ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

ARISTOTLE
AEISTOTLE
AND THE
EAELIEE PEEIPATETICS
THE LIFE
CHAPTER I
OF AEISTOTLE
The lives and circumstances of the three great philosophers
of Athens show a certain analogy to the character
and scope of their work. As the Attic philosophy began
by searching the inner nature of man and went on from
this beginning to extend itself over the whole field of
existence, so we find that the life of its great masters
was at first confined in narrow limits, and gained, as
time went on, a wider range. Socrates is not only a
pure Athenian citizen, but a citizen who feels no desire
to pass beyond the borders of his city.
Plato is also an
Athenian, but the love of knowledge takes him to
foreign lands and he is connected by many personal
interests with other cities. Aristotle owes to Athens
his scientific training and his sphere of work ; but he
belongs by birth and origin to another part of Greece,
he spends his youth and a considerable part of his manhood
out of Athens, chiefly in the rising Macedonian
kingdom ; and even when he is in Athens, it is as a
stranger, not bound up with the political life of the
VOL. I.
B
city, and not hindered by any personal ties from giving
to his philosophy that purely theoretic and impartial
character which became its distinctive praise. 1
The birth of Aristotle falls, according to the most
probable reckoning, in the first year ofthe 99th Olympiad, 2
1
The old accounts of Aristotle's
life now extant are (1)
Diogenes, v. 1-35 (far the most
copious) ; (2) Diontsius of Halicarnassus,
JBpist. ad Ammreum,
i. 5, p. 727 sq. ; (3) 'Apurr. pios
teal (TvyypdfifiaTa (wtov, by the
Anonymns Mfenagii ; (4) another
sketch of his life, known to us in
three forms : (a) the Bios first
printed in the Aldine ed. of Arist.
'Opp. 1496-98 (which is there
ascribed to Philoponus, elsewhere
to Ammonius, but belongs to
neither), here cited as the
Pseudo- Ammonius (ox Amm.); (i)
the Life published from the Codex
Marcianusby Robbein 1861, cited
as Vita Marciana (or V. Mare.)
;
(e) the Life cited as the Latin,Ammonius,
'preserved in an ancient
translation, which approaches
more closely to the Vita Marciana
than to the Pseudo-Amnwni%s
itself ; (5) 'Havxlov WLiKritriov irepi
tov 'ApiaroreXovs
; (6) SUIDAS, sub
voce 'ApurroTeKris. All of these,
except (46), are to be found
in Buhlb, Arist. Opp. i. 1-79.
Westermann's appendix to Cobet's
Diogenes, and his Vitce
Seriptorum (at p. 397) also contain
(3) and (4a) ;
Robbe, op. cit.
gives (4i) and (4c). ROSE {Arist.
Lib. Ord. 245), before the publication
of (ib), ascribed the archetype
of (4) to the younger Olympiodorus—a
guess which may be
called possible but not proven. Of
later commentaries, cf. Buhlb,
Arist. Opp. i. 80-104; .Stahe,
Aristotelia i. 1-188; BrANDIS,
Gr.-rom. Phil. ii. b, i. pp. 48-65 ;
Grote's Arist. (1872), i. 1-37,
and Grant's Arist. (1877) pp.
1-29. Stahr discusses (p. 5 sqq.)
the lost works of ancient writers
which treated of Aristotle's life.
We cannot be sure, as to any of
the sources mentioned, what their
basis or credibility may be.
Rose's view that they one and
all rest only on spurious texts
and fanciful combinations (p.
115) is entirely unproved and
improbable. Their value, however,
beyond doubt differs widely;
we can only test each statement
by its inherent probability.
2 According to Apollodorus
apiid Diog. 9 ; no doubt on
the basis of the statement
(ibid. 10, Dionys. and Ammon.)
which may be accepted as the
safest fixed point as to the date
of Aristotle's life, that he died
in the archonship of Philocles
(01. 114, 3), about sixty-three
years old (erwv rpi&v irov Kal
I^Koira, or more exactly, as in
Dionys., rpia Trpbs roTs e^Koyra
fridxras £t7)). Dionysius agrees,
but erroneously talks of Demosthenes
as three years younger
than Aristotle, whereas he was
born in the same year, or at most
in the year before (in the beginning
of 01. 99, 1, or end of 01. 98,
4); vide Stahe i. 30: Gellius'
statement (JV. A. xvii. 21, 25) that
Aristotle was born in the seventh
year after the freeing of Rome