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

ARISTOTLE'S WAITINGS 139
works that the only source of our extant text was to be
found in these MSS., which rotted for a century and
more in the cellar of Scepsis, till Apellico found them
worm-eaten, ruined by damp, and tossed into a disordered
heap—if it be true that he, as Strabo says,
supplied unskilfully the missing portions, and that
Tyrannio and Andronicus also had no further manuscripts
they could collate—who then could guarantee
that in any number of cases there would not have been
foreign matter, found among Neleus' MSS., adopted
into Aristotle's text, or connected parts of his own
works separated, and other portions blunderingly bound
together, or lacunas great and small filled up by the
editor's fancy ?
Modern criticism
has, however, raised doubts about
Strabo's story ' which even its defenders cannot altogether
silence. 2 That Theophrastus bequeathed his
library to Neleus is beyond doubt. 3
That the MSS. of
1
After the isolated and dis- cularity (A rist.otelia, ii. 1-166, of.
regarded voice of a learned 294 sq.). Later scholars have
Frenchman, about the beginning mostly followed them,
of the eighteenth century, had 2
Hkitz, Verl. Schr. d. Ar.
raised doubts as to this narration 9 sqq., 20, 29 sqq. ; GKOTE, Ari-
(see what Stahr gives in Arist. stotle, i. 50 sqq. ; Geant, JSthics
ii. 163 sq. from the Journal den of At. i. 5 sqq., Aristotle, 3 sqq.
Scavans of the year 1717, p. 655 Certain errors in Strabo's and.
sqq., as to the anonymous com- Plutarch's representation are inposition
Les Amcnitez de la deed admitted by these scholars,
Critique), Brandis (' Ueb. die but in the main it is said to be
Schicksale d. arist. Bucher.' correct. It is impossible here to
Rhein. Mus. v. Niebuhr and examine in detail the reasons
Brandis, i. 236 sqq, 259 sqq. ; cf. given for this opinion, but the
Or.-rom. Phil. ii. b, 66 sqq.) was grounds for its rejection are
the first to deal with it seriously,
fully dealt with in the text.
Kopp {Rliein. Mm. iii. 93 sqq.)
3
Theophrastus' will, aqrud
supplemented his criticism, and Diog. v. 52 ; cf. Athbn. i. 3,
finally Stahb has discussed the where it is added that Ptolemy
question with exhaustive parti- Philadelphns bought the whole
140 ARISTOTLE
Aristotle and Theophrastus belonging to that library
passed to the heirs of Neleus and were by them hidden
in a canal or cellar to escape a royal book-collector
and were afterwards found by Apellico in a desperate
condition, there is no need to doubt. 1 All the facts
which Strabo relates as to the matter may therefore be
correct enough. And it is also beyond question that
Andronicus' edition of the Aristotelian text-books was
of epoch-making importance both for
system and for the preservation of the text.
the study of the
If, however,
it be maintained that these writings were
nowhere to be found outside the Scepsis cellar and were
unknown therefore to the Peripatetic School after the
death of Theophrastus, there are the strongest arguments
against any such theory.
In the first place, it is almost incredible that an
event so singularly notable as the discovery of the lost
masterpieces of Aristotle
should never have been even
alluded to by any of those who, since that time, have
concerned themselves with Aristotle, as critics or as
philosophers. Cicero says not 'a word, though he had
abundant occasion, for he lived at Eome at the very
time when Tyrannio was working among the
literary
booty of Sulla, and was, in fact, in active intercourse
with Tyrannio himself. Alexander, ' the Exegete,' says
nothing ;
nor does any one of the Greek critics who used
the very works of Andronicus, either at first or at second
collection of Neleus and had it Alexandria, this may easily be
brought to Alexandria. an inexact expression, just as
1
For when Athenteus, or it is inexact, in the opposite
the epitomiser of his introduc- way, when, in v 214, he makes
tion, ibid., asserts that the whole Apellico possess not the works,
library of Neleus was taken to but the library of Aristotle.