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

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ARISTOTLE'S WRITINGS 151
which is also cited by Philodemus. 1 It is obvious that
the author of that book 2 had the Politics before him
that Dicsearohus knew it also is indicated by the notices
of his Trvpoliticus?
The use of it in the Magna Moralia
is not so well proven, 4 and we cannot tell to what
source Cicero owed the parts of it which he used for his
5
own political works but it is not doubtful that it
must have been accessible to learned persons after the
death of Theophrastus. The same is true of the
UoXirslai, for the use of which in the Alexandrine
period we have abundant proofs. 6 That the Poetics
1
Be Tit. ix. ( Vol. Here, ii.)
col. 7, 38, 47, col. 27, 15, where
it is ascribed to Theophrastus.
2 Whom we have rather to
one of his
seek in Eudemus or
Peripatetic contemporaries than
in Aristotle : see ch. xxi. i/nfra.
s
On which see infra, ch. xix.
ail fin.
' Although happiness is here,
i. 4, 1184, b, 33 sqq., defined as
evepyeia Kal %OT\ats T V S ty&rySt this
has certainly a greater resemblance
to Polit. vii. 13, 1332, a,
7 (a passage to which Nickbs, De
Arigt. Polit. Libr. 87 sq. calls
attention) than to Eth. N. i. 6,
x. 6, 7, End. ii. 1, since happiness
is here certainly called ivepyeia
kot' iperV (or Trjs &peT?s),but the
conjunction of the ivipytia and
Xpflff's is wanting. Then the
Xpijcis is also spoken of in Eiid.
1219, a, 12 sqq. 23, Me. i. 9.
1098, b, 31, and thus it is quite
possible that only these passages
were in the mind of the author
of the Great Ethics.
5
Zelleb had already proved
in his 2nd ed., that in Cicero's
political writings many things are
taken from the
Aristotelian Politics,
citing Cic. Leg. iii. 6.,
Rep. i. 25 (cf. PoUt. iii. 9, 1280,
6, 29, c, 6, 1278, b, 8, 19, i. 2,
1253, a, 2) ; Rep. i. 26 {Pol. iii.
1, 1274, b, 36, c. 6, 1278, b, 8, c.
7, 1279, a, 25 sqq.) ; Rep. i. 27
{Pol. iii. 9, 1280, a, 11, c. 10, 11,
1281, a, 28 sqq., b, 28, c. 16, 1287,
a, 8 sqq.) ; Rep. i. 29 {Pol. Iv.
8, 11). Susemihl {Arist. Pol.
xliv. 81) also agrees with this.
But since Cicero does not name
Aristotle in the Republic, and
Leg. iii. 6 only refers to him in
very indefinite expressions, he
seems not to have drawn imme r
diately on Aristotle, and the
question arises : where did he get
this Aristotelian doctrine from ?
Susemihl, p. xlv, thinks, from
Tyrannio, but we might also presume
Dicsearchus, whom Cicero
was fond of using.
6
The oldest witness for this
is Timasus, apud PoLTB.xii. 5-11,
and the latter author himself.
There is also, besides Diog.
(Serww^?M»)No.l45,the Scholiast
of Aristophanes, who (according
to a good Alexandrine authority)
152 ARISTOTLE
was also known to the Alexandrine grammarians is
placed beyond doubt by recent research. 1
We may sum up the case by saying that of the
genuine portions of the extant Corpus, there are only
the works on the Parts, Genesis, and Movement of
Animals, and the minor anthropological tracts, as to
which we cannot show either express proof or high
probability for the assertion that they were in use after
the disappearance of Theophrastus's library from Athens.
Even as to these we have no reason to doubt it—only
we cannot positively prove it ; and that, when we remember
the fragmentary character of our knowledge ot
the philosophic literature of the period in question, is
nothing strange. The belief of Strabo and Plutarch
that the scientific writings of Aristotle were after the
death of Theophrastus all but wholly withdrawn from
access is therefore decisively negatived by the facts.
few of these writings may possibly have suffered the
fate which they ascribe to the whole. One book or
another may have been lost to the School at Athens
when they lost the library of Theophrastus, and may
have been again published by Andronicus from the
damaged MSS. of Sulla's- collection. But that this
happened to any or all of the important books is for all
reasons antecedently improbable. There must have
quotedthenoAiTeraiveryoftenjsee stophanes of Byzantium and
Arid. Fr. ed. Rose, Nos. 362, 355- Didymus from the proofs which
358, 370, 373, 407, 420 sq.. 426 sq., Susemihl has collected at p.
470, 485, 498 sq., 525, 533. 20 sq., of his edition (following
1
Their presence in the Alex- Trendelenburg, Grammat. Grtze.
andrian library is clear from the de Arte Trag. Judic. Eel.") from
Catalogue of Diog. (No. 83), and the Introductions and Scholia to
their having been used by Ari- Sophocles and Euripides,
A