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

;
;
ARISTOTLE'S WAITINGS 143
secrecy, and laid it as a duty on his heirs. All this is
too absurd to need serious refutation.
We are not left, however, wholly to conjecture.
The materials are very scanty for the history of a time
whose philosophic literature by an unhappy accident
we have almost wholly lost ; but we can still prove, as
to a great part of Aristotle's books, that they were not
unknown to the learned men of the two centuries that
elapsed between Theophrastus' death and the occupation
of Athens by Sulla. Whether Aristotle did or did not
himself publish his strictly scientific treatises, they were
in any case destined to be the text-books of the School,
and to be used by its members. Even those numerous
passages in which they refer one to the other offer us a
palpable proof that, in the view of the writer, they were
not only to
be read by his scholars, but closely studied
and compared, and, by consequence, that copies were to
be kept and multiplied.
That this was done is clear,
not only from the notices which we find of particular
books, but from certain general considerations also.
If it is true that the Peripatetics lost the genuine
Aristotelianism when the library of Theophrastus
disappeared, it must be because the sources of that
teaching were nowhere else to be found. But we hear
not only of Theophrastus but of Eudemus also, that he
imitated Aristotle l
contents of his books;
not only in the titles but also in the
and how close was the imitation
both in wording and in the line of thought, we can see
for ourselves in the Mhics and Physics of Eudemus. 2
1
For references see pp. 65 2 Cf. p. 148, n. 4, and in the secand
68. tion on Eudemus at Ch. xix., inf.
144 ARISTOTLE
To do this, Eudemus must have possessed Aristotle's
texts ; especially if, as a reliable story tells us, 1 he used
them at a time when he was not living at Athens. 2
Again, it is beyond doubt that the
Alexandrian Library
included a large number of Aristotle's works. 3 The
compilers of the Alexandrine Canon, who place Aristotle
among the model writers of philosophy, may have had
chiefly in view the more careful style of his exoteric
writings
4
but in the foundation of that great collection
it is not possible that the scientific, works of Aristotle
can have been left out of account.
If the Catalogue of
Diogenes 5 comes from the Alexandrine Library, it is
proof positive that they, were there : but even if that
conjecture (in itself extremely probable) were erroneous,
the Catalogue still proves in any case that the compiler of
1
Vide supra, p. 136, n. 3.
2
Heitz {Verl. Sclir. 13) indeed
thinks that if the Aristotelian
works had been universally
known and published, it
would be incomprehensible that
Eudemus in his Physics (and
Ethics) should have imitated the
words of Aristotle so exactly.
It seems, however, that if
Eudemus had hesitated to do
this with regard to published
works, a plagiarism on unpublished
ones must have seemed
much more unlawful to him.
It is impossible, however, to regard
his conduct in this light
at all, and he himself probably
never so regarded it. His Ethics
and Physics were never intended
to be anything but elaborations
of the Aristotelian works
universally known in the Peripatetic
School, adapted to the
needs of his own tuition.
s
Besides what has been
remarked on p. 142, we have the
fact that Ptolemy Philadelphus
busied himself zealously about
Aristotelian books, paid high
prices for them, and thus gave
occasion to the forgery of such
texts (Ammon. Scliol. in Arist.
28, a, 43 ; David, ibid., 1. 14
Simpl. Categ. 2, e). And such
account's as those noticed at p.
64, n. 1 and 67, n. 1, about the
two books of the Categories and
the forty of the Analytics which
Adrastus found in old libraries,
must refer especially to the
Alexandrian Library. But it is
not to be supposed that the
latter obtained only substituted
works, and did not possess the
genuine ones, by reference to
which the forgeries were proved.
4
See Stahe, ibid. 65 sq. on
this point.
5
For which see p. 48 sqq.