is voluntary. He who sees these things would be acting not only ignorantly but also impiously if he denied that there are gods.
;

22 (W 22)
Gr. 432. 4-8. Plato and Aristotle say 43 there are four kinds of animals of land, of water, winged,

STOB.

i.

= Dox.

heavenly. For the stars too, they say, are said to be animals, and the world itself is divine, a reasonable immortal animal.
1

OLYMP. in Phd. 180. 22-23 (Norvin). Aristotle ascribes the whole process of creation to the heavenly animals. 2

NEMES. De Nat. Horn.

tion of these to the sun
Cf.

ch. 34. Aristotle ascribes the genera

and the zodiacal

circle.

PLU. Mor. 908

f,

PS.-GALEN, Phil. Hist. ch. 35.

Z 3 23 (R 37, R 42,

23)

That there must even be a whole race of men which is thus nourished is shown by the case of the man in these parts who was nourished by the

OLYMP. in Phd.

200. 3-6 (Norvin).

s rays alone; Aristotle told about him, having himself seen him.

sun

Ibid. 239. 19-21. If Aristotle recorded the case of a

man

in

world who was sleepless and was nourished only by the sun s rays, what must we think of things in another world ?
this
2 3 24 (R 39, R 48,

24)

OLYMP.
1

in Phd. 26. 22-27. 4 (Norvin). Proclus

would have

heavenly bodies possess only sight and hearing, as Aristotle

Reading Myfodai
i.e.

Kal rov Koopov KO.VTOV fvBtov, with Diels.

to the zodiacal animals.

ON PHILOSOPHY
also

95

would; of the senses they have only these, which are

those that contribute to well-being, not those that contribute to being, as the other senses do. The poet testifies to this, saying: Sun, who seest all things and nearest all things
1

which implies that the heavenly bodies have only sight and hearing. Aristotle adds that these senses, most of all, have knowledge by way of activity rather than of passivity, and
are fitter for the unchanging heavenly bodies. Damascius, however, holds that these bodies have also the other senses.
2 25 (R 43, R^ 47,

25)

PLU. Mor. 1138 c-1104 b. We have shown that Plato rejected the other forms of music not from ignorance or musical inexperi ence but as being unbefitting to such a constitution we will next show that he was skilled in music. 1139 b-ii40 b. On the theme that music is something noble, divine, and grand, Aristotle, the pupil of Plato, says: Music is heavenly, by nature divine, beautiful, and inspired having by nature four parts, it has two means, the arithmetical and the harmonic, and the parts of it, their extents, and their excesses one over another, have numerical and proportionate relations; for tunes 2 are arranged in two tetrachords. 3 These are his words. He meant that the body of music was composed of unlike parts which, however, harmonized with each other. But its
;
. .

means

also

harmonized

in arithmetical ratio

for the highest

:

note, proportioned to the lowest in the ratio of 2 i, com pleted the octave. For music has, as we said before, a highest

note of twelve units and a lowest note of six. Paramcse, harmonizing with hypate in the ratio of 3 2, has nine units, 4 while, as we said, mese has eight. It is of these that the fundamental musical intervals are composed the fourth,
:

Horn.

//. 3.

277, Od. 12. 323.

Reading in R. 53. 7 /i^, with the MSS. The Greeks regarded a musical scale as formed by two tetrachords, either so that the highest note of one was identical with the lowest note ot the other (as in EFGABbCD), or so that there was an interval of a note between them (as in EFGA BCDE).
3

4 Plutarch takes account only of the fundamental notes of the scale the base note (hypate), the fourth (mese), the fifth (paramese), and the octave

(neate).

96

FRAGMENTS
:

involving the ratio 4:3, the fifth, involving the ratio 3:2, and the octave, involving the ratio 2:1. But the ratio 9 8 is also found, which gives the interval of a single tone. The

notes of the scale exceed, and are exceeded by, the notes, and the intervals by the intervals, by the same excesses, both in

geometrical progression and in arithmetical. Aristotle, then, describes them as having such values, neate exceeding mese by the third part of itself, hypate exceeded by paramese in the same ratio, 2 so that the excesses are correlative the notes exceed and are exceeded by the same fractions. Thus the
1 ;

extreme notes respectively exceed and are exceeded by mese and paramese in the same ratios, 4 3 and 3 2. 3 Such an excess is the harmonic. 4 And neate exceeds mese and para mese exceeds hypate by arithmetically equal fractions. 5 For
:

paramese is to mese as 9 8, neate to hypate as 2 mese to hypate as 3 2, and mese to hypate as 4

:
:

i,

3.

para Thus,

according to Aristotle, is the scale constituted in respect of the notes and the corresponding numbers. Both it and all its notes are, as regards their inmost nature, constituted by the even, the odd, 6 and the even-odd. For it is itself, as a whole, even, involving four terms, while its parts and their ratios are even, odd, and even-odd neate is
;

even, containing twelve units, paramese odd, containing nine, mese even, containing eight, hypate even-odd, contain 7 ing six. Being itself thus constituted, and its notes so related
with Bernardakis. Reading in R. 53. 27 by the third part of paramese. neate mese = paramese hypate = 3:2, and neate paramese = mese hypate = 4:3. 4 Three quantities a, b, c were described by the Greeks as forming a
ai>Tijs,

2
3

i.e.

i.e.
:

harmonic progression

and 8 =6 -, 8-\ 3 3 so that 12, 8, 6 (neate, mese, hypate) formed a harmonic progression. 5 This sentence cannot be right as it stands in the Greek ; the sense requires
if

b-\

and

= c + -. n

12

in

Adyov taw

^e enj? xar apiQ^rtKov Neate, paramese, mese, and hypate being to one another as 12, 9, 8, 6, neate exceeds mese, and paramese exceeds hypate, by equal fractions, i.e. by a half. 6 The context seems to demand in R. 54. 9-10 the reading * re rfjs a/mar

R.

54.

2-4 something like

fiepei

17

vtari) vnepexft TTJS

virdrrjs.

xai

17

-irapafjLtoT]

rfjs

which was proposed by Volkmann. be even but 6 to be even-odd, because applied, and confined, to numbers whose halves are odd.
Kal
7

irfpiaa-ijs,

12 is said to

even-odd* was

ON PHILOSOPHY

97

in respect of their mutual excesses and ratios, it is as a whole in harmony with itself and with its parts. But furthermore, of the senses that come into being in bodies, those which are

heavenly and divine, affording by God

of this

harmony

accompany them are, qua senses, harmoniously constituted for it is not without harmony that these too produce their effects they are lesser than sight and hearing, but not derived from them. When God is present, those two come into being in bodies, in accordance with numerical principles, and their nature is both powerful and
; ;

hearing And the senses that

s help and by reason perception to men namely sight and exhibit harmony by the aid of sound and light.
1

beautiful.
It is clear,

then, that the ancient Greeks were right in

all.

valuing musical education most highly of

26 (R 2 21, R 3 26,
Cic.

26)

N.D.

i.

13.

33 (speaking in the person of an Epicurean).

book of hiswork On Philosophy, creates much confusion through dissenting 2 from his master Plato. For now he ascribes all divinity to mind, now he says the world itself is a god, now he sets another god over the world
Aristotle, in the third

and ascribes

to

him the

movement

of the world

by a

role of ruling and preserving the sort of backward rotation. Then

he says the heat of the heavens is a god, not realizing that the heavens are part of the world, which he has himself elsewhere called a god. But how can the divine sense-per ception which he ascribes to the heavens be preserved in a

movement

so speedy ? Where, again, are all the gods of popular belief, if we count the heavens, too, as a god ? And when he himself demands that God be without a body, he deprives him of all sense-perception, and even of foresight. Moreover, how can the world move 3 if it lacks body, and how, if it is always moving itself, can it be calm and blessed ?
1

Reading
2
a

Sid TTJV appoviav (with the

MSS.) after

atoOrjoiv in

R.

54. 21, in

stead of in R. 54. 20.

Omitting non in R. 39. 19, with the MSS. Reading in R. 40. 2 modo mundus moveri, with the MSS.

645. 2V

98

FRAGMENTS
27 (w 27)

this word too we use as and water and earth are primary; from them spring the forms of animals and of the fruits of

Cic. Acad.

i. 7.

26. Therefore air

fire

a Latin word

and

the earth. Therefore these are called

first principles and, to translate from the Greek, elements; of them, air and fire have the power of producing movement and causing change,

while the part of the others water and earth is to receive and, as it were, to suffer. The fifth kind, from which were derived stars and minds, Aristotle thought to be something
distinct,

and unlike the four

have mentioned above.

i. 10. 22. Aristotle, who far exceeded all others always except both in intellect and in industry, after taking account of the four well-known classes of first principles from which all things were derived, considers that there is a fifth kind of thing, from which comes mind for

Cic. Tusc.

Plato

thought, foresight, learning and teaching, discovery, the riches of memory, love and hate, desire and fear, distress and
joy, these and their like (he thinks) cannot be included in any of the four classes he adds a fifth, nameless class, and
;

so calls the

mind itself by the new name a continuous and endless movement.

cvSeAe^eia, as

being

Ibid. i. 17. 41. If the mind is either a certain number (a subtle but not a very clear hypothesis) or the fifth nature, which is unnamed but well understood, these beings are much more perfect and pure, so that they move very far from the earth. Ibid.
26. 65-27. 66. But if there is a fifth nature, introduced by Aristotle, this is the nature both of gods and of minds. 3 We, following this opinion, have expressed it in these very words in our Consolatio The origin of minds is not to be found on earth for in minds there is nothing mixed and
i.

first 2

composite, nothing that seems to be born and fashioned of earth, nothing even resembling water, air, or fire. For in
1

Reading inducta primum, Reading animorum, with the MSS.

sc. aer.

haec, with the

MSS.

ON PHILOSOPHY
these natures there
is

99

nothing that has the power of memory, mind, and thought, that retains the past, foresees the future, and can grasp the present which alone are living powers nor will it ever be discovered whence these can come to man, except from God. There is, therefore, a singular nature and

power

known

mind, disjoined from these customary and wellnatures. Thus, whatever it is that feels, knows, lives, thrives, it must be celestial and divine, and therefore eternal.
of

Nor can the God whom we know be otherwise understood than as a mind apart and free, separated from all mortal
admixture, feeding and moving all things, and itself endowed with eternal motion. Of this kind and of the same nature is the human mind.

CLEM. ROM. Recogn. 8. 15. Aristotle introduced a fifth ele ment, which he called o.Karov6^a.arov, i.e. unnameable, doubt
less

pointing to the being

who by

uniting the four elements

in

one made the world.

28 (w 30)
ARIST. Phys. 194*27-36. The end and the means must be studied by the same science and the nature is the end (for the terminus of a continuous process is also its final cause; hence the poet s 2 absurd remark, He has the end for which he was born 3 which is absurd because not every final point but only that which is best is a final cause). Indeed, some arts make their matter and others make it workable, and we use
;

their matter as existing for our end, in one of the two senses

own sake (for we are the we have distinguished in

Ka.1

the

work On Philosophy).
1

Reading

tori

n WAoj,

TOVTO TO taxarov

TO ov eve*ra.
iii,

1
3

An
i.e.

unidentified comic poet (Kock, death.

Com.

Alt. Fr.

p. 493).

ON JUSTICE
TESTIMONIUM
Cic. Rep. 3. 8. 12. The other writer 1 filled four with his views on justice itself.

huge books

1 (R 2 71, R3

82)

DEMETR.
then, as

Eloc. 28. Neither in passages

I

meant

to rouse terror,

have shown, nor in passages of pathos or moral reflection, is the use of words of similar ending serviceable for pathos wants to be simple and unforced, and so does moral reflection. At all events in Aristotle s work On Justice, if the speaker who is bewailing the fate of Athens were to say They took an enemy city and lost their own compare their gain with their loss he would have used the language of pathos and pity; but if he uses the jingle They took an enemy city and lost their own; compare the profit they gained with the loss they sustained by heaven he will rouse not sympathy nor pity 2 but (as we say) smiles mixed with
;

tears.

To

proverbial language, to play

use such false artifices in pathetic passages among those who mourn.

is,

in

2 (R 2 73, R 3 84)

SUET. De Blasph.

p.

416
.

book of his work On Justice says he was a thief who when he was caught and put in chains and encouraged by the warders to show how he got over walls and into houses, on being set free, fastened spikes to his feet and took the sponges, climbed very easily, escaped from the roof, and got away
also called Eurybates.
.
. .

(Miller) s.v. Evpvparos. Aristotle in the first

criminal,

Cf.

GREG. COR. Ad Hermog.

1

c.

19,

and SUIDAS

s.v.

Aristotle.

Reading

in

R.

87.

Kivrjod ouSe eAeov dAAa, with the

MSS.

ON JUSTICE
3 (R* 74, R3 85)
LACT.
all
1

101

Inst. 5. 15.
s

Carneades,

in order to refute Aristotle s

and Plato

praise of justice, in his first discourse collected the things that used to be said in favour of justice, with

the object of disproving them, as he in fact did.

LACT. Epit. 55. A great number of philosophers, but princi pally Plato and Aristotle, said much about justice, defending it and bestowing the highest praise on it because it assigns
to each

man what

is

his

own and

preserves equity in

all

things, and maintained that while the other virtues are, so to speak, silent and inward, it is justice alone that is not so self-contained and hidden, but stands boldly forth in

readiness to act well for the general good.

2 3 4 (R 75, R 86)

PLU. Mor. 1040 e. Chrysippus says in criticism of Aristotle on the subject of justice that he is not right in saying that if pleasure is the end justice is destroyed, and with justice each of the other virtues.
Cf. Cic. Hortensius, fr.
4. 14. 72.

81 (Miiller)

AUGUST.

C. lul. Pel.

5 (R

7 6, R3 87)

apud BOETH. in De Int. ed. 2, i. i, p. 27 work On Justice says thoughts and sensations are from the very start distinct in their nature
Int.

PORPH. in De

(Meiser). Aristotle in his

(R3 88)

THEM.

d-27 b. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, though he was in all other respects proud and lofty, yet was pleased and flattered when on the strength of his discourses the Athenians conferred citizenship on him, a stranger and
1

Or. 26

In Cicero s

De Re

Publica.

102

FRAGMENTS
;

a Phoenician

heedless of Aristotle,

was so boorish, and so had taken as my master both in life and in philosophy, as to think all honour, no matter from whom or on what ground, a thankless and mercenary object for a good man? Do I not remember the grounds on which Aristotle distinguishes vanity from true pride ? In dis tinguishing them, he says somewhere that with regard to
is it

likely then that I

whom

great honours, as with regard to all other things that are called good, there is an immoderate care for them, but also a moderate and reasonable care. He adds that the man who
is

puffed up and raises his eyebrows at the noisy applause given him by the mob because he has spent much on theatres or horse-races for their entertainment is a vain fellow, and is afflicted with the vice to which Aristotle gives the name of vanity while the man who despises the applause and thinks it little better than the noise of waves beating on the shore, but values more than anything else the approval without flattery which good men bestow on virtue, he is truly great
;

hearted and high-minded.

1

Reading

in

R.

89. 22 Stopi^tuv.

LOGICAL WORKS
TESTIMONIA
ALEX, in Top. 5. 17-19. Of this so-called dialectic Aristotle has treated both in other books and particularly in these,
which are called Topics.
Ibid. 27. ii. Perhaps he would apply the phrase mental gymnastic to a discussion which probes both sides of a question. This type of discussion was not unusual with the ancients. 14-18. They put forward a thesis, and practised on it their inventiveness in argument, establishing and re 2 futing the thesis by probable arguments. There are books both of Aristotle and of Theophrastus containing such argu ments from probable premisses to opposite conclusions.
.

Cf.

ELIAS in

Cat. 133. 9-17.

THEON, Prog.

2, p.

165.

Examples

of training in theses

may

be got both from Aristotle and from Theophrastus; there are many books of theses bearing their names.
1

Reading Reading

in in

R. 105. 8 avr&v, with Wallies. R. 105. 9 KaraaKfvd^ovres Tf Kai dvaoKfudfrvrts, with the MSS.

ON PROBLEMS
I (R
1

ICQ,

R 2 112)

ALEX, in Top.

62. 30. One might consider in which class of problems one should include such problems as Why does the magnetic stone attract iron ? or What is the nature of prophetic waters ? These do not seem to fall under any of the recognized kinds. Is it that these are not dialectical problems at all, such as those which we are discussing and whose kinds we are distinguishing? ... 63. 11-19. Are these not physical problems, as Aristotle has said in his work On Problems ? Physical phenomena whose causes are unknown
,

constitute physical

problems.

Still,

there

are

dialectical

problems even about physical matters, as there are about ethical and logical matters those of one kind are dialectical, those of another physical. All dialectical problems will be reducible to the inquiry whether the connexion of an attri bute with a thing is a fact, and the inquiry whether a thing exists, which are two of the four questions enumerated at the beginning of the second book of the Posterior Analytics for the questions What is the reason of a connexion ? and What
;

is

the nature of a thing?

are not dialectical problems.

1

Ch.

i.

DIVISIONS
R 3 113) ALEX, Moreover, what is itself nobler and more precious and praiseworthy is more desirable than what more is less so. Aristotle here uses the phrases nobler more praiseworthy in a wide sense. In the precious division of goods he reserves the word precious for the more
1 (R 2 1 10,

in Top. 242. 1-9.

primary good things, such as gods, ancestors, happiness, the words noble and praiseworthy for the virtues and vir tuous activities, the word capacities for those things which may be used well or ill, the word useful for what produces these same goods or contributes towards them. But here he seems to apply the words noble and praiseworthy precious even to things that are good as capacities.
, ,

2 (R 2

in, R 3

114)

3. (45). Plato, according to Aristotle, used to divide things in this way: of goods some are in the soul, some in the body, some external. For example, justice,

DIOG. LAERT.

80

wisdom, courage, temperance, and the like are in the soul, beauty, good condition, health, and strength in the body friends, the happiness of one s country, and wealth fall among external goods. 107 (74). Of existing things some exist
;
. . .

109 (74). It was thus that, according to Aristotle, Plato classified primary things as well.
in their right, others are relative.
. .
.

own

2 3 3 (R 112, R 115)

COD. MARC. 257,

f.

250. Aristotle s Divisions.

The

soul

is

divided into three elements.

4
SIMP, in Cat. 65. 4. In the Divisions 7-8 after putting forward the categories he adds: I mean these with their
. .
.

cases

(i.e.

inflexions).

DISSERTATIONS
i (R 2 113,

R 3 116)

SIMP, in Cat. 64. 18-65. 10. But why, say the followers of Lucius, did he omit the conjunctions, if these too are signifi

cant utterances ? They also ask where the articles are to be placed. The same account must be given of these. These words also are, as it were, conjunctions which in addition indicate indefinitely the male and the female sexes for they do not show the essence of anything which is why some people call them indefinite. But where are negations, priva tions, and the various inflexions of verbs to be placed ? This question Aristotle himself answered in his Dissertations. For
.
.

works on method, in his Dissertations, in his and in another dissertation called Fallacies de pending on Language (which, even if it is thought by some not to be a genuine work of Aristotle, is at all events the work of some member of the school) in all of these, after
both
in his

Divisions,

putting forward the categories, he adds, I mean these with their cases (i.e. inflexions), thus connecting the theory of them with that of negations, privations, and indefinite terms.
1

DEXIPPUS, in Cat.
tions, privations,

and

33. 8-13. But where, indefinite terms,

they say, are nega

and the
;

inflexions

answering to each category, to be placed ? Aristotle himself dealt better with this matter in his Dissertations he put for ward the categories, with their cases and with negations and indefinite terms, and thus connected together the theory of all these things by cases he meant inflexions.
;

Reading

in

R.

108. 3 irpoOfls,

with Kalbfleisch.

CATEGORIES
TESTIMONIA
Ps.-AMM. in Cat. (Ven. 1546), f. 13 a. Indeed, they say that Great Library there have been found forty books of
,

in the

Analytics and two of Categories it was judged by the com mentators that of the Categories this one was a genuine work of Aristotle. This judgement was based on the thoughts expressed, on the language, and on the fact that the Philo sopher has in his other treatises always mentioned this book.
.

Cf.

ELIAS, in Cat. 133. 9-17.

I (R 2

114,

R 3 117)

SIMP, in Cat. 18. 16-21. Adrastus, in his work on the order of

Aristotle s treatises, relates that another book of Categories is referred to as being by Aristotle itself short and concise
in its language and differing little from the other Categories, but starting with the words Of existing things, some are. He records that both versions had the same number of lines, so that he used the word short with reference to the style, implying that each of the proofs was set out concisely.

in Cat. 13. 20-25. It should be known that in the old libraries forty books of Analytics have been found, but

AMMON.

only two of Categories. One began Of existing things, some are called homonymous, others synonymous The other, which we now have lying before us, had this introduction
1
.

Those things are called homonymous which have only their

names

in

common,

their definitions being different.

This

version has been preferred as being superior in order and in matter, and as everywhere proclaiming Aristotle as its
begetter.
1

fam in R. 108. 28, with Busse. Omitting rrjv This is almost identical with the beginning of the Categories which have
.
.

come down

to us.

io8
Cf.

FRAGMENTS
PS.-AMMON. in
Cat. (Yen. 1546),
f.

17

a,

and Schol.

in

ARIST. Cat. 33b 25-33 (Brandis).

161 d-i62 a (Migne). The book is the work no other, since in his whole philosophy he consistently maintains the doctrine of this work, and its brevity and subtlety are not unworthy of Aristotle though there exists another work of Aristotle discussing the same topics, containing much the same comments, while differently expressed. But this book has been generally

BOETH. in

Cat.

i. p.

of Aristotle

and

of

regarded as the authentic one.

ON CONTRARIES
TESTIMONIA
ARIST. Metaph. ioo3 b 33-ioo4"2. There must be exactly as many species of being as of unity. To investigate the nature I of these is the work of a science that is generically one mean, for instance, the discussion of the same, the similar,

and the other concepts

of this sort
;

may

be referred to this origin

let

and nearly all contraries us take them as having

been investigated

in the Selection of Contraries.

Ibid. io54 a 29-32. To the One belong (as we indicated graphi cally in our distinction of the contraries) the same, the like,

and the equal, and and the unequal.

to plurality belong the other, the unlike,

ALEX, in Metaph. 250. 17-19:

see p. 122 infra.

SYR. in Metaph. 61. 12-17. The same, the like, the equal, the straight, and in general the terms on the better side of the list of cognates, are differentiae and as it were species of the

One, as the terms on the worse side belong to the Many. The Philosopher himself treated of the subject separately, making a selection of all contraries and classing some under the One, others under the Many.
Cf.

Asc. in Metaph. 237. 11-13

(P-

122 infra).

SIMP, in Cat. 382. 7-10. Aristotle seems to have taken what he says about contraries from the Archytean book entitled On Contraries, which he did not group with his discussion of genera, but thought worthy of a separate treatise.
Ibid. 407. 15. Now that Aristotle s account of the difference between opposites has been completed, it would be well to quote Archytas discussion of them .... 19-20. For anyone

no
who had examined

FRAGMENTS
Aristotle s

book On Contraries could not have neglected Archytas book.

I (R 2 115,

R 3 118)

has been

But now that the language of Aristotle us see what the more famous inter preters make of the passage. The Stoics pride themselves on their working out of logical problems, and in the matter
SIMP, in Cat. 387. 17.
clarified, let

of contraries, as well as in all other matters, they are anxious to show that Aristotle furnished the starting-point for every

thing in one book which he called On Opposites, in which, too, there is an immense number of problems set forth of which
;

they have set out a small portion. The others of these it would not be reasonable to include in an introduction, but those which the Stoics set out in agreement with Aristotle must be mentioned. Aristotle laid down an ancient definition
of contraries,

which we have mentioned previously,

;

viz.

that

they are the things which differ most from one another within a genus but in his work on opposites Aristotle sub
jected this definition to all manner of tests, and amended are it. He raised the question whether things that differ
1

contraries,

difference can be contrariety, and whether2 complete divergence is maximum difference, and whether the things that are farthest apart are identical with

and whether

those that differ most, and what distance

to understand

is 3

and how we are

distance. These difficulties having been observed, something (he maintained) must be added to so that the definition comes to be the phrase the genus
,

maximum

He the things that are farthest apart in the same genus pointed out the difficulties consequent on this he asked whether contrariety is otherness, 4 and whether the things
.

criticisms.

that are most different are contraries, and added many other 388. 13-14. This is but a small part of the
. .

difficulties raised

by

Aristotle in his

work on

contrarieties.

2
3

Omitting the second *ai in R. no. 9, with Hayduck. Reading in R. no. 10 SiWrcu, *cu i, with the MSS. ris 17 dnoaraais, with the MSS. Reading in R. no. 13 Reading in R. no. 16 el trepans tariv, with Brandis.
>cai

ON CONTRARIES
2 (R 2 Il6, R 3 119)

in

and

SIMP, in Cat. 388. 21. The Stoics used all these distinctions, in the other distinctions with regard to contraries they

followed in Aristotle s steps; he had given them in his treatise on opposites the starting-points which they followed out in their own books. 389. 4-10. Such being the Stoic teaching, let us see how they distorted the Aristotelian tradi
. . .

tion. Aristotle in his book on opposites says that justice is contrary to injustice, but that the just man is said not to be contrary, but to be contrariwise disposed, to the unjust man. If even such things as these are contraries, he says, contrary will be used in two senses it will be applied either with
;

reference to contraries themselves, like virtue and vice, movement and rest, or to things by virtue of a sharing in contraries, e.g. to that which moves and that which rests,

or to the good

and the bad.

2 3 3 (R 117, R 120)

SIMP, in Cat. 389. 25-390. 7. For this reason Chrysippus says that wisdom is contrary to folly, but that the definition of the one is not contrary in the same way to the definition of

the other;

still,

connecting the definitions with the things

defined, they oppose the definitions also one to one. This distinction was first drawn by Aristotle, who held that a

e.g.

simple term is not contrary to the definition of its contrary, that wisdom is not contrary to ignorance of things good, evil, and neutral; but that, if there is contrariety here at all, definition is to be opposed to definition, and that the definitions should be said to be contrary only by being
definitions of contrary things. He elaborates further on this, by saying that a definition is contrary to a definition if their

e.g.

subjects are contrary in genus or in differentiae or in both let the definition of beauty be mutual symmetry of
;

mutual asymmetry of parts is contrary to this, parts and the contrariety is in respect of the genus but in other
; ;
1

i.e.

knowledge of things good, things evil, and things neutral, to ignorance

of the same.

H2
cases
it is

FRAGMENTS
by
virtue of differentiae
is
;
;

e.g. white is colour that colour that compresses it in these the genus is the same, but there is contrariety in respect of the differentiae. We have stated, then, how definition is 1 contrary to definition, and how definitions that elucidate

pierces the sight, black

essence can be contrary. Let this discussion of the matter

suffice.

2 3 4 (R 118, R 121)

SIMP, in Cat. 390. 19-25. Aristotle himself in his book on opposites considered whether, if someone who has lost one of two things does not of necessity gain the other, there must

be a mean between the two, or this is not in all cases so. A man who has lost a true opinion does not necessarily acquire a false one, nor does he who has lost a false opinion necessarily acquire a true one sometimes he passes from one opinion either to a complete absence of opinion or to knowledge but
;
;

nothing between true and false opinion except ignorance and knowledge.
there
is

5 (R

3 119-20, R 122-3)

SIMP, in Cat. 402. 26. Nicostratus paradoxically takes his from privations due to custom, and says that privation can always change into positive state. ... 30. But Aristotle
start

took his distinction between state and privation not from those due to custom but from those that are natural, to which the antithesis of state and privation is primarily applied. Let us use against Nicostratus the very arguments of Aristotle. In his book on opposites he himself says that

some privations are privations

customary
things
states,

of natural states, others of

others of possessions, others of other blindness a privation of a natural state, nakedness

a privation of a customary state, loss of money a privation of something acquired in practice. There are several other types of privation, and some it is impossible, others it is 403. 5-24. But the full account of possible, to lose.
. . .

privations

we can
1

get both from Aristotle

Reading
in

book and from

R. in. 29 Kal

ol.

ON CONTRARIES

113

that of Chrysippus; lamblichus has added some remarks which run as follows: "State" has several meanings, as we have already shown, and "privation" extends to all the
of "state", but not to all contraries. For privation equivalent to loss, so that we cannot talk of privation of evil, since there cannot be a loss of what is evil or harmful, but only of what is good or useful for a man relieved from disease or poverty would not be said to have been deprived of disease or poverty, though one bereft of health or wealth

meanings
is

would be said to have been deprived. Blindness is privation of a good, for sight is a good nakedness is privation of some thing indifferent, since raiment is indifferent, neither a good nor an evil. Thus no privation is a good privation is either an evil or indifferent. There can be privation either of all or of most goods. Aristotle says that of all goods it is those that are in the soul and depend on choice that we can least be deprived of; for no one says he has been deprived of justice, and he who said "No one takes away knowledge" was expressing the same thought. Privations, then, are rather of wealth, reputation, honour, and the like, and most
;
;

of all of the so-called

goods of property; that

is

why
1

pity

and condolence attend on most privations. But here Aris totle has stated the opposition between natural privations and privations of the contraries. 2 So much for this subject.

6 (R 2 121, R 3 124)
SIMP, in Cat. 409. 15. Aristotle adds this to what he has said about contraries ... 17 that the contrary of a good is always

an evil, but the contrary of an evil is sometimes a good and sometimes an evil. 30. In the book on opposites he added
.

to these types of contrariety that of things neither good nor evil to things neither good nor evil, saying that white is thus

contrary to black, sweet to bitter, high to low in sound, rest to movement. 410. 25-30. Nicostratus urges, as one criticism, that Aristotle s division of contraries is incom plete, since he did not add that indifferent can be opposed
.

i.e.

in the Categories.

i.e.

of things contrary to the things which natural privations are priva

tions of.
R45 20
I

u4

FRAGMENTS
book on opposites,

to indifferent. Aristotle added this in the

saying that there is a type of opposition between two things neither good nor evil as we have said before. But he did not call them indifferent, the reason being (I suppose) that the term indifferent was later, being invented by the Stoics.
1
1

Reading

in

R.

114. 9 Sidrt,

with some MS. support.

PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS
ON THE GOOD
TESTIMONIA
ARISTOX. Harm. 2. 30. 16-31. 3 (Macran). This, as Aristotle always used to say, was the experience of most of those who heard Plato s lecture On the Good. Each of them attended on the assumption that he would gain one of the recognized human goods, such as wealth, health, strength in general, some marvellous happiness. When Plato s discourses turned out to be about mathematics numbers, geometry, astro nomy and, to crown all, about the thesis that there is one Good, it seemed to them, I fancy, something quite paradoxi cal; and so some people despised the whole thing, while
others criticized
it.

ARIST. Ph. 209b n-i6. This is why Plato in the Timaeus says that matter and space are the same for the participant and space are identical. It is true, indeed, that the account he gives there of the participant is different from what he
;

says in his so-called unwritten doctrines did identify place and space.

Nevertheless, he

in Ph. 106. 21-23. Yet in the Timaeus Plato says that matter receives the Forms in one way, and in the unwritten doctrines says it receives them in another way; in the Timaeus he says it is by participation, in the unwritten

THEM,

doctrines

by

assimilation.

i.e. naming matter differently unwritten doctrines, i.e. in the unwritten lectures; for in the unwritten lectures he called matter great and small (as Aristotle said previously we have stated why matter is great and small), but in the
.
. .

PHILOP. in Ph. 521. 9-15.

in the

Timaeus and

in the

n6
Timaeus he
cipates in
calls

FRAGMENTS
matter the participant because it parti the Forms. Aristotle himself copied out Plato s

unwritten lectures.
SIMP, in Ph. 503. 10-15. Having shown that the infinite is enclosed rather than encloses, and is by its own nature un knowable, Aristotle criticizes the superficial interpretation of Plato s words. Plato in his account of the Good called matter

(which he said was indefinite) the great and the small, and said that all sensible things are enclosed by the infinite, and are unknowable because their nature involves matter and
is

indefinite

and

in a state of flux.

Ibid. 542. 9-12. Aristotle says that Plato gives matter different names in the Timaeus and in the unwritten lectures
;

in the

Timaeus he

calls it the participant (for it participates

most obscurely
lectures he called
Cf. ibid. 545.

in the intelligible ), it great and small.

but in the unwritten

23-25, PHILOP. in Ph. 515. 29-32.

see p. 83 supra.

ARIST.

De An. 4O4 b i6-2i:

Aristotle

PHILOP. in De An. 75. 34-76. i. By the books On Philosophy in this means the work entitled On the Good Aristotle reports Plato s unwritten lectures; the work is genuine. He relates there the view of Plato and the Pytha
1 ;

goreans about realities and

Cf. SIMP, in

first principles.

De An.

28. 7-9, p. 83 supra.

Asc. in Metaph. 77. 2-4. Yet we say there are no Ideas of evil things for evil things have no substantial existence but
;

are incidental, as

is

said in the Platonic lectures.

I (R 2 22,

R 3 27)

Vita Arist. Marciana, p. 433. 10-15 (Rose). Aristotle s character was remarkable for its moderation he says in the Categories that one should not express an opinion hastily,
;

Philoponus

is

mistaken; Aristotle means what he says.

ON THE GOOD
;

117

but only after repeated consideration, and indeed that even the mere examination of difficulties has its uses and in the work On the Good he says not only he who is in luck but also he who offers a proof should remember that he is but a man
.

2 (R 2 23, R 3 28)

ALEX, in Metaph. 55. 20-57. 2 $- Both Plato and the Pytha goreans assumed numbers to be the first principles of existing things, because they thought that it is that which is primary and incomposite that is a first principle, and that planes are prior to bodies (for that which is simpler than another and not destroyed with it is prior to it by nature), and on the

same principle lines are prior to planes, and points (which the mathematicians call semeia but they called units) to
being completely incomposite and having nothing prior units are numbers therefore numbers are the first of existing things. And since Forms or Ideas are prior to the things which according to Plato have their being in
lines,

to

them but
;

relation to

them and derive

their being

from them

(the exis

tence of these he tried in several

ways

to establish), he called

the Forms numbers. For if that which is one in kind is prior to the things that exist only in relation to it, 1 and nothing is prior to number, the Forms are numbers. This is the

reason
all

why he

called the first principles of

number

first

principles of the Forms,

things.

and the One the

first

principle of

Again, the Forms are the first principles of all other things, and since the Ideas are numbers the first principles of number are first principles of the Ideas and he used to say that the first principles of number are the unit and the dyad. For,
;

numbers both the One and that which is (i.e. the many and few), he assumed that the first thing there is in numbers, apart from the One, is the first principle both of the many and of the few. Now the dyad is the first thing apart from the One, having in itself both manyness and fewness; for the double is many and the half is few, and these exist in the dyad and the dyad
since there are in

other than the

One

Reading irpos avro orrotv.

n8
is

FRAGMENTS

contrary to the One, since the latter is indivisible and the former is divided. Again, thinking that he was proving that the equal and the unequal are first principles of all things, both of things that exist in their own right and of opposites (for he tried to reduce all things to these as their simplest elements), he
assigned equality to the monad, and inequality to excess and defect for inequality involves two things, a great and a
;

small,
is

which are respectively excessive and defective. This

called
it

why he

the indefinite dyad

is,

because neither
;

the excessive nor the defective

indefinite

and unlimited. But indefinite dyad, he says, becomes the numerical dyad; for this kind of dyad is one in form. Again, the dyad is the first number its first principles are the excessive and the defective, since it is in the dyad that the double and the half are first found for while the double and the half are respectively excessive and defective, the excessive and the defective are not necessarily double and
;

as such, definite they are when limited by the One the

half

so that these are elements in the double.

And

since the

and the defective when they have been limited become double and half (for these are no longer unlimited, nor is the threefold and the third part, or the fourfold and
excessive

the quarter, or anything else that already has its excess limited), and this limitation is effected by the nature of the

One

(for

each thing
the

is

one in so far as

it is

this

and

is

limited),

great and the small must be elements in the numerical dyad. But the dyad is the first
for

One and the

number. These, then, are the elements in the dyad. It is some such reasons that Plato used to treat the One and the dyad as the first principles both of numbers and of all existing things, as Aristotle says in his work On the Good.

made one

Aristotle says here 1 that it is for this reason also that Plato of his first principles a dyad because the num

bers, with the exception of the first numbers, are neatly produced from it as from a matrix. This is because he thinks

the dyad divides everything to which it is applied that is why he called it duplicative. For, by making into two each
;

i.e.

in the Metaphysics.

ON THE GOOD
of the things to which it not allowing it to remain
is

119
in a sense divides
it,

applied,
it

it
;

was which division is the genesis of numbers. As matrices and moulds make all the things fitted into them to be like, so too the dyad, being as it were a matrix for the successive numbers, becomes genera tive of them, making two of, or doubling, everything to which it is applied. For when applied to I it makes 2 (for twice i is 2), when applied to 2 it makes 4 (for twice 2 is 4), when applied to 3 it makes 6 (for twice 3 is 6), and so too
what
in

every other case. except the first numbers Aristotle means except the odd numbers For the genesis of odd numbers does not take

By

place in this way then, he means by

by doubling or by division into two. Here, first numbers all the odd numbers with
even

out exception

for these are usually treated as prior to

first

numbers.

By

numbers

simply
first

is

meant numbers
2 also has

divided only by the unit,

this characteristic)
;

e.g. 3, 5,

and 7 (though

relatively to one an other those that have i as their only common factor, though they are themselves measurable also by some number. 8 and

by numbers

9 are so related, for i is their only common measure, though each of them has also a number as a factor 8 has 2 and 4 9 has 3. Here, however, Aristotle must mean by first all the odd numbers, as being prior to the even for none of
; ;

generated by the dyad in the aforesaid way; it is by the addition of a unit to each of the even numbers that the odd numbers are produced a unit which is not the One that acts as first principle (for this was a formative and not a material principle), but as the great and the small when limited by the One became 2, so each of the two when limited by the One is said to be a unit.
is

them

Cf.

ALEX, apud SIMP, in Ph. 454. 19-455. n.

ALEX, in Metaph. 85. 16-18. The first principles are the One and the indefinite dyad, as he has said shortly before and
has himself related in the work

On

the Good.

SIMP, in Ph. 151. 6-19. Alexander says:

According to Plato

120 the
first

FRAGMENTS

1 principles of all things, and of the Ideas themselves, are the One and the indefinite dyad, which he used to call great and small, as Aristotle relates in his work On the Good.

One might gather

;

this also from Speusippus and Xenocrates and the others who were present at Plato s lecture on the Good for they all wrote down and preserved his doctrine, and they say he used these as first principles. That Plato should call the One and the indefinite dyad first principles of all things is

very natural
in

(for

the account

is

a Pythagorean

one,

and Plato
;

goreans)
small,

respects clearly follows the Pytha but to call the indefinite dyad, i.e. the great and

many

first

principles even of the Ideas, indicating

by these

phrases matter, how can this be consistent, when Plato limits matter to the sensible world and says clearly in the Timaeus that it is confined to becoming, and that in it that which comes
to be

comes to be
.

thought, but that matter bastard reasoning

are

known by

Besides, he used to say that the Ideas is credible only to

the

Ibid. 453. 25-454. 19. They say that Plato maintained that One and the indefinite dyad were the first principles of

sensible things as well. He placed the indefinite dyad also in the objects of intelligence and used to call it indeter

minate

and he made the great and the small

first

principles
;

and

called

them indeterminate,

in his lectures

on the Good

Aristotle,

Heraclides, Hestiaeus, and other associates of Plato attended these and wrote them down in the enigmatic

style in which they were delivered. Porphyry, undertaking to put them into articulate shape, has written as follows

about them in his Philebus: The Master assumes the more and the less, and the more and the less intense, to fall under the heading of the indefinite. For where these are present, alternately intensified and relaxed, that which shares in them does not stand still and come to an end, but goes on towards the indefiniteness of infinity. So too with the greater and the smaller, and with Plato s equivalent for them, the great and the small. For let there be a limited magnitude such as a cubit. Let it be bisected and let us leave one half-cubit
1

Reading

in

R.

41. 9 apxcu,

with Diels.

ON THE GOOD
undivided, but
little

121

let

us cut up

the other half-cubit

;

and add

it

by

little

to the undivided part

the cubit will then have

other to the greater. For

one advancing without end to the less and the we should never in our cutting come to an indivisible part, since the cubit is a continuum, and a continuum is divided into ever divisible parts. Such an un interrupted process of cutting shows that there is a certain

two

parts,

character of indefmiteness enclosed in the cubit, or rather more than one, the one proceeding towards the great and the other towards the small. In this example the indefinite

dyad,

also, is

of the great

and that

seen to be composed of the unit in the direction in the direction of the small. And these
;

belong both to continuous bodies and to numbers for 2 is the first even number, and in the nature of the even are included both the double and the half the double involving excess, and the half deficiency. So there are excess and deficiency in even number. Now the first even number is 2 it is in itself indefinite, but was limited by sharing in the One for 2 is limited in so far as it is a single form. Thus the One and the dyad are the elements of numbers as well, the one limiting and giving form, the other indefinite and involving excess and deficiency. This is almost word for word
;

what Porphyry said, in fulfilment of his promise to explain what was said obscurely in Plato s lecture on the Good he presumably added that these views were in accordance with what had been written in the Philebus.
;

2 3 3 (R 24, R 29)

SEXT. EMP. Geom. 57. But Aristotle, at least, says that the length without breadth of which the geometers speak is not unintelligible, but that we can without any difficulty arrive at the thought of it. He rests his argument on a rather clear and indeed a manifest illustration. We grasp the length of a wall, he says, without attending also to its breadth, so that it must be possible to conceive of the length without breadth of which geometers speak.
.

Cf.

SEXT. EMP. Phys.

i.

412.

122

FRAGMENTS
2 3 4 (R 25, R 30)

ALEX. APHR. in Metaph. 59. 28-60. 2. One might ask how is that, though Plato mentions both an efficient cause (where he says The maker and father of the universe it were a task to find and declare ), and also the final cause (where he says Everything exists in relation to the king of all things and for his sake ), 2 Aristotle mentions neither of these
it
1

causes in his account of Plato s doctrines. Is it because Plato mentioned neither of these in what he said about causes (as

shown in his book On the Good], or because Plato does not treat these as causes of things that come into being and perish, and did not even work out any theory
Aristotle has

about them

5 (R

26,

R 3 31)

ALEX, in Metaph. 250. 17-20. For the proof that practically all contraries are referred to the One and plurality as their first principle, Aristotle sends us to the Selection of Con traries, where he has treated expressly of the subject. He has spoken about this selection also in the second book On the
Good.
Cf. ibid. 262. 18-26.

Asc. in Metaph. 237. 11-14. For the information that almost all contraries are reducible to the One and Plurality as to
traries.

their first principles, Aristotle refers to the Selection of Con He has spoken of the selection also in the second
the Good.

book On

Cf. ibid. 247. 17-19.

Ps.-ALEX. in Metaph. 615. 14-17. Aristotle has made a dis book On the Good ... by which he reduced all contraries to Plurality and the One. To the One belong the
tinction in his

same,

like,

and equal,
38-643.
1

to Plurality others, unlike,

3, 695.
c.

and unequal.

Cf. ibid. 642.

23-26.
2

Tim. 28

Ep.

2.

312

e.

ON THE GOOD
6

123

Asc. in Metaph. 79. 7-10. The Platonists are more, and indeed most, zealous for the existence of the first principles; for in their eyes these are first principles even of the Ideas them selves. They are, as has been said a little earlier, the One and the indefinite dyad; and Aristotle has himself stated this
in his

book On

the Good.

ON IDEAS
1 (R 2

180, R3 185)

SYRIAN, in Metaph. 120. 33-121. 4. That Aristotle has noth ing more than this to say against the theory of Forms is shown both by the first book of this treatise and by the two books he wrote about the Forms for it is by borrowing practically these same arguments everywhere, and sometimes cutting them up and subdividing them, sometimes pro claiming them more concisely, that he tries to correct his
;

predecessors in philosophy.
Ibid. 195. 10-15. These are the arguments which Aristotle here uses against the theories of the Pythagoreans and the Platonists; which contain also those used in book A major, as the commentator Alexander indicated for which reason
;

we, having opposed these arguments, do not consider that we have neglected those others nor yet those which Aris totle has used against those thinkers in his two books on Forms for there he goes the round of practically these same
;

arguments.
Ps. -ALEX, in Metaph. 836. 34-837. 3. Aristotle sums up the whole discussion by saying The consequences for those who assume the existence of the ideal numbers and the separate existence of mathematical entities, and make them causes of physical things are those we have stated, and he refers to the yet more than these might be collected two books written by him on the Forms books different from books M and N of the Metaphysics and falling outside
;

its

plan.

2 (R 2 l8l, R3 186)

SCHOL. ad DION. THRAC.

recognized
that

p. 116.

13-16 (Hilgard).
of

It

definitions

are

things

universal

must be and

eternal, as Aristotle has said in the

work On Ideas which he

ON IDEAS

125

wrote against Plato s Ideas. Particular things all change and never remain the same; universals are unchangeable and
eternal.

2 3 (R 182, R3 187)

ALEX. APHR. in Metaph. 79. 3. The Platonists used the sciences more than one way to establish the existence of Ideas as Aristotle relates in the first book of his work On Ideas the arguments he here seems to refer to are as follows: (i) If
in
;

every science does

thing,

its

work with

reference to one self -identical

and not to any particular thing, there must be, corresponding to each science, something other than sensible things, which is eternal and is the pattern for the products of the science in question. Now that is just what the Idea is. now (2) The things of which there are sciences must exist the sciences are concerned with things other than particular things for the latter are indefinite and indeterminate, while
;
;

the objects of the sciences are determinate therefore there are things other than the particulars, and these are the Ideas.
;

the science not of this particular instance must be such a thing as health-itself, and if geometry is knowledge not of this equal
(3)

If

medicine

is

of health, but just of health, there

commensurate, but of what is just equal and what commensurate, there must be an equal-itself and a commensurate-itself, and these are the Ideas. Such arguments do not prove the point at issue, that there are Ideas, but they do show that there are things other than
this
is

and

just

sensible particulars. It does not follow, however, that if there are things other than particulars these are Ideas for besides
;

particulars there are universals, which we maintain to be the objects of the sciences. Take, again, the argument that
art refers its products to the arts must exist, and

there must be Ideas of the products of the arts, since every some standard, and the objects of

must be

different

from particular

things. The latter argument, besides failing, like the others, to prove the existence of Ideas, will be seen to involve Ideas
of things of

which the Platonists

insist that there are

is

no

Ideas.

For

if,

because the medical art

knowledge, not of

126

FRAGMENTS

this particular instance of health

is

but simply of health, there such a thing as health-itself, there will be a similar object of each of the arts. For an art is concerned not with the but simply with that which is particular, with the this the object of the art e.g. carpentry with bench simply, not with this particular bench, with bed simply, not with this bed so too are sculpture, painting, building, and each of the other arts, related to their own objects. There will, therefore, be an Idea of each of the objects of the arts which the believers in the Ideas do not want.
, ; ;
.

also use the following argument to establish the existence of the Ideas. If each of the many men is a man,
80. 8.

They

of the many animals an animal, and so too in all other cases, and these are not instances of a thing being predicated of itself, but there is something predicated of all

and each

men, &c., but identical with none of them, there must be something belonging to all of them, which is separate from the particular things and eternal; for in every case it is
predicated alike of all the numerically different examples. But that which is one over many, separated from the many and eternal, is an Idea therefore there are Ideas. This argument, Aristotle says, involves the Platonists in
;

up Ideas even of negations and of non-existent things. For even a negative term is predicated as a single identical term of many subjects, and even of non-existent things, and is not the same as any of these subjects. Not-man is predicated both of horse and of dog and of everything except man, and therefore is a one over many, and identical with none of the things of which it is predicated. Again, it remains always
setting

similarly predicable of similar things for not-musical is predicable truly of many things (of all that are not musical), and similarly not-man of all that are not men; so that
;

there are Ideas even of negations. Which is absurd for how could there be an Idea of non-existence ? If one is to accept such Ideas, there will be one Idea of dissimilar and wholly
;

different objects, e.g. of line and man; for neither of these is a horse. Again, there will be a single Idea of an indefinite

variety of objects. Again, there will be a single Idea both of

what

is

primary and of what

is

secondary for both

;

man and

ON IDEAS

127

animal are not-wood, but the one is primary, the other secondary, and of such things the Platonists did not claim
that there are genera or Ideas. It is clear that this argument, does not prove the existence of Ideas; it, like the others, tends to show that that which is predicated
like the others,

common is different from the particulars of which it is predicated. Again, the very people who wish to show that that which is predicated of many things in common is a single thing, and that this is an Idea, devise a proof from negations. For if one who denies something of several things
in

must do so with reference to a single term if one who says of a man and of a horse that they are not white does not deny of each of them a separate attribute, but referring to a single thing denies an identical whiteness of both of them then he who affirms the same term of several things does not affirm something different in each case. There must be some
one thing that he affirms; e.g. in predicating man he is referring to one identical thing for what is true of negation must be true of affirmation. There is, therefore, something apart from what there is in sensible things, something that accounts for affirmation that is true of many things and
;

common
81. 25.

to them,

and this is the Idea. The argument which establishes the existence
.
.

of

Ideas on the basis of the fact of knowledge is as follows: If when we think of man or land-animal or animal, we think of something real and at the same time not a particular
(for

the same thought remains even

is

when the

particular

things have perished), clearly there

something apart from sensible particulars, something which we apprehend both when they exist and when they do not for surely we do not then apprehend something non-existent. This is a Form or Idea
;

82.

ii.

The argument that

is

establishes Ideas answering

:

even to relative terms

as follows

When

the same term

is

predicated of several things not homonymously but so as to indicate a single nature, it is predicable truly of them either because they have in the strict sense the property indicated by the predicate (as when we say Socrates is a man and Plato
is

a man), or because they are likenesses of the true

128

FRAGMENTS
them

possessors of the attribute (as when we predicate man of men in pictures (for in these cases we refer to the likenesses
of

men, indicating a nature that

is

is

identical in

all)),

or

because one of them

nesses (as

when we
).

the pattern and the others are like call both Socrates and the likenesses of

predicate of things in this world equality only homonymously predicable of them for neither does the same definition apply to them all, nor are we referring to things truly equal. For a sensible thing s size changes and varies continuously and is not determinate, nor does anything in this world answer precisely to the definition
itself,

him men

We
is

which

image

of equality. Nor, again, are they related as pattern and for one is not more pattern or image than another.
;

one were to allow that an image is not merely its pattern, it always follows that parti cular equal things are equal only as being images of that which is strictly and truly equal. If this be so, there is an equal itself, a strictly equal, by reference to which things
if

Even

homonymous with

images of it, come to be, and are said to be, equal, and this is an Idea, serving as a pat tern to the things that come into being by reference to
in this world, as being
1

it.

...

83. 22-30. This is the argument which according to Aris totle implies Ideas answering even to relative terms. At all

events the proof in question has referred to equality, which a relative term; but the Platonists denied that there are Ideas answering to relative terms, because for them Ideas exist in their own right, being substances, while relative terms have their being in their relation to one another.
is

Again, if what is equal is equal to what is equal to it, there be more than one Idea of the equal for the equal-itself is equal to the equal-itself, since if it were not equal to any thing it would not even be equal. Again, according to the same argument there will have to be ideas even of unequals (for where there are opposites there must be Ideas either of both or of neither) but even the Platonists admit that
will
;
;

inequality involves
1

more than one

thing.

Reading napaBfiYfiariKov ov

TOLS KT\.

ON IDEAS
4 (R 183, R3 188)
2

129

ALEX. APHR. in Metaph. 83. 34. The argument which intro duces the third man was as follows: The Platonists say that
the things that are predicated universally of substances are precisely such as they are said to be, and that these are
are so

They say, too, that things that are like one another by sharing in one identical thing, which is strictly what it is and that this is the Idea. But if this be so, and if
Ideas.
1
;

is predicated of certain things in common must, not identical with any of them, be something else apart from them (for that is why man-himself is a genus because

that which

if it is

while predicated of particular men it was identical with none of them), there will be a third man apart from the particular man (e.g. Socrates or Plato), and apart from the Idea, which is itself also numerically one.
. .

84. 21. The existence of the third man is also proved in this way. If that which is predicated truly of several things also exists in separation from these (this is what the believers

they prove; the reason why, according to them, man-himself exists is that man is predicated truly if this of the many particular men, and is other than they) be so, there will be a third man. For if the man which is
predicated
is

in Ideas think

different

from those

of

whom

it is

predicated,

exists independently, and man is predicated both of particular men and of the Idea of man, there will be a third

and

man apart both from particular men and from the Idea. On this basis, too, there will be a fourth man, predicated
both of the third man, of the Idea, and of the particulars; and similarly a fifth, and so ad infinitum. This argument is identical with the first, and follows from the assumptions
that things that are like are like by participation in some and that particular men and the Ideas are like. ... 85. 9. The first exposition of the third man has
identical thing,

been used by others and plainly by Eudemus in his book On Diction, and Aristotle himself has used the last in the
fourth book of his work in the Metaphysics.
. .

On

Ideas,

and

also, a little later,

Reading
646.29

in

R.

150.

27-28 tlvai i S ay, with Asclepius.

130
85. 1 8.

FRAGMENTS
;

Aristotle says that these arguments, used to estab lish the existence of Ideas, destroy these first principles and

be destroyed the things that come after the first principles, if indeed they proceed from the first prin ciples so that the Ideas also will be destroyed. For if in the case of all things that have a common predicate there is something separate, the Idea, and if twoness is predicated even of the indefinite dyad, there will be something an Idea prior to the indefinite dyad, which will then no longer be a first principle. But neither will duality, in its turn, be primary, a first principle for of it again, as being an Idea,
with these
will
;

assumed by the them number will be if this be so, number will the first thing, be prior to the indefinite dyad (which is for them a first principle), not the dyad to number; and if so, the dyad will no longer be a first principle, if it is what it is by sharing in something. Again, the dyad is assumed to be a first principle of number, but according to the argument just stated number becomes prior to it; but if number is relative (for every number is the number of something), and if number is the
is

number

predicable

for the Ideas are

;

Platonists to be

numbers so that being an Idea. But

for

first

of existing things (since

it

is

which they assumed to be a

in its

first principle),

prior even to the dyad, that which is

relative will be according to them prior to that which exists own right. But this is absurd; for everything that is

relative is secondary. For a relative term indicates the possession of a pre-existent nature which is prior to the possession that occurs to it. ... 86. n. But even if one were

to say that

number

is

a quantity and not a relation,

it

would
;

follow for the Platonists that quantity is prior to substance but the great and the small themselves are relative. Again, it
follows that they
first

must say that that which

is

relative

is

principle of and prior to that which exists in its own right, inasmuch as for them the Idea is the first principle of

substances, and the Idea s being an Idea depends on its being a pattern, and a pattern is relative, being the pattern for something. Again, if the being of Ideas depends on their being patterns, the things which come into being in relation to them, and which the Ideas are Ideas of, must be

ON IDEAS
copies of them,

131

and so one might say that according to these

;

thinkers

all natural objects turned out to be relative for all are either images or patterns. Again, if the being of the Ideas depends on their being patterns, and a pattern exists for the sake of that which comes into being in relation to it, and that

which

exists for the sake of

something

else is inferior to

it,

the Ideas will be inferior to the things that

in relation to

come

into being

them.

Such are the arguments which, in addition to those previously mentioned, by means of the theory of Ideas undermine the foundations of the theory. If that which is
87. 3.

predicated of certain things in common is the first principle and Idea of them, and if first principle is predicated of all first principles in common, and element of all elements,
there will be something that
of, first principles
is prior to, and a first principle and elements and so there will be neither a first principle nor an element. Again, Idea is not prior to Idea for all Ideas are alike first principles. But the Oneitself and the Two-itself, Man-himself, Horse-itself, and each of the other Ideas is for these thinkers alike an Idea there fore none of them will be prior to another, and therefore none will be a first principle therefore the One and the indefinite
;
;

dyad are not

first

principles. Again,

it

is

paradoxical that

an Idea should derive its form from an Idea, for all Ideas are forms; but if the One and the indefinite dyad are first the principles, one Idea will derive its form from another dyad itself from the One itself for that is how they are said to be first principles the One as form, the dyad as matter therefore these are not first principles. But if they say that the indefinite dyad is not an Idea, then in the first place,
;

though
to
it

it

is

first

principle there will be something prior

the dyad itself, by participation in which the indefinite dyad is itself a dyad for the indefinite dyad is not the dyad itself, since it is only by virtue of participation that dyad will be predicated of it, as of particular pairs of things. Again,
;

if

the Ideas are simple, they cannot be derived from two

different first principles, but the One and the indefinite dyad are different. Again, the number of the dyads will be sur
prising,
if

there

is first

the dyad-itself, then the indefinite

132

FRAGMENTS

is

dyad, then the mathematical dyad we use in counting (which not identical with either of the other two), and then in

addition that which exists in numerable and sensible things. These consequences are paradoxical, so that clearly by follow
ing out the assumptions made by these thinkers about the Ideas it is possible to destroy the first principles, which are for them more important than the Ideas.
.
.

88. 20-89. 7. Again, the argument which says that the cause of things happening in an orderly way is their being

after a fixed pattern, which is the Idea, applies not only to substances. There is also the argument which starts from what we assert truly, and maintains that this must exist. Now in saying that there are five (or three) forms of

made

harmony, and three concordant

intervals,

therefore there are just so many; but the things in the sensible world is infinite

we assert truly; number of such

therefore there

are other, eternal, objects with reference to which

what
not

we say

is

true.

Thus

this

argument,

also,

applies

only to substances. ments.

And

there are

many

other such argu

2 5 (R 184, R3 189)

ALEX. APHR. in Metaph. 97. 27-98. 24. To prove that it is not, as Eudoxus and some others thought, by the intermix
ture of Ideas that other things exist, Aristotle says it is easy to collect many impossible conclusions that follow from this
opinion. These would be as follows: If the Ideas are mixed with other things, (i) they will be bodies for it is to bodies that mixture appertains. (2) Ideas will be contrary to one another; for it is between contraries that mixture occurs. in such a way that either an Idea (3) Mixture will take place will be present whole in each of the things with which it is mixed, or only a part of it will be present. But if it is present whole, something that is numerically one will be present in but if several things (for the Idea is numerically one) mixture be by way of parts, it will be that which shares in a part of man-himself not that which shares in the whole of
;

ON IDEAS
man-himself,
1

133

that will be a man.

(4)

The Ideas would then

be divisible and partible, though they are not subject to change. (5) The Forms must consist of like parts, if all the things that contain a part of a certain Form are like one
another.

But how can the Forms

consist of like parts?

piece of a man cannot be a man, as a piece of gold is gold. (6) As Aristotle himself says a little later, in each thing there

be an admixture not of one Idea but of many for if is one Idea of animal and another of man, and a man is both an animal and a man, he will partake of both Ideas. And the Idea man-himself, inasmuch as it is also animal, will share in animal-itself but on that showing the Ideas will no
will
;

there

longer be simple, but composed of many components, and some Ideas will be primary and others secondary. If on the

other hand man-himself is not animal it is surely absurd to 2 say that a man is not an animal. (7) If the Forms are mingled with the things that exist by reference to them, how can they still be patterns, as these thinkers maintain ? It is not thus, by mixture, that patterns cause the likeness of the copies of them to them. (8) On this showing, the Ideas would be destroyed along with the things in which they are. Nor would they have a separate existence, but only existence in the things which share in them. (9) On this showing, the Ideas will no longer be exempt from change and there are all the other absurd implications which Aristotle in the
;

second book of his work On Ideas showed this theory to involve. This is why he said It would be easy to collect many insuperable objections to this view they have been collected in that work.
;
1

Reading Hayduck.
2

in

R.

152. 7 ov TO oAou rov avroavdpcuirov,

with some MSS. and

is

sc.

Yet

this follows

from saying that man-himself

not animal

ON THE PYTHAGOREANS
I
1

(R

186, R3 191)

APOLLON. Mirab.
of Mnesarchus,

These were succeeded by Pythagoras son first worked at mathematics and arith metic, but later even indulged in miracle-mongering like that of Pherecydes. When a ship was coming into harbour at Metapontum laden with a cargo, and the bystanders were, on account of the cargo, praying for her safe arrival, Pytha goras intervened and said Very well, you will see the ship bearing a dead body. Again in Caulonia, according to Aristotle, he prophesied the advent of a she-bear; and Aris totle also, 2 in addition to much other information about him, says that in Tuscany he killed a deadly biting serpent by
6.

who

biting it himself. He also says that Pythagoras foretold to the Pythagoreans the coming political strife by reason of
;

which he departed to Metapontum unobserved by anyone, and while he was crossing the river Cosas he, with others, heard the river say, with a voice beyond human strength, at which those present were greatly Pythagoras, hail alarmed. He once appeared both at Croton and at Meta pontum on the same day and at the same hour. Once, while sitting in the theatre, he rose (according to Aristotle) and showed to those sitting there that one of his thighs was of 3 gold. There are other surprising things told about him, but, not wishing to play the part of mere transcribers, we will bring our account of him to an end.
!

V .H. 2. 26. Aristotle says that Pythagoras was called by the people of Croton the Hyperborean Apollo. The son of Nicomachus 4 adds that Pythagoras was once seen by many people, on the same day and at the same hour, both
AELIAN,
1 Rose s fr. 190 is omitted because in the text of Clement RpunoTiX-qs is only an emendation of Aptarapxos. 1 Inserting after ApiaroTtXys in R. 153. 13 irpovari^vt r^v XfVKr/v apxrov (from Iamb. V.P. 142) Kal 6 avros ApiaroriX-qs, with Diels. 3 Reading in R. 154. i rots Kadrj^tvois tir xP vao ^ v w i
>

4 i.e. Aristotle.

ON THE PYTHAGOREANS
at
;

135

Metapontum and at Croton and at Olympia, during the games, he got up in the theatre and showed that one of his thighs was golden. The same writer says that while crossing the Cosas he was hailed by the river, and that many people heard him so hailed.
Pythagoras used to tell people that he was born more than mortal seed for on the same day and at the same hour he was seen (they say) at Metapontum and at Croton and at Olympia he showed that one of his thighs was golden. He informed Myllias of Croton that he was
Ibid. 4. 17.

of

Midas the Phrygian, the son of Gordius. He fondled the white eagle, which made no resistance. While crossing the river Cosas he was addressed by the river, which said Hail,
Pythagoras
!

DIOG. LAERT.

8.

i.

(9).

He

is

said to

have been very

dignified in his bearing,

Apollo, and came from that once, when he was stripped, his thigh was seen to be golden and there were many who said that the river Nessus
;

his disciples held that he was the men of the north. There is a story

and

had hailed him as he was crossing

it.

IAMB. V.P. 28. 140-3. The Pythagoreans derive their con from the fact that the first to express them 2 was no ordinary man, but God. 3 One of their traditions
fidence in their views
relates to the question Who art thou, Pythagoras? they say he is the Hyperborean Apollo. This is supposed to be evidenced by two facts: when he got up during the games he showed a thigh of gold, and when he entertained Abaris the Hyperborean he stole from him the arrow by which he was guided. Abaris is said to have come from the Hyper boreans collecting money for the temple and prophesying pestilence he lived in the sacred shrines and was never seen to drink or eat anything it is said, too, that in Lacedaemon
4
;

2
3

Reading Reading Reading Reading

in
in

in
in

R. 154. 17 suggested by Rose. R. 155. 3 aura, with Kiessling. R. 155. 4 oAA o 0(6s, with the MSS. R. 155. 5 ris (i, UvBayopa ; with Dcubner.
<f>aoi,

I 36

FRAGMENTS

he offered preventive sacrifices, and that for this reason there was never again a plague in Lacedaemon. From this Abaris Pythagoras took the golden arrow without which he could not find his way, and so made Abaris witness to his power.

At Metapontum, when

certain people prayed that they might receive the cargo of the ship that was sailing thither, he said, Then you will have a dead man and the ship was found to carry a corpse. At Sybaris he seized and dis patched the serpent that had killed the hare, and similarly the little serpent in Tyrrhenia which killed by biting. 2 At Croton (they say) he caressed the white eagle, which made no resistance. When someone wanted to hear him speak, he said he would never speak until a sign had appeared and
1
;
;

after that the white bear

appeared in Caulonia. In speech with someone who was about to announce to him the death of his son, 3 he announced it first himself. He told Myllias of Croton that he was Midas the son of Gordius; and Myllias went off to the mainland to do over Midas tomb what

Pythagoras had bidden. They say, too, that the man who bought his house and destroyed it dared tell no one what he had seen, and for this crime was convicted at Croton of sacrilege and put to death; he was found guilty of seizing the golden beard which fell from Pythagoras statue. These things and others like them are what the Pythagoreans say
in confirmation of their belief.

Cf.

PORPH. V.P. 23-28.

2 (R 2 187, R 3 192)

IAMB. V.P. 6. 30. Besides, they numbered Pythagoras among the gods, as a good spirit and a great friend to men some of them identified him with the Pythian, some with the Hyper borean, some with the Paean Apollo, and others with one
;

of the spirits that inhabit the moon. ... 31. Aristotle relates in his work on the Pythagorean philosophy that the following
1

2
3

Reading Reading Reading

in in
in

R. R. R.

155. 17 earai. 155. 21

156. 2
o<f>iv

avra>

os aneKrewe, with the MSS. rov TOU vlov Qa.va.Tov, with Cobet.

ON THE PYTHAGOREANS
division

137
of their

was preserved by the Pythagoreans as one

greatest secrets that there are three kinds of rational living creatures gods, men, and beings like Pythagoras.
2 3 (R 188, R3 193)

believe that most of you are have just said, and marvel greatly at Socrates having had a vision of a divine being. But I suppose Aristotle is a sufficient witness to the fact that the Pythagoreans marvelled at any town-bred person who said he had never seen a divine being. Now if anyone can have the power of seeing a divine apparition, why should not such a power have fallen to the lot of Socrates, above all
20. 166-7.
I

APUL. De Deo Soc.

reluctant to believe

what

others

CLEM. AL. Strom.

6. 6. 53.

2-3. Isidorus the son

of his

and pupil

of

Basilides, in the first

book

Parchor, says himself in so say certain things were disclosed to Socrates by a divine being which accompanied him; and Aristotle says all men have divine beings which accompany them at the time of their incarnation; this prophetic teaching he received and set down in his books, without confessing whence he had
stolen this account.
2 4 (R 189, R 3 194)

commentary on the prophet many words: The Athenians

GELL.

4.

n. 11-13. Plutarch
first of his

also,

a scholar of great authority,

books on Homer that the philosopher Aristotle had in his writings made the same statement about the Pythagoreans, that they did not abstain from eating animals, except for a few kinds of flesh. Since the fact is not generally recognized, I add Plutarch s own words: Aristotle says the Pythagoreans abstain from eating womb and heart, the sea anemone, and certain other such things, but use all other kinds. The sea anemone is a marine animal which is
says in the
called the nettle.

PORPH. V.P.

45.

Pythagoras advised his followers to abstain

138

FRAGMENTS

from other things as well, such as womb, the red mullet, the sea anemone, and indeed almost all other sea creatures.
DIOG. LAERT. 8. i. 19 (18). Above all, he forbade them to eat erythinus and black-tail they must also abstain from eating heart or beans and Aristotle says that at times they must abstain from eating womb or red mullet.
; ;

5 (R

190, R3 195)

DIOG. LAERT. 8. i. 33 (19). The Pythagoreans say we should not pay equal honour to gods and to heroes, but to the gods at all times, keeping a guard on our lips, in white raiment and with pure bodies, and to the heroes only from midday onwards. The purity is to be achieved by cleansing rites, by

by lustral water, by having no stain from funeral from childbirth, or from any infection, and by absten tion from meat that has been nibbled at or has died by disease, and from red mullets, black-tails, eggs and oviparous animals, beans, and the other things that are forbidden to
baths,
rites,
1

those
in his

who perform work On the

the sacred rites in temples. Aristotle says, 2 Pythagoreans, that Pythagoras enjoined

abstention from beans either because they are like the privy
parts, or because they are like the gates of
is

Hades

(for this

the only plant that has no joints), or because they are destructive, or because they are like the nature of the uni
choice of rulers
verse, or because they are oligarchical (being used in the by lot). Things that fall from the table they

were told not to pick up to accustom them to eating with moderation, or because such things marked the death of someone. They must not touch a white cock, because this animal is sacred to Lunus and is a suppliant, and suppli cation is a good thing. The cock was sacred to Lunus because it announces the hours also, white is of the nature of the 3 good, black of the nature of the bad. They were not to touch
. . .

Reading Reading Reading

,

in in

R. R.

158. 8 after /oJSou? the 158. 13 after

words

KCU Ae ^ovr, omitted

r<2>

by Rose.

ApiaTorfXys the words eV

Aev/cdv
. . .

irtpl

rwv IJvOa. .

yopfiaiv,
3

with some MSS. and Diels. in R. 158. 21-24 KOI TO /*ev with Diels.

KUKQV before rwv IxOvcav

ON THE PYTHAGOREANS
any
fish

139

sacred, since it was not right that the same dishes should be served to gods and to men, any more than

that

was

they should to freemen and to slaves. They must not break the loaf (because in old times friends met over a single loaf, as barbarians do to this day), nor must they divide the loaf which brings them together. Others explain the rule by
reference to the judgement in Hades others say that dividing the loaf would produce cowardice in war; others explain
;

it is from the loaf that the universe starts. ... 36. These things Alexander says he found in the Pythagorean commentaries; Aristotle records the practices akin to

that

these.

6 (R 2 191, R 3 196)
PORPH. I 7 P. 41. Pythagoras said certain things in a mystical and symbolic way, and Aristotle has recorded most of these
.

that he called the sea the tear of Cronos, the Bears the hands of Rhea, the Pleiades the lyre of the Muses, the planets
1

e.g.

the dogs of Persephone the ringing sound of bronze when struck was, he said, the voice of a divine being imprisoned in the bronze.
;

AELIAN, V.H.

4.17. The origin of earthquakes was, Pytha goras said, nothing but a concourse of the dead the rainbow was the gleam of the sun, and the echo that often strikes on
;

our ears was the voice of mightier beings.

2 3 7 (R 192, R 197)

42. There was also another kind of symbol, by what follows: Step not over a balance i.e. be not covetous Poke not the fire with a sword i.e. do not

PORPH. V.P.

illustrated

vex with sharp words a man swollen with anger Pluck not the crown i.e. offend not against the laws, which are the crowns of cities. Or again, Eat not heart i.e. vex not your self with grief: i.e. live not in Sit not on the corn ration idleness; When on a journey, turn not back i.e. when you
; , ,

are dying, cling not to this life;

1

Walk

not the highway

Ursa Major and Minor.

I 4o
i.e.

FRAGMENTS
; ,

follow not the opinions of the many but pursue those of Receive not swallows in your house the few and educated i.e. do not make housemates of talkative men of uncontrolled

Add to the burdens of the burdened, lighten them tongue not i.e. contribute to no man s sloth, to every man s excel lence Carry not images of the gods in your rings i.e. make not your thought and speech about the gods manifest and Make your libations to obvious, nor lay it open to many the gods at the handle of the cup i.e. honour and celebrate the gods with music for this rings through the handle.
;
, ;
,

JEROME, Adv. Libros Rufini 3. 39. To the Pythagoreans also belong such sayings as Friends have everything in common and those riddles which Aristotle recounts with care in
. . .

his
is

Leap not over a balance Poke not fire with a sword words a mind swollen with anger;
books
;
:

just

i.e.

preserve the laws of your cities sadness from your mind; When return not i.e. desire not life itself on the highway i.e. follow not the errors of the multitude; Take no swallow into your house i.e. have not as house
i.e.
;
,
,

go not beyond what vex not with abusive Never pluck a crown Eat not heart i.e. cast you have started out, Walk not after death
i.e.
,
;

mates garrulous and talkative men

Place more burdens on

1
,

the burdened, help not those who lay burdens down encourage those who press on to virtue, abandon those
give themselves to ease.

i.e.

who

8 (R 2 193, R 3 198)

MART. CAP.
one of

7.

my

followers, reasoning

131 (Philosophy speaks). Although Aristotle, from the fact that the unit

one alone and wishes to be always sought after, it is called Desire because it desires itself, since it has nothing beyond itself and, never carried beyond itself or linked with other things, turns its own ardours on itself.
itself is

asserts that

2 9 (R 194, R3 199)

THEO. SM. Math, p.

they recognize
1

21.

is
in

into
R.

20 (Killer). The first division of numbers two kinds, even and odd. ... 24. Some
superponendum onus, deponentibus.

Reading

160. 25

ON THE PYTHAGOREANS
said i
in his

141

Pythagoreans says that the One partakes both kinds for added to an even number it makes an odd, and added to an odd an even, which it could not have done if it had not shared in both natures and that
the

was the work On

first

odd number. ...

;

22. 5-9.

But

Aristotle

of the nature of

for this reason the

One was

called even-odd.

10 (R 2 195, R 3 200)
SIMP, in

De
the
list

theses to

two

Cael. 386. 9. The Pythagoreans reduced all anti lists of opposites, the one worse, the other

better
off

list

of goods

and the

list

of evils.

They rounded

symbolically by the decad, as being the complete number, and they took each of the ten antitheses as revealing all its congeners within itself. Of the local positions they took the right and the left 19-23 and explained the other local
.
. .

each

opposites in the light of these. Right, above, and before they called good, and left, below, and behind evil, as Aristotle himself related in his collection of Pythagorean tenets.

11 (R 2 196, R 3 2Ol)
STOB. 1. 18. i c (Wachsmuth and Hense). In the first book of his work on the philosophy of Pythagoras Aristotle writes that the heaven was one, and that time and breath and the void,

which divides for ever the regions drawn in from the infinite.

of different things,

were

12 (R 2 197, R 3 202)

ALEX. APHR. in Metaph. 75. 15-17. Of the arrangement in the heavens which the Pythagoreans assigned to the numbers, Aristotle informs us in the second book of his work on the
doctrine of the Pythagoreans.
2 3 13 (R 198, R 203)

ALEX. APHR. in Metaph.

38. 8. Aristotle has shown what are the likenesses that the Pythagoreans believed in between numbers and the things that exist and come into being assuming that reciprocity or equality is a property of justice
;

142

FRAGMENTS
it
;

and finding

to exist in numbers, they said, for this reason, that justice is the first square number for in every case the first of a number of things that admit of the same definition

most truly that which it is said to be. Now this number some declared to be the number 4, because, being the first square number, it is divided into equals and is itself equal (being twice 2), while others declared it to be the number 9, which is the first square number produced by multiplying an odd number (3) by itself. Again, they said the number 7 was opportunity for natural things seem to have their per fect seasons of birth and completion in terms of sevens, as in the case of man. Men are born after seven months, they
is
;

begin to grow their teeth in seven months, they reach puberty about the end of the second set of seven years, and grow beards about the end of the third. The sun, too, since it is itself thought to be (as he says) the cause of seasons, they maintain to be established where resides the number 7, which they identify with season for the sun holds the seventh place among the ten bodies that move round the earth or hearth of the universe it moves after the sphere of the unwandering stars and the five spheres of the planets after it come the moon, eighth, and the earth, ninth, and after the earth the counter-earth. Since the number 7 neither generates nor is generated by any of the numbers in the decad, they identified it with Athene. For the number 2
;

generates

4, 3 generates 9, and 6, 4 generates 8, and 5 generates 10, and 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 are also themselves generated, but 7 neither generates any number nor is gener

ated from any and so too Athene was motherless and evervirgin. Marriage, they said, was the number 5, because it is the union of male and female, and according to them the odd is male and the even female, and 5 is the first number generated from the first even number, 2, and the first odd number, 3 for the odd is for them (as I said) male, and the even female. Reason (which was the name they gave to soul) and substance they identified with the One. Because it was unchanging, alike everywhere, and a ruling principle they called reason a unit, or one but they also applied these names to substance, because it is primary. Opinion they
; ;

ON THE PYTHAGOREANS
identified with the

143

can move in two directions; they also called it movement and epithesis. Picking out such likenesses between things and numbers, they assumed numbers to be the first principles of things, saying that all things are composed of numbers. But they also saw the concordant intervals to be con stituted according to particular numbers, and said that numbers were the first principles of these also; the octave depends on the ratio 2:1, the fifth on the ratio 3 2, the fourth on the ratio 4 3. They said, too, that the whole universe is constructed in accordance with a certain harmony ... 39. 24-41. 15 because it consists of numbers and is con structed in accordance with number and harmony. For the bodies that move round the centre of the universe have their distances in a certain ratio, and some move faster and others

number

2 because

it

and in their movement the slower strike a deep note and the faster a high one, and these notes, being propor tionate to the distances, make the resultant sound har monious and since they said number was the origin of this
slower,
;

harmony, they naturally made number the first principle of the heavens and of the universe. For they thought the sun to be, say, twice as far from the earth as the moon, Venus to be three times as far, Mercury four times, and each of the other heavenly bodies to be in a certain ratio, and the move ment of the heavens to be harmonious, and the bodies that

move move

the greatest distance to move the fastest, those that the least distance the slowest, and the intermediate

bodies to move in proportion to the greatness of their circuit. On the basis of these likenesses between things and numbers,

they supposed existing things both to be composed of num bers and to be numbers. Thinking numbers to be prior to nature as a whole and to natural things (for nothing could either exist or be known at all without number, while numbers could be known even apart from other things), they laid it down that the elements

and

first

principles of

numbers are the

first

principles of all

These principles were, as has been said, the even and the odd, of which they thought the odd to be limited and
things.
1

sc.

the addition of

to

i.

144
;

FRAGMENTS

the even unlimited of numbers they thought the unit was the first principle, composed of the even and the odd; for the unit was at the same time even-odd, which he used to
1

power of generating both odd and even number added to an even it generates an odd, added to an odd it generates an even. As regards the agreements which they found between num bers and concordant combinations on the one hand, and on the other hand the attributes and parts of the heavens, they took these for granted straight off, as being obvious, and inferred that the heavens are composed of numbers and dis play a concord. If any of the heavenly phenomena seemed to fail to conform with numerical principles, they made the necessary additions themselves and tried to fill the gap so
its
;

prove from

as to

make

their whole treatment of the matter self-consis

tent. Treating the decad straight off as the perfect number, and seeing that in the visible world the moving spheres are

nine in
of the

seven spheres of the planets, the eighth that stars, the ninth the earth (for this, too, they thought, moves in a circle about the resting hearth of the universe, which according to them is fire) they added, in their system, a counter-earth, which they supposed to move in a direction opposite to that of the earth s movement, and to be for that reason invisible to those on earth. Aristotle speaks of these matters both in the De Caelo 2 and, with greater precision, in his collection of Pythagorean doc trines. They made out the arrangement of those bodies to be harmonious by assuming that the ten moving bodies of which the universe consists are at harmonic distances from each

number

unwandering

other, and move in proportion to their distances (as Aristotle has said before), some faster, others slower, and that, as they move, the slower moving sound deeper notes and the faster moving higher notes, and that by the harmonious propor tions between these a harmonious note is produced, which, however, we do not hear because we have grown up with it from childhood. He has spoken of this also in the De Caelo, and shown there that it is not true. That the even is for them

the indefinite and the odd the definite, and that these are
1

Pythagoras.

Omitting

^V

in

R.

162. 19,

with Hayduck.

ON THE PYTHAGOREANS

145

the generating principles of the unit (for it is by derivation from them that it is even-odd), and indeed of all number (since the units in turn are the generating principles of the

numbers), and that the whole heavens, i.e. everything that in the heavens, in other words all existing things, are number this he says here, but he has spoken of the subject more fully in those other places.
is

2 3 14 (R 199, R 204)

SIMP, in

De
this

view for
;

Caelo 511. 25. The Pythagoreans oppose this is what contrariwise means they do not say
;

that the earth

is

at the centre, but that in the centre of the

universe there

is fire,

and that about the centre the counter-

earth moves, being itself an earth but called a counter-earth because it is on the opposite side to our earth. After the counter-earth came our earth, itself also moving round the
so Aristotle relates in centre, and after the earth the moon his work on the Pythagorean doctrines. 1 512. 12-14. For this reason some call fire the tower of Zeus, as Aristotle him
;
. .

call it

work on the Pythagoreans, while others the stronghold of Zeus (so Aristotle says here), or the throne of Zeus (as other authors relate).
self related in his

Cf.

PROCL. in Eucl.
fit

p. 90.

14 (Friedlein).

to call the pole the seal of Rhea 17-18 the centre of the universe the stronghold of Zeus.

thought

The Pythagoreans and

. . .

Cf.

PROCL. in Tim.

p.

61

c,

SIMP, in Phys. 1355. 8-9.

2 3 15 (R 200, R 205)

SIMP, in De Caelo, 392. 16-32. Aristotle says that the Pytha goreans place us in the upper part and on the right side of the universe, and those opposite to us in the lower part and on the left side how can he say this if, as he himself relates in the second book of his collection of Pythagorean tenets, they say that one part of the whole universe is up and the other down, the lower part right and the upper left, and that
;

Reading

in

R.

163.

eV

ru>

ntpi rutv nvOayoptKuiv, with Karsten.

645.29

I 46

FRAGMENTS
of the

we

are in the lower part ? Is it that he has used the words upper and on the right here not in accordance with his

own view but with that up and before with

left
.

Pythagoreans
,

They coupled
in Aristotle s

right

down and behind with

But Alexander thinks that the statement

collection of

Pythagorean tenets has been altered by someone and should be that the upper part of the universe is on the right, the lower part on the left, and that we are in the upper
part, not in the lower as the text now runs Aristotle s original statement would agree with here, that we, who say we live in the lower part
;

in this

way

what he says and therefore

on the

side), are in

we

the lower part is coupled with the left opposition to the Pythagorean statement that live in the upper part and on the right side. The suggested
left side (since

corruption of the text is very probable, since Aristotle knows that the Pythagoreans coupled the higher position with the right side, and the lower with the left.

THEM, in De

Caelo, 96. 17-22. If, indeed, the Pythagoreans say the upper part is that which is on the right side as appears from Aristotle s criticism of them in his book against the Pythagorean tenets, where he opposes those who con tended that the higher region is on the right.

16
STOB.
i.

26.

3.

Some

of the Pythagoreans, according to

Aristotle s account

and the statement of Philippus of Opus, say that the eclipse of the moon is due to the interposition, sometimes of the earth, sometimes of the counter-earth. Of the younger members of the school there are some who thought it was due to distribution of the flame, which kindles gradually and regularly until it gives the complete light of full moon, and again diminishes correspondingly until the
time of conjunction, when
it is

completely extinguished.

ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARCHYTAS

I (R 3

206)

SIMP, in

De

knows. For he writes: He says the universe is a generated universe for he supposes that it is perceptible to sense, and that what is perceptible has been generated, and what is intelligible has not been generated.
;

Caelo, 296. 16-18. These things, then, Aristotle this reason, in his epitome of Plato s Tir.iaeus

2 (R 2 201,

R 3 207)
,

DAMASC. Pr. 2. 172. 16-22 (Ruelle). It is better, therefore, to in accordance stick to his distinction, treating as other with the Pythagorean custom and that of Plato himself,
for this

things that have matter in their being, and matter itself other in the Phaedo, is how Plato uses the word

saying that sensible forms are other and in things that are other Aristotle in his work on Archytas relates that Pytha goras, too, called matter other as being in flux and always becoming different. So it is clear that Plato, too, defines in this way the things that are other
.

83 b.

L2

ON DEMOCRITUS
I (R 2 2O2,

R 3 208)
26.

SIMP, in

those

De Caelo, 294. 23-295. who say the universe is now

Alexander adds that

in this state,

now

in that,

are ascribing to it change of quality, not generation and destruction. Those who say the universe is generated and

perishable like any other composite thing, must be (he says) the followers of Democritus. For as each other thing, accord

ing to them, comes into being and perishes, so does each of the numberless universes. And, as in the case of other things

that which comes into being is not the same, except in kind, as that which has perished, so too (they say) is it with the
universes.

Now if the atoms remain the same,

being

immune

alteration, clearly these thinkers also must be ascribing to the worlds change of quality and not destruction, as

from

Empedocles and Heraclitus seem to do. A few words quoted from Aristotle On Democritus will reveal the line of thought
of the Atomists:

Democritus thinks the nature of the eternal

sists of

entities

con

them

small substances infinite in number; as a place for he supposes something else infinite in size, and to this

he applies the names "void", "nothing", and "the infinite", while to each of the substances he applies the names "thing and He thinks the substances are so small "solid", as to escape our senses, but have all sorts of shapes and
",

"real".

figures, and differences of size. From these substances, as from elements, are generated and compounded visible and sensible masses. The substances are at variance and move in the void because of their dissimilarity and the other afore said differences, and as they move they impinge on each other and are so completely interlocked that they touch one another or get near one another but a single substance is never in reality produced from them by this interlocking; for it would be very naif to suppose that two or more things
;

Reading

in

R.

166. 5

ra>

8lv

KO.I

T<

wcrru>,

with Heiberg.

ON DEMOCRITUS

149

could ever become one. The fact that substances stay with one another for some time the Atomists ascribe to the bodies fitting into one another and catching hold of one another for some of them are scalene, others hook-shaped, others concave, others convex, and others have numberless other
;

differences.

He

thinks they cling to one another and remain

together until some stronger force arriving from the environ ment shakes them asunder and separates them.

He ascribes the genesis and the separation opposed to it not only to animals but also to plants and to worlds, and comprehensively to all sensible bodies. If, then, genesis is combination of atoms, and destruction separation of them, then even according to Democritus genesis must be change of quality. Indeed, Empedocles, too, says that that which comes into being is not the same, except in kind, with that
which has perished, and yet Alexander says that Empedocles assumes the existence of change of quality, not of coming
into being.

AUTHORS QUOTED
(a)
(c)

=
=

not in Rose.
fuller

= not in Walzer. (b) quotation than Rose gives.

152

AUTHORS QUOTED

154
Them,
(con/.)

AUTHORS QUOTED
Vit. Arist.

Or. 26

d-27 b 107 c-d 295 c-d

.

... ...
.
.

Marc. 427. 3-7

.

.
.

7*
65

101

43-

I5-43I- 2
.

66
24
5

433. 10-15
.
.

.116
7

319 c Theo. Sm. 21. 20-22. 9 Theon, Prog. i. 165

.

. vulgo Vitae Homeri in Homeri Opera,

.140
.
.

ed. Allen, 5. 244. 247,

103

251-2

...

77

ROSE

NUMBERING OF FRAGMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY
ROSE, V., Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus, 1863. Arislotelis qui ferebantur Librorum Fragmenta [1870]. Aristotelis qui ferebantur Librorum Fragmenta, 1886.
,

HEITZ, E., Aristotelis Fragmenta, 1872. WALZER, R., Aristotelis Dialogorum Fragmenta, 1934.

ALBEGGIANI,

F., Aristotele e

Epicure, in Logos, 1937, 422-4.

BERNAYS,
,

J.,

Aus dem

aristotelischen Dialog

Eudemos,

in

Rhein.

Mus., 1861, 236-46. Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, 1863. BIDEZ, J., A propos d un Fragment retrouve de 1 Aristote perdu, in Bull, de la Cl. des Lettres de VAcad. Roy. de Belgique, 1942, 201-30, Hermias d Atarnee, ibid., 1943, 133-46. Un Singulier Naufrage litteraire dans I antiquitd, 1943.
,

BIGNONE, E. Nuove ricerche

sulle

e testimonianze sulla prima dottrina e opere perdute di Aristotele attraverso gli scritti degli Epicurei, in Rivista di Filologia, 1933, 16-43, 155-76. Nuove ricerche sulla formazione filosofica di Epicuro, in Atene e Roma, 1933, I 3~O2 an d Annali della R. Scuola Normale
,

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, ,

INDEX
Academy,
x.

Alexamenos, 73-74. Alexander the Great,

Alexander,

Gorgias, x. Great year, 55.

ix. xi, 65, 67.

Gryllus,

vii, 7.
7.

viii, ix, x, xi,

67.

Gryllus, vii, ix,

Anger, 68-71.
Antisthenes, xi. Archytas, IOQ-IO, 147. Archytas. On the Philosophy
Aristotle s style,
Plato,
4.
i, 2, 3, 5, 6,

Happiness, 54-55-

Hermippus,
of,

vii.
vii, viii, xi.

147.
:

Hesychius,
Hortensius,

Q2-93

Homer, 8-9,
Howald,

72, 76-77, 84-85.

27.

open-mindedness,

attitude to

viii,

E., vii.

Art and nature, 43-46.

Bignone, E.,
xii.

Ideal numbers, xi. Ideas, Platonic, xi,

xii,

117, 124-33.

Ideas, On, xi, xii, 124-33.

Categories, 107-8. Cicero, viii, x, xii.
Colonists, On, viii, ix.

Immortality, 16-18. Indefinite dyad, 117-21, 123.

I

socrates, x.
xi, xii.

Contraries, On, 109-14.

Corinthian dialogue,

viii, 24.

Jaeger, W., ix,

Delphi, 78-79. Democritus, On, 148-9. Deucalion, 81. Dialogues, Aristotle s, vii-xii, 1-6.

Justice, On, vii, ix, 100-2.

Kingship, On,

viii, ix, x, xi,

65-66.

Diogenes Laertius, Dissertations, 106.

Divisions, 105.

vii, viii, xi.

Love, 25-26.
Magi, 79-80. Magicus, xi. Mathematics, 30-31,
Melissus, 82.

Dreams, 55~5 6

34.

Drinking and Drunkenness, 8-14. Drunkenness, On, vii, n. 7.

Education, On, viii, ix, 64. Einarson, B., x. Empedocles, 15, 72-73. Eroticus, vii, ix, 25-26.

Menexenus,

vii, ix.

Metaphysics, xii. Music, 95-97. Mysteries, the, 87.

Nerinthus,
xi,
xii,
vii, viii, ix, 24.

Eudemus, Eudemus,
16-23.

16.
vii, n. 8, viii, ix,

Numbers, 117-19.

Eudoxus, 132.
Euripides, 75. Euthydemus, x, n.
i.

One and indefinite dyad, 123; One and Plurality,

5, 6.

117-21,
122.

Exoteric works,

Fifth element (aKarovofjiaarov)

99-

98-

Forms, Platonic,
Good,

22.

Parmenides, 82. Parts of speech, 106. Phaedo, x, n. i. Philosophy, 27-30, 33-34, 37. 52Philosophy, On, vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii,
78-99Plato,
ix,

On

the, viii, xi,

Good

Birth, On, vii,

115-23. viii, ix, 59-62.

x,

xi,

74,

82-84,

88,

"5-33-

162
Pleasure, On,
Poets, On, vii,
Politicus, vii,
viii, ix,
viii, ix, viii, ix,

INDEX
63.

Sophistes,

vii, ix, 15.

72-77. x, 68-71.

Soul and body, 17-22, 32, 34. Soul, On, vii, viii, 16-23.
Stage-effect,
i.

Prayer, On, vii, ix, 58. Privation, 112-13. Problems, On, 104.
Protrepticus,
vii, viii, ix, x, n. i, xii,

Strabo, Suidas,

xi.
xi.
vii, ix,

Symposium,

814.

27-56.

Pseudo-Ammonius,
Pythagoras, 134-9.

xi.

Themison, 27. Third man 129.

,

Pythagoreans and numbers, 117, 140-5; and cosmology, 145-6.

Pythagoreans,

Von

der Muhll, P., x.

xii. vii, ix, 57.

On

the, xii,

134-46.

Religion, origin Rhetoric, i.

Rhetoric, On,

of,

84-87.

Walzer, R., Wealth, On,

Wilpert, P.,

xi, xii.

vii, 7.

World, ungenerated and imperish

able, 88-93.

Rose, V.,

xi, xii.

Sardanapallus, 52-53.

Zoroaster, 79-80.

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