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

THE LIFE OF ARIi$£OTLE
Plato's scholars, 1 to which he continued to belong for
rptyai Trap 7 auT$.tficofftv %rri, kirra
Kal Serca 4rav (Tvar&VTa. This
testimony seems to be the basis
of the statements of Dionysius
(p. 728) that he came to Athens
in his eighteenth year, of Diogenes
6, that he came eirra«:ai5eKeT775,
and of the three recensions of
the Ammonius Life that he came
eirTaKaiSeica gtuv yevdfievos. We
have also the chronology of
Dionj sins, who places his arrival
in the archonship of Polyzelos
(366-7 B.c. 01. 103, 2), while the
statement (V. Marc. 3, Ammon.
Latin. 12) that he came in the
archonship of Nausigenes (01.
103, 1) takes us to the middle
of his seventeenth year instead
of the completion of it. Eusebius
in his Clvronicle knows that
he arrived at seventeen, but
places the event erroneously in
01. 104, 1.—The statement of
Bumelus (apud Diog. 6) that he
was thirty years old wher he met
Plato is combined by irote (p.
3 sq.) with the accoun * of Epicurus
and Timteus as co his dissolute
youth (of. mfra), but
without deciding between the
two accounts. We have already
seen how little credit attaches to
Eumelus' account of Aristotle's
age and manner of death (p. 2,
n. 2) ;
but the two, statements are
connected and fall together, for,
as Aristotle composed an elegy
and the Dialogue named Eudemus
in memory of a fellow-student,
Eudemus of Cyprus (p. 11, n. 4,
infra), who went to Sicily with
Dion in 357 B.C. and was killed
there, it follows that Aristotle, if
he were thirty when he came to
Athens, would have been born
several years before 384.—We do
not know, moreover, when Eumelus
lived, or from whom he got
his information. If, as is possible,
he be Eumelus the Peripatetic,
whose Ilepl tjjj apxaia*;
Ku/j-cpStas is quoted by a scholiast
to ^Eschines' 'fmarch. (ed. Bekker,
AbA. d. Berl. Aliad. 1836,
Bist.-pHl. AX 230, § 39; cf. Rose,
Arist. Libr. Ord. 113), he would
belong to the Alexandrine, or
possibly even the post-Alexandrine
period. In no case, as
above shown, can he merit our
confidence. As to Epicurus and
Timseus vide p. 9, n. 1, infra.—The
Vita Mavaiana finds it necessary
to refute the story that Aristotle
came to Plato in his fortieth year.
The Latin Ammonius reproduces
this in a still more absurd form,
to which he adapts other parts
of his story ;
for he says that it
was thought by many that Aristotle
remained forty years with
Plato. His translation xl annis
'
immoratus est sub Platone '
probably
means that the text of the
archetype was /i/ %ti\ ye-yovbs 1\v
inrb TlXdruvi, or p! erav &v ivBlerpi&ev,
&c. If the latter be supposed,
the mistake might well
have arisen by the dropping out
of &>v in the translator's MS.
1
Plato himself was probably
at the moment absent on his
second Sicilian journey (vide
Zbllbb, Plato, p. 32). Stahr
(p. 43) suggests that the abovementioned
statement that he was
three years with Socrates and
after hisdeath followed Plato(Ps.
Amm. 44, 50, V. Mare. 2, Ammon.
Lat. 11, 12, Olympiod. in Oorg.
42) arose from a misunderstanding
of this circumstance. The archetype
may have contained the
"
8 ARISTOTLE
twenty years until the master died. 1 It would have
been of the greatest value if we could have known
in detail something of this long period of preparation,
in which the foundations of his extraordinary learning
and of his distinctive philosophical system must have
been laid. Unhappily our informants pass over all the
important questions as to the movement and history of
his mental development in absolute silence, and entertain
us instead with all manner of evil tales as to his
life and character. /One of these writers had heard that
he first earned his bread as a quack-doctor. 2 Another
alleges that he first squandered his patrimony, then in
his distress went into military service, afterwards, being
unsuccessful, took to selling medicines, and finally took
refuge in Plato's school. 3 /
This gossip, however, was
'
statement that Aristotle spent Cf . p. 6, n. 3, and Dionysius,
three years in Athens without ut supra: oWToflels TlXdravi
hearing Plato, in attending other xf^vov efewwrij tit&rpvtye