NRLF
LIFE OF ARISTOTLE;
A CRITICAL DISCUSSION
QUESTIONS OF LITERARY HISTORY
CONNECTED WITH
HIS WORKS.
BY
JOSEPH WILLIAMS BLAKESLEY, M.A.
ft t
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
CAMBRIDGE :
J. AND J. J. DEIGHTON.
LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER.
M.DCCC.XXX1X.
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE following Essay is intended by the author
to be preliminary to a few others in which he hopes
to give an account of the several systems of Ancient
Philosophy which converged in those of Plato and
Aristotle, to pursue some of the more important
branches of speculation in the course which they took
after leaving the hands of the latter, and to examine
the success which has attended their cultivation up to
the present time. Before this task could be attempted
with any advantage, it was necessary to enter upon some
points relative to the history of philosophical literature,
and, from the nature of these, no mode of discussing
them appeared preferable to interweaving them in a cri-
tical biography of the founder of the Peripatetic School.
The present treatise, however, although the first of a
series, is complete in itself, and it is the intention
of the writer to preserve a similar independence to
each of the others.
CHAPTER
INTRODUC W J I 7 E E SI f T!
&1
IF the acquaintance we possessed with the private
life of individuals were at all proportioned to the in-
fluence exerted by them on the destinies of mankind,
the biography of Aristotle would fill a library; for
without attempting here to discuss the merits of his
philosophy as compared with that of others, it_may
safely be asserted that no man has ever yet lived \vho
exerted so much influence upon the world. Absorbing
into his capacious mind the whole existing philosophy
of his age, he reproduced it, digested and transmuted,
in a form of which the main outlines are recognised at
the present day, and of which the language has pene-
trated into the inmost recesses of our daily life. Trans-
lated in the fifth century of the Christian^ era into
the Syriac language by the Nestorians who fled to
Persia, and from Syriac into Arabic four hundred years
later, his writings furnished the Mohammedan con-
querors of the East with a germ of science which, but
for the effect of their religious and political insti-
tutions, might have shot up into as tall a tree as it
did produce in the West ; while his logical works,
in the Latin translation which Boethius, " the last of the
Romans," bequeathed as a legacy to posterity, formed
the basis of that extraordinary phenomenon, the Philo-
sophy jrfthe Schoolmen. An empire like this, extending
over nearly twenty centuries of time, sometimes more
sometimes less despotically, but always with great force,
recognised in Bagdad and in Cordova, in Egypt and in
1
2 SCANTY MATERIALS.
Britain, and leaving abundan't traces of itself in the
language and modes of thought of every European nation,
is assuredly without a parallel. Yet of its founder's perso-
nal history all that we can learn is to be gathered from
meager compilations, scattered anecdotes, and accidental
notices, which contain much that is obviously false and
even contradictory, and from which a systematic account,
in which tolerable confidence may be placed, can only
be deduced by a careful and critical investigation. \J
It is not, however, to the indifference of his con-
temporaries, or to that of their immediate successors,
that the paucity of details relating to Aristotle's life
is due. If we may trust the account of a commenta-
tor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second of the Mace-
donian dynasty in Egypt, not only bestowed a great
deal of study upon the writings of the illustrious philoso-
pher, but also wrote a biography of him 1 . At any
rate, about the same time, Hermippus of Smyrna, one
of the Alexandrine school of learned men, whose re-
search and accuracy is highly praised by Josephus 2 ,
composed a work extending to some length, On the
Lives of Distinguished Philosophers and Orators, in
which Aristotle appears to have occupied a consider-
able space 3 . Another author, whose date there is no
1 David the Armenian, in a commentary on the Categories, cited
by Brandis in the Rheinisches Museum, Vol. i. p. 250, and since
published by him from two Vatican MSS., says, Twi/ 'Apio-roTeAiKwi/
(Tvyypa/jifjidTutv TroAA&H' owrmv ^i\i(av TOV apid/jLov, OK (ptjcri IlToAe//a?O9
o OiAa3eA<o?, dvaypcKprjv CIVTWV Troitja-n/jievo^ KCU TOV fliov avTov KCCI Trjv
Siddea-iv. K. T. A. (p. 22. ed. Bekk.) an important passage if not cor-
rupt, as showing who the Ptolemy was that is elsewhere cited in
connection with Aristotle's works.
2 Contr. Aplon. lib. i. dvrjp 7rep\ trdffav IffToplav eVi/ueA*;?.
3 Athenseus (xiii. p. 589. xv. p. 696.) cites him, ei/ T
EARLY LITERATURE ON THE SUBJECT.
direct means of ascertaining, but who probably is to
be placed somewhere about the end of the third cen-
tury before the Christian era 4 , Timotheus of Athens,
is also to be added to the number of his early bio-
graphers. But independently of such works as these,
antiquity abounded in others which contained informa-
tion on this subject in a less direct form. Aristoxenus
of Tarentum, who during a part of his life was him-
self a pupil of Aristotle, in his biographies of Socrates
and Plato had frequent occasion to speak of the great
Stagirite. Epicurus, in a treatise which is cited under
the title of A Letter on the Pursuits and Habits
of former Philosophers, related several stories to his
disparagement 5 . The same, perhaps, was the case with
Aristippus (apparently the grandson of the founder of
the Cyrenean school) in his work On the Luxury
of Antiquity*. And yet more valuable materials than
were furnished by the two last-mentioned works, of
which at least the former appears to have been com-
posed in that vulgar spirit which delights in finding
something to degrade to its own level all that is above
it 7 , seem to have been contained in the treatises of
Demetrius the Magnesian and Apollodorus the Athe-
nian. The first of these was a contemporary of Cicero
4 This seems to follow from the fact that Diogenes only
quotes him in the lives of Plato, Speusippus, Aristotle, and Zeno
of Cittium. He is therefore no authority for any thing later
than the time of the last. Zeno was an old man B. c. 260.
(Diog. Laert. vii. 6.) Timotheus's work is quoted under the title
Flept B<wi/.
5 Ap. Athen. p. 354.
Q Diog. Laert. ii. 23. v. 3.
7 See the stories which were related in it of Protagoras, also
mentioned by Athenaeus, loc. cit.
12
4 ALEXANDRINE WRITERS.
and his celebrated friend Atticus 1 , and appears to have
exercised his acumen in detecting such erroneous
stories prevalent in his time as arose from the con-
fusion of different poets and philosophers who had
borne the same name 2 ; a cause which formerly in the
absence of hereditary surnames, and under the ope-
ration of many motives for falsification, was much
more fertile in its results than can now be easily
imagined 3 . The second is an authority which for the
purposes of the modern biographer of Aristotle is
the most important of all. He, like Hermippus, was
an Alexandrine scholar, and pupil of the celebrated
commentator and editor of the Homeric poems, Ari-
starchus 4 . Among his voluminous works was one On
the Sects of Philosophers, which no doubt contained
much that was interesting on our subject; but what
renders him valuable above any other of these lost
writers, and makes us treasure up with avidity the
slightest notices by him which have come down to us,
is his celebrated Chronology, a composition in iambic
verse, often cited under the title of Xpovwd, or Xpo-
VIKIJ cnWafis, by that compiler whose treatise is unfor-
tunately the most ancient systematic account of Aris-
totle's life which has escaped the ravages of time.
These citations are invaluable, not merely for the
positive information which we gain from them, but
because they serve also, as we shall have occasion to
1 Cicero, Brut. 91. He is alluded to in Epp. ad. Attic, iv. 11.
but in viii. 11. ix. 9. xiii. 6. it is Demetrius the Syrian, a rhetori-
cian, who is referred to. This latter is also spoken of in Brut. 91.
2 Diog. Laert. v. 3.
3 See Galen, Comment, in Hippocr. de nat. Horn. ii. p. 105,
109, and in Hippocr. de Humor, i. p. 5, ed. Kuehn.
4 Suidas, sub v. '
SMALL CIRCULATION OF THEIR BOOKS. 5
observe in the sequel, for a touchstone of anecdotes
whose authority is otherwise uncertain 5 .
The foregoing list of authors, which might be yet
further enlarged, abundantly shows that in the be-
ginning of the first century before Christ there were
materials for compiling a biography of Aristotle as de-
tailed as one of Newton or Young could be in the
present day. This, however, soon afterwards ceased to
be the case. When the only means of obtaining the
copy of a book was by the laborious process of tran-
scription, the expense necessarily confined its acquisi-
tion to comparatively few persons, and when to this
drawback we add those arising from voluminous size
and but partially interesting subject, the circulation
would be very limited indeed. It may be questioned,
perhaps, whether some of the works we have noticed
ever found their way beyond the walls of the royal
library at Alexandria, except in the shape of extracts.
If this were the case, the destruction of the whole
or a great part of that library 6 in the siege of the city
by Julius Caesar (B. c. 48) would very probably cause
their annihilation. At all events, in subsequent times,
when Rome was the centre of civilization as well as
of empire, works of such a description became totally
unfit to satisfy the wants of the age. A certain ac-
quaintance with Greek literature, Greek philosophy, and
Greek history, became an essential accomplishment for
the fashionable Roman, but this acquaintance was
5 See with reference to Apollodorus and his works, Voss. DC
Historicis Greeds, p 132, et seq. Heyne, ad Apollodori Bibli-
othec. Vol. i. p. 385, 457, and Brandis in the Rhemisches Museum,
Vol. iii. p. no. in whose opinion the chronology of Apollodorus
is founded on that of Eratosthenes.
6 Aulus Gellius, Nodes Atticce, vi. 17.
6 GREEK LITERATURE FASHIONABLE AT ROME.
nothing like the one which Cato and Scipio, which
Atticus and Cicero possessed. It was expected to be
extremely comprehensive 1 , and, as all comprehensive
knowledge must he when popularized, it was propor-
tionally superficial. To feed this appetite for general
information was the work of the needy men of letters
under the Empire. In the time of the early Ptolemies
and of the Kings of Pergamus their energies had been
directed by the munificence of those monarch s to the
accumulation of vast stores of erudition on particu-
lar subjects. The number of monographies, and the
minute subdivision of intellectual labour which pre-
vailed under their patronage, is scarcely paralleled by
the somewhat similar case of Germany at the present
day. Homer, a sacred book for the Greeks, was the
principal subject of their labours; but indeed there
1 See Juvenal, Sat. vii. 229 236, of the qualifications required
from the masters of his time:
Vos scevas imponite leges,
Ut prceceptori verborum regula constet,
Ut legal historias, auctores noverit omnes
Tanquam ungues digitosque suos ut forte rogatus
Dum petit aut tkermas aut Phcebi balnea, dicat
Nutricem Anchisaz, nomen patriamque novercce
Anchemori: dicat, quot Acestes vixerit annos,
Quot Siculus Phrygibus vini donaverit urnas.
The work of Ptolemy the son of Hephaestion, which we shall
notice afterwards, is quite in accordance with this satirical de-
scription. The censorship which was established in the time of Ti-
berius accelerated the degeneracy of the national taste ; its opera-
tion being fatal to an acquaintance with all healthy literature, no
less than to its production. Thus Caligula wished to destroy
the writings of Homer,, Virgil, and Livy. (Sueton. Vit. 34.)
Of Nero we are told "Liberates disciplinas omnes fere puer atti-
git; sed a philosophia eum mater avertit, monens imperaturo con-
trariam esse, a cognitione veterum oratorum Seneca praeceptor,
quo diutius in admiratione sui detineret" (Sueton. Vit. 52.)
COMPILATIONS.
was no classical author and no literary or scientif
question which did not employ the abilities of a crowd
of antiquarians or commentators. The prodigious stores
thus accumulated 2 formed the stock from which the
litterateurs of Rome derived materials for the new spe-
cies of intellectual repast demanded by the taste of
their times. In the first generation of compilations
which were composed for this purpose, the writers of
course made use of the existing sources of information,
and fortified their statements by citations of their au-
thority in each particular instance. But as the real
love for literature declined before the debilitating in-
2 The number of volumes at Alexandria in the time of Callima-
chus (about 259 B.C.) amounted to five hundred and thirty-two
thousand, or according to the explanation of Ritschl, (Die Alex-
andrinischen Bibliotheken, p. 28,) four hundred and thirty-two
thousand. At the time of the destruction of the great part of
them by fire, they had reached seven hundred thousand. The dif-
ference was caused in no small measure by the accumulation of
commentatorial or antiquarian works. Thus Aristarchus is said to
have written more than eight hundred volumes of commentaries
alone. (Suidas, sub v.) Some are said to have spent their whole lives
on the elucidation of single questions relative to Homer. (See Wolf,
Prolegomena in Homerum, sec. 45. 51.) Under Ptolemy Philadel-
phus an immense number of original works were collected, and
the arrangement, description, and illustration of these became
the principal business of men of letters under his successors.
Under Ptolemy the accumulation was so rapid that there was no
time for this. Galen relates that when any merchant-vessels put
into the harbours of Egypt, all manuscripts which happened to
be on board were taken to the royal library and transcripts of
them sent back to the owners. In default of time to classify
the originals, they were laid up in the collection under the title
of TO ex Tr\oi<av, "the books taken out of ships." (Galen, cited
by Wolf, Proleg. sec. 42.) It is hardly necessary to remark that
the word " volume," in reference to this time, applies to the papyrus
rolls, of which none perhaps contained more than a couple of
closely printed octavo sheets, while some were very much less.
8 MISCELLANIES PAMPHILA PHAVORINUS.
fluence of luxury, while at the same time the fashion
of literary accomplishments remained, it became neces-
sary that information should be furnished in a more
generally palatable form. Hence out of the first crop
of compilations, a new generation of writers composed
a sort of Omniana, (TravroSairai uFTop'uu,) a species of
composition which became exceedingly popular, as it
combined a loose kind of information on those points
of which everybody was expected to possess some know-
ledge, with the piquancy of memoirs, and the variety
of subject which is so pleasant to a frivolous and in-
dolent reader. It very soon overlaid and destroyed the
learned labours of the preceding ages, and from the
time at which it began to prevail, it becomes very
questionable whether a writer, when he quotes an au-
thority of a date earlier than the Empire, ever has cast
eyes upon him, or even wishes his readers to believe
that he has done so. One of the earliest as well as
most original works of this description was the produc-
tion of a female hand. Pamphila, a lady of Egyptian
extraction in the time of Nero, had married at a very
early age a person of considerable literary tastes and
attainments, whose house was the resort of many per-
sons distinguished for the same, either for the purposes
of education or of social intercourse. During thirteen
years she states that she was never separated from her
husband's side for an hour, and that it was her habit
to take notes of any thing which she might learn
either from him or from any of his literary circle,
which appeared worth recording. Out of these mate-
rials, together with extracts made by herself from au-
thors which she had read, she composed eight books
of miscellaneous historical memoirs, (uvfLtuKTa IcrTopiKa
purposely abstaining from any thing like
LATER COMPILATIONS. 9
an arrangement according to subjects, that her readers
might enjoy the pleasure arising from the variety.
This work Photius, from whom we have taken our
notice of it, describes as being "a most useful one for
the acquirement of general information 1 ."
Phavorinus, a native of Aries, who flourished in the
reign of the Emperor Hadrian, was the compiler of
another work of the same description, but not com-
posed under such interesting circumstances. His Mis-
cellaneous Historical Questions (Trai/rocWjj vXrj to-ro-
piKtj, or TravToScLTTYi \cTTopia) were, as well as the works of
Pamphila, a mine much worked by subsequent writers.
But the degenerate taste which had caused the pro-
duction of such works as these, or at any rate as the
latter, did not stop here. Still declining, it called for
yet more meager and worthless compilations, which
were furnished by drawing from the confused and tur-
bid Miscellanies such parts as referred to any particu-
lar subject on which the writer thought proper to make
collections. To this stage belongs the work of Dioge-
nes Laertius, a part of which forms the nucleus of all
modern biographies of Aristotle, as well as of Plato
and most of the early Greek philosophers ; and to a
yet later period, after the processes which we have been
describing had been again and again repeated, the Lives
by the Pseudo-Ammonius and his anonymous Latin
translator and interpolater.
If we were to estimate the relative importance of
these later authorities by the quantity of critical dis-
cernment or sound erudition which they display, there
would be little to choose between the contemporary of
Severus, and his followers of some centuries later. But
1 Photius, Biblioth. p. 119- ed. Bekker.
10 RELATIVE VALUE OF LATER WRITERS.
Diogenes, although devoid of all historical or philosophi-
cal discrimination, although sometimes contradicting
himself within the limits of a single biography, and
confusing the tenets of Peripatetics and Epicureans
without the least consciousness of his own indistinct
views, 1 is yet distinguished hy the circumstance that in
his narrative the names of the earliest authorities still
appear, while from the rest they have in most cases
dropped out. With the use, therefore, of due caution
and diligence, we are frequently enabled to arrive at
the views entertained on a given point by individuals
of four centuries earlier date, who possessed both the
wish and the means to ascertain truth where the later
writers were deficient in both. This is particularly the
case with certain classes of facts. Anecdotes illustra-
tive of individual character or habits of life readily
spring up and have a rapid growth, if the smallest
nucleus of truth exist as a foundation for them. But
dry and uninteresting statements, such as the date of
an insulated event, will very rarely be falsified except
by accidents attending transcription, unless their de-
termination is distinctly felt to affect the decision of
some more obviously important question. When, there-
fore, such statements coupled with the name of an
early authority have been preserved, there is a fair
presumption that we have firm standing ground, and
other notices of uncertain origin will possess a greater
or less claim to our consideration, as they appear more
or less adapted to make parts of that body of which,
as it were, a few fossil bones have been preserved.
These we shall first present collectively to the view of
our readers, and then proceed step by step in the pro-
cess of redintegration.
1 See Casaubon's note on Diog. Laert. v. 29.
APOLLODORUS. 1 1
On the authority then of Apollodorus 2 we may fix
the birth of Aristotle in the first year of the ninety-
ninth Olympiad, (B. c. 384 3,) and his arrival at
Athens as a scholar of Plato when seventeen years
old. After remaining there twenty years, he visited
the court of Hermias (a prince of Asia Minor of whom
we shall say more in the sequel,) in the year after
his master's death, Theophilus being then archon, (i.e.
B. c. 348 7,) and staid there for three years. In the
archonship of Eubulus, the fourth year of the hundred
and eighth Olympiad, (B. c. 345 4,) he passed over
to Mytilene. In that of Pythodotus, the second year
of the hundred and ninth, (B. c. 343 2,) he commenced
the education of Alexander the Great at his father's
court ; and in the second year of the hundred and
eleventh, returned to Athens and taught philosophy in
the school of the Lyceum for the space of thirteen
years; at the expiration of which time he crossed over
to Chalcis in Euboea, and there died from a disease
in the archonship of Philocles, the third year of the
hundred and fourteenth Olympiad, (B. c. 322 1,) at
the age of about sixty-three, and at the same time
that Demosthenes ended his life in Calauria.
2 Ap. Diog. Laert. Fit. Arist. sec. 9. Compare Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, EpisL i. ad Ammceum, p. 727, 728, whose account
agrees with that of Diogenes, and is itself probably based on the
chronology of Apollodorus. See Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, ii. a. 320
col. 3.
CHAPTER II.
BIRTHPLACE OF ARISTOTLE.
VlTAGiRUS, (or, as it was later called, Stagira,)
the birthplace of one of the most extraordinary men,
if not the very most, that the world has ever pro-
duced, was a petty town in the north of Greece,/
situated on the western side of the Strymonic gulf,
just where the general line of coast takes a southerly
direction. It lay in the midst of a picturesque country,
both in soil and appearance resembling the southern
part of the bay of Naples. Immediately south a
promontory, like the Punta della Campanella and
nearly in the same latitude, ran out in an easterly di-
rection, effectually screening the town and its little
harbour Capros, formed by the island of the same
name, from the violence of the squalls coming up the
JEgean, a similar service to that rendered by the Ita-
lian headland to the town of Sorrento. In the ter-
raced windings, too, by which the visitor climbs through
the orange groves of the latter place, he may without
any great violence imagine the "narrow and steep
paths" by which an ancient historian and chorogra-
pher describes those who crossed the mountains out of
Macedonia as descending into the valley of Arethusa,
where was seen the tomb of Euripides, and the town
of Stagirus'.V The inhabitants possessed all the ad-
1 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvii. 4. The similarity in the name
of the island Capri, (the ancient Capreae) which lies off Sorrento,
is curious, and seems to favour the account of Frontinus, that Sur-
rentum was originally colonized by Greeks.
HIS FAMILY. 13
vantages of civilization which Grecian blood and Gre-
cian intercourse could give, the city having been
originally built by a colony of Andrians, and its popu-
ulation subsequently replenished by one from Chalcis
in Eubcea. 2 \fThe mouth of the Strymon and the im-
portant city of Amphipolis was within three hours'
sail to the north ; and every part of the Chalcidic
peninsula, a district full of Greek towns 3 , among which
were Olynthus and Potidaea, was readily accessible.
With the former of these Stagirus appears to have
been leagued as a humble ally 4 in that resistance to
the ambitious designs of Philip which terminated so
calamitously. In the year 348 B. c. it was destroyed by
him 5 , and the inhabitants sold as slaves.
Aristotle, however, did not share the misfortunes of
his native town, to which it is probable he had been
for many years a stranger. His father, Nicomachus,
one of the family or guild of the Asclepiads, in
which the practice of medicine was hereditary, had
taken up his residence at the court of Philip's father
Amyntas, to whom he was body surgeon, and whose
confidence he appears to have possessed in a high
degree. 6 He did not confine himself to the empi-
rical practice of his art, for he is related to have
written six books on medical and one on physical sub-
2 Thucyd. iv. 88. Dionys. Halic. Ep. i. ad Amm. p. 727.
3 Demosthenes (Philipp. iii. p. 11 7-) says that Philip destroyed
thirty-two there. Some of these were doubtless mere hamlets.
4 Dio Chrysost. Or. ii. p. 36.
5 ara<rTaToi/. Plutarch, Fit. Alex. sec. 7 If Aristotle's will,
however, preserved by Diogenes Laertius, be genuine, this term
must be considerably qualified ; for in it he speaks of his irctTptpa
oiKia in Stagirus. One naturally expects the description of De-
mosthenes (he. cit.) to be overcharged.
8 laTpov Ka\ </>t'Aov xpe<a, is the expression of Diogenes.
14 HIS EARLY EDUCATION.
jects 1 , which latter head would in that age include
every department of natural history and physiology, no
less than those investigations of the properties of un or-
ganic matter to which the term is appropriated in the
present day. Now this circumstance is much more im-
portant in its hearing upon the intellectual character
of Aristotle than may at first appear. In his writings
appears such a fondness for these pursuits as it seems
impossible not to believe must have been imbibed in his
very earliest years, and most probably under the imme-
diate superintendence of this parent. For although he
was an orphan at the age of seventeen, (and how much
earlier we cannot say,) yet it is well known that instruc-
tion in the " art and maistery of healing," and such
subjects as were connected therewith, was commenced
by the Asclepiads at a very early age. " I do not blame
the ancients," says Galen 2 , " for not writing books on
anatomical manipulation ; though I commend Marinus,
who did. For it was superfluous for them to compose
such records for themselves or others, while they were
from their childhood exercised by their parents in dis-
secting just as familiarly as in writing and reading ;
so that there was no more fear of their forgetting their
anatomy than of their forgetting their alphabet. But
when grown men as well as children were taught, this
thorough discipline fell off; and the art being carried
out of the family of the Asclepiads, and declining by
repeated transmission, books became necessary for the
student." And we have another, although slighter,
presumptive evidence thatfthe childhood of the great
^^r-
1 Suidas, sub v. NIKO'JUUXXOS.
2 Cited and translated by Whewell, History of the Inductive
Sciences, Vol. iii. p. 385. See also Plutarch, Fit. Alex. sec. 8.
ORPHAN WHEN YOUNG COMES TO ATHENS. 15
philosopher was spent with his father at the Macedonian
court, in the circumstance of his being selected hy Philip,
at a period long subsequent, to conduct the education of
Alexander.^ This we shall find an opportunity of re-
verting to in the sequel.
'^Whatever influence, however, was exercised by Ni-
comachus over the future fortunes of his son, he had not
the happiness of living to be a witness of its effects.
He, as well as his wife Phaestis, a descendant of one of
the Chalcidian colonists of Stagirus, died while Aristotle
was yet a minor, leaving him under the guardianship of
Proxenus, a citizen of Atarneus in Asia, who appears to
have been settled in the native town of his ward. How
long this person continued in the discharge of his trust,
we have no means of determining more than that it was
sufficiently long to imbue the object of it with a respect
and gratitude which endured through life. At the age
of seventeen, however, it terminated, and Aristotle,
master of himself and probably of a considerable for-
tune, came to Athens, the centre of the civilization of
the world, and the focus of every thing that was brilliant
in action or in thought 3 . It is not probable that any
thing but the thirst for knowledge which distinguished
his residence there, was the cause of its commencement.
Plato was at that time in the height of his reputation,
and the desire to see and enjoy the intercourse of such
a man would have been an adequate motive to minds of
much less capacity and taste for philosophy than Aris-
totle's to resort to a spot, where, besides, every enjoy-
3 Hippias in Plato's Protagoras 69, calls Athens r^ 'E\\a'Bo?
auro x TO vrpvTave'iov T/9 <ro<<as. ' Where/ asks the Sicilian
orator in Diodorus (xiii. 27) < shall foreigners go for instruction, if
Athens be destroyed?'
16 CALUMNY OF EPICURUS.
ment which even an Epicurean could desire was to be
found '.V It was reserved for the foolish ingenuity of
later times, when all real knowledge of this period
had faded away, to invent the absurd motive of " a
Delphic oracle, which commanded him to devote him-
self to philosophy 2 . For another account, scarcely less
absurd, .the excuse of ignorance cannot be so easily
made. Epicurus, in the work we have before spoken
of, related that Aristotle, after squandering his paternal
property, adopted the profession of a mercenary soldier,
and failing in this, afterwards that of a vender of
medicines ; that he then took advantage of the free
manner in which Plato's instructions were given to
pick up a knowledge of philosophy, for which he was
not without talent, and thus gradually arrived at his
views 3 . It is at once manifest that this story is in-
compatible with the account of Apollodorus, according
to which Aristotle attached himself to the study of
philosophy under Plato, before he had completed his
eighteenth year. Independently of the difficulty of
conceiving that a mere boy should have already passed
through so many vicissitudes of fortune, it is obvious
that he could not before that time have squandered
his property, except through the culpable negligence
of his guardian, Proxenus ; and any supposition of this
sort is precluded by the singular respect testified for
that individual in his ward's will, the substance of
which or rather perhaps a codicil to it has been
1 See Xenophon, Rep. Ath. cap. ii. sec. 7, 8.
2 Pseudo-Ammonius, Fit. Arist.
3 Athenaeus, viii. p. 354. Julian, Var. Hist. v. 9. That these
two accounts are derived from the same source appears no less
from their similarity of phrase than from the remark of Athe-
nseus, "that Epicurus was the only authority for this story against
Aristotle."
AFFECTION FOR HIS GUARDIAN. 17
preserved to us by Diogenes Laertius 3 . In it he di-
rects the erection of a statue of Proxenus and of his wife,
he appoints their son Nicanor (whom he had pre-
viously adopted) to he joint guardian with Antipa-
ter of his own son Nicomachus, and also bestows his
daughter upon him in marriage. It is impossible to
conceive that such feelings could have been aroused
in the ward by a negligent or indiscreetly indulgent
guardian; and we should hardly have reverted to the
story in question, except to remark how the very form
of the calumny seems to indicate that the favourite
studies of Aristotle, in the early part of his life, were
such as his father's profession would naturally have
led him to, Physiology and Natural History 4 . Indeed,
nothing is more probable than that he might have
given advice to the sick; theoretical knowledge and
practical skill being in those times so inseparably con-
nected, that the Greek language possesses no terms
3 Vit. Arist. sec. 11 16. The genuineness of this document is
confirmed by the notice which Athenaeus (xiii. p. 589) gives from
Hermippus, relative to the provision for Herpyllis, which quite
agrees with what we find in it. Compare, too, the author of the
Latin Life, (ad Jin.) from whom it appears that Ptolemy and An-
dronicus had each of them inserted a testament of Aristotle in
their works.
4 Athenaeus tells the story, after mentioning several tenets of
Aristotle on matters of Natural History, in reference to which he
calls him "the medicine- vender," (o ^a^juaKo-n-wX*/?). There is a
curious passage, too, in a work of Aristotle's, the Politics (p. 1258,
line 12. ed. Bekker), which seems to have some bearing upon
this matter. It may almost be taken as an explanation of his
conduct, if it was such as we have supposed. Timaeus of Tau-
romenium related that at a late period of his life (o'\^e T^ I/'AHCIO?)
he served an obscure physician in a menial capacity. (Aristocles,
ap. Euseb. xv. 2.) For the character of Timaeus, see Casaubon on
Diog. Laert. x. 8.
2
18 DISCREPANT ACCOUNTS.
which formally distinguish them, and from this cir-
cumstance the report may have arisen, that he at-
tempted medicine as a profession.
There are some other accounts equally discrepant
with the chronology of Apollodorus, which we have
taken as our standard. One of these is, that Aristotle
did not attach himself to Plato until he was thirty
years of age: another, that on his first arrival at
Athens he was for three years the pupil of Socrates 1 .
The first of these, which rests on the sole authority
of one Eumelus 2 , a writer of whom nothing more
whatever is known, may perhaps be a feature of the
story of Epicurus which we have just discussed : it
has been conjectured, however, with great appearance
of probability, that its sole foundation is the well-known
maxim of Plato, that the study of the higher philoso-
phy should not be commenced before the thirtieth year.
The second, as it stands, is absolutely unintelligible,
Socrates having been put to death in the archonship
of Laches, (B. c. 400 399,) that is, fifteen years be-
fore the birth of Aristotle. But it has been ingeni-
ously remarked 3 , that at the time when Aristotle first
came to Athens, Plato was absent in Sicily, from whence
he did not return till Olymp. ciii. 4, the third year
afterwards 4 ; so that if Aristotle was then introduced
1 Pseudo- Ammonias. Vita Latina.
2 Ap. Diog. Laert. Vit. Arist. sec. 6. All other accounts are
unanimous in representing him as becoming Plato's disciple while
very young.
3 Stahr. Aristotelia, i. p. 43.
4 Corsini (De die n. Platonis) cited by Aste. Platons Leben und
Schriften, p. SO. Heraclides of Pontus presided in the school of
Plato during his absence. But Xenocrates, who is known to have
been an intimate associate of Aristotle in after life, may possibly
HIS FIRST STAY IN ATHENS. 19
to the philosophy of the Academy, it must have been
under the auspices of some other of the Socratic school,
whom the foolish compilers of later times mistook for
its founder. Under this natural explanation, the ab-
surd story becomes a confirmation of the account of
Apollodorus, which we have followed a coincidence
the more satisfactory as it is quite undesigned,
V We shall now proceed, as well as the scanty infor-
mation which has come down to us will allow, to
sketch the course of Aristotle's life during the ensuing
period of nearly twenty years which he spent at Athens,
It appears to have been mainly, although not entirely,
occupied in the acquisition of his almost encyclopaedic
knowledge, in collecting, criticising, and digesting. fOf
his extraordinary diligence in mastering the doctrines
of the earlier schools of philosophy we may form some
estimate from the notices of them which are preserved
in his works, which indeed constitute the principal
source of our whole knowledge upon this subject. That
this information should have been acquired by him
during this part of his life is rendered likely both by
the nature of the case and by the scattered anecdotes
which relate that his industry no less than his intel-
ligence elicited the strongest expressions of admiration
from Plato, who is said by Pseudo-Ammonius to have
called Aristotle's house "the house of the reader''
The Latin translator adds, that in his absence his
master would exclaim, "that the intelligence of the
have been the means of drawing his attention to intellectual phi-
losophy ; the social intercourse in which this might be effected
would to later ages appear in the light of formal instruction ; and
when this was the case, the name Xenocrates would readily by
the carelessness ' or meddling criticism of a transcriber be altered
into that of Socrates.
22
20 HIS INDUSTRY WORKS OF THIS TIME.
school was away, and his audience but a deaf one 1 !"
A treatise on Rhetoric, not that which has come down
to us, but one which, as we shall have occasion to
show in the sequel, was probably written during this
period of his life, is described by Cicero 2 as contain-
ing an account of the theories of all his predecessors
upon this subject, from the time of Tisias, the first who
wrote upon it, so admirably and perspicuously set
forth, that all persons in his time who wished to gain
a knowledge of them, preferred Aristotle's description
to their own. We may take occasion to remark by
the way that this taste for reading could not have been
gratified without very ample means. A collection of
books was a luxury which lay within the reach of as
small a portion of the readers of that day, as a gal-
lery of pictures would of the amateurs of this 3 . This
1 Intellectus abest ; surdum est auditorium. This story is pro-
bably only an expansion of a saying of Plato's, recorded by Philopo-
nus, (De JEternitate Mundi, vi. 27.) that Aristotle was " the soul
of his school," (o i/o us T;<? BtaT|0</37?.)
2 De Oratore, ii. 38. compared with De Inventione, ii. 2.
3 The facilities for obtaining the copy of a book were very
much increased after the extensive manufacture of papyrus at
Alexandria under the Ptolemies, and when transcription had be-
come a profitable and widely practised profession. Yet we find
Polybius (iii. 32.) at some pains to take off the objection to his
work arising from its costliness. But in the time of Aristotle's
youth, the expense must have been far greater. He, probably in
the latter part of his life, possessed a very large library, (Athe-
ncei Epitom. p. 3.) which he left to his successor, Theophrastus.
(Strabo, xiii. p. 608.) The philosophers after him appear likewise
to have made collections. We know this for certain of Theo-
phrastus, Strato, and Lycon ; (Diog. Laert. v. 52, 62, 73.) and such
were probably used under greater or less restrictions by their re-
spective scholars. But nothing of this sort is related of the
earlier philosophers, whose systems indeed did not require (at least
to any thing like the extent of Aristotle's) any previous histori-
RHETORIC PROVERBS CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. 21
circumstance, then, is calculated to throw additional
discredit on the story told by Epicurus of Aristotle's
youth. A bankrupt apothecary could never have been
a book collector. Another work of Aristotle's, which
is unfortunately lost, was compiled during this same
time. It was a collection of Proverbs (Trapo'i/miai,) a
species of literature to which he, like most other men
of reflection, attached great value. Two other most
important works, both of which are likewise lost, we
may, from what we know of their nature, probably re-
fer to the same period, at least as far as their plan
and commencement are concerned. The first of these
was a work on the fundamental principles on which
the codes of law in the States of his time were seve-
rally based 4 . The second was an account of no less
cal investigation. And Plato, if he really did purchase the work
of Philolaus, as he was said by Satyrus and Timon the Sillo-
grapher (Aulus Gellius, iii. 17- Diogenes Laert. iii. Q, viii. 15. 85.)
to have done, and reproduced the philosophy of it in his Timceus,
certainly had no intention of communicating it to his scholars.
Hence it appears unlikely that Aristotle could have obtained the
use of the greater part of the works which the plan of his
studies required by other means than purchase.
4 The title of the treatise was AtKajco/xara TroXewi/. (See Casau-
bon and Menage on Diog. Laert. v. 26.) Grotius, deceived by the
corrupt reading, TroXeynav for TroAewi/, in Ammonius (sub v. vrjes.)
and Sir James Macintosh (Discourse on the Law of Nature and
Nations, p. 16.) implicitly following him, conceived that the work
was " a treatise on the laws of war." But any one who will peruse
attentively the third book of the Politics will see that it would
be much more accurately described by calling it "a treatise on
the spirit of laws." In the small states of Greece it was not
difficult to reduce all the existing laws, or at any rate those which
related to the political constitution, to some one axiom, which
was regarded as the generative principle, the idee-mere of the
whole code. For this axiom, whether explicitly stated, or only
to be gathered from the common and statute law, the technical
22 HISTORY OF SEVERAL STATES.
than one hundred and fifty -eight (according to others
one hundred and seventy-one or two hundred and fifty-
five) States, which, judging from some fragments which
have heen preserved, involved their history from the
earliest known times to his own. 1 Of this invaluable
collection a great many scraps remain. Those which re-
late to Athens, Sigonius is said to have made the basis
of his account of that commonwealth. 2 And another
work for which these apparently formed the foundation,
the Politics, has come down to us in all probability
in the unfinished draught in which it was left at
the moment of the author's death. We may con-
clude the evidence which these productions afford of
their writer's activity and industry with an anecdote
preserved by Diogenes (Tit. Arist. sec. 16). Appa-
rently to prevent the remission of attention which re-
sults from nature insensibly giving way under the
term in Aristotle's time was TO Skatoi/, "the rule of right." This
was different in different States: he speaks of TO Sinaiov d\i-
jap^iKOv, TO SLKCIIOV apiffTOKpariKov, and TO Stfcatoi/ ^^OKpaTiKOv, " the
oligarchal, aristocratic, and democratic rules of right." Such as-
sertions of political claims as might be considered obvious appli-
cations of these fundamental axioms were called by the name
SiKaioa/jLctTa, "prerogatives," or "pleas of right." Thus in our
own country, the right of the Crown to dissolve parliament, that
of the subject to be tried by jury and to be held innocent of
any charge till found guilty, that of the peers to demand an au-
dience of the sovereign, and to be the ultimate court of appeal
in civil cases, are so many ^iKai^/jLara. They are not referible to
one standard of political justice, because our constitution contains
monarchical, aristocratic, oligarchal, and democratic elements.
But the Greek states were almost always pure oligarchies or pure
democracies.
1 Diog. Laert. Fit. Pseudo-Ammon. and Fit. Lat. Compare
Cicero, De Fin. v. 4. 10. Varro, De L. L. vii, 3.
2 Nunnez, ad Fit. Pseudo-Ammon. p. 59.
HIS GENIALITY.
pressure of extremely laborious study, he was acci
tomed to read holding a ball in one hand, under which
was placed a brazen basin. On the slightest involun-
tary relaxation of the muscles, the ball would fall, and
by the sudden noise which it made, at once dissipate
the incipient drowsiness of the student.
But this intense love of knowledge had not the
common effect of converting him into a mere bookworm.
In his works we see nothing like an undue depreciation
of the active forms of life, or even of its pleasures. And
this is the more remarkable, as we know that his frame
was delicate, and his constitution weakly, and that in
the latter part of his life he suffered much from bad
health 3 , circumstances which in general lead to an
under estimate of those pursuits for which a certain
robustness of body is a necessary condition. His at-
tention to neatness of person and dress was remark-
able; indeed it is said that he carried it to an extent
which Plato considered unworthy of a philosopher 4 .
Whether this account be true or not, it is certain
that his habits and principles were the reverse of cy-
nical, that he enjoyed life, and was above any un-
necessary affectation of severity. "Not apathy, but
moderation," is a maxim ascribed to him by Dio-
genes 5 .
We have seen that Plato felt and testified the
highest admiration for the talents of his pupil. But
3 Censorinus, De die natali, cap. xiv. Aristotelem ferunt natu-
ralem stomachi injirmitatem crebrasque morbidi corporis offensiones,
adeo virtute animi diu sustentasse, ut magis mirum sit ad annos
Ixiii. eum vitam protulisse, quam ultro non pertulisse. Compare
Gellius, xiii. 5.
4 jElian, Varia Hixtoria, iii. 19. Diog. Laert. Vit. Arist, mil.
:> Vit. sec. 31.
24 IS SAID TO HAVE DISPLEASED PLATO.
it appears that in spite of this there was by no means
a perfect congeniality in their feelings. Aristotle is
said to have offended his master not only by the
carefulness respecting his personal appearance which
we have just spoken of, but by a certain sarcastic
habit (juto/act) 1 , which showed itself in the expression
of his countenance. It is difficult to imagine that he
should have indulged this humour in a greater degree
than Socrates is represented to have done by Plato
himself. However, a vein of irony which would ap-
pear very graceful in the master whom he reverenced,
and whose views he enthusiastically embraced, might
seem quite the reverse in a youthful pupil who pro-
mised speedily to become a rival. An anecdote is
related by Julian 2 , from which we should infer that
overt hostility broke out between them. Aristotle, it
is said, taking advantage of the absence of Xenocrates
from Athens, and of the temporary confinement of
Speusippus by illness, attacked Plato in the presence
of his disciples with a series of subtle sophisms, which,
his powers being impaired by extreme old age, had
the effect of perplexing him and obliging him to retire in
confusion and shame from the walks of the Academy. Xe-
nocrates, however, returning three months after, drove
Aristotle away, and restored his master to his old
haunts. On this or some other occasion it is said that
Plato compared his pupil's conduct to that of the young
foals who kick at their dam as soon as dropped 3 . And
the opinion that Aristotle had in some way or other
behaved with ingratitude to his master, certainly had
obtained considerable currency in antiquity; but it is
1 JElisan, he. cit.
2 Ibid.
* Mian, Var. Hist. iv. 9.
PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE STORY. 25
probable that this in a great measure arose from the
false interpretation of a passage in the biography of
Plato by Aristoxenus the musician, whom we have
noticed in the last chapter. This writer had related
that "while Plato was absent from Athens on his tra-
vels, certain individuals, who were foreigners, established
a school in opposition to him." "Some," adds Aristo-
cles, the Peripatetic philosopher 4 , after quoting this
passage, " have imagined that Aristotle was the per-
son here alluded to, but they forget that Aristoxenus,
throughout the whole of his work, speaks of Aristotle
in terms of praise." Every one who is conversant
with the productive power of Greek imagination, and
the rapidity with which in that fertile soil anecdotes
sprang up and assumed a more and more circumstan-
tial character on repetition, will not wonder that in
the course of five centuries which intervened between
Aristoxenus and ^Elian, the vague statement of the
first should have bourgeoned into the circumstantial
narrative of the second 5 .
* Ap. Eusebium, Prceparatio Evangelica, xv. 2. Aristocles, a
native of Messina, was the preceptor of the virtuous Emperor Alex-
ander Severus, not of Alexander Aphrodisiensis, and consequently
lived in the first half of the third century of the Christian era.
The work from which Eusebius extracts a passage of some length
relating to Aristotle, was a kind of History of Philosophy, in ten
books. Eusebius's extract is a part of the seventh. The learning
and discrimination of the writer is very great. He traces the
stories which he has occasion to mention up to their earliest ori-
gin, and refutes them in a masterly manner. There is a literary
notice of him in Fabricius's Bibliotkeca Grceca, iii. c. viii. where
see Heumann's note. It is curious that in the Latin Life Aristocles
is cited together with Aristoxenus as an authority for the very story
which he is concerned to refute.
The literary men of the declining period considered it a part
of their duty to supply all the details which their readers might
26 DISCREPANT ACCOUNTS.
Independently of the vulgar insolence with which
this story invests the character of Aristotle, a quality
of which there is not a trace in his writings, there
is much which may render us extremely suspicious of
receiving it. In the first place, other stories of equal
authority represent his feelings towards his master as
those of ardent admiration and deep respect. His bio-
grapher informs us that he dedicated an altar (by
which he probably means a cenotaph) to Plato, and
put an inscription on it to the purport that Plato " was
a man whom it was sacrilege for the bad even to
praise." There is certainly not much credit to be at-
tached to the literal truth of this story 1 ; but its cha-
desiderate in the more general notices of the classical writers. An
amusing instance of this kind of writer is Ptolemy, the son of He-
phaestion, whose book is described by Photius (Biblioth. p. 146 153,
Bekker), and strongly praised by him for its utility to those who
were desirous of -rroXv^adia foroputij. Not to mention the secret
history of the death of Hercules, Achilles, and various other cele-
brated characters, we are informed of the name of the Delphian, whom
Herodotus abstains from mentioning (i. 51), and of that of the
Queen of Candaules, which latter it seems was Nysia. The reason
of Herodotus abstaining from giving it was, that a youth named
Plesirrhoiis, to whom he was much attached, had fallen in love
with a lady of that appellation, and, not succeeding in his suit, had
hanged himself. This Ptolemy related in his fifth book. In the
third he had informed his readers that this very Plesirrhoiis inhe-
rited Herodotus s property, and wrote the preface to his History, the
commencement of it as left by the author having been with the
words Ilepo-ewi/ ol \6jioi. He probably knew that the readers for
whom he wrote, even if they read both anecdotes, would have
forgotten the first by the time they reached the second. Yet the
age, whose taste could render books of this description popular,
was no more recent than that of Hadrian, at whose court JElian and
Phavorinus lived and wrote.
1 The phrase in question is found in an elegy to Eudemus, cited
by Olympiodorus, Comment, ad Plalon. Gorgiam. (Bekk. p. 53.}
HIS OWN EXPRESSIONS XENOCRATES. 27
racter may be considered to indicate the view which the
authority followed hy the biographer took of Aristotle's
sentiments towards his master. Still better evidence
exists in the way in which Plato is spoken of in the
works of his pupil that have come down to us. His
opinions are often controverted, but always with fair-
ness, and never with discourtesy. If he is sometimes
misapprehended, the misapprehension never appears to
be wilful. In one rather remarkable instance there is
exhibited a singular tenderness and delicacy towards
him. The passage in question is near the commence-
ment of the Nicomachean Ethics 2 . To the doctrine of
Ideas or Archetypal Forms, as maintained by Plato,
Aristotle was opposed. It became necessary for him,
in the treatment of his subject, to discuss the bearing
of this doctrine upon it, and he complains that his task
is an unwelcome one, from the circumstance of persons
to whom he is attached (<j)i\ovs av^pas) having originated
the theory. " Still," he adds, " it seems our duty even
to slay our own flesh and blood" an allusion to such
cases as those of Iphigenia, Polyxena, and Macaria,
"where the cause of truth is at stake, especially as we
are philosophers: loving both parties, it is a sacred
duty to prefer the truth." The delicacy which prompted
such a preface as this would surely have restrained its
author from such coarseness as is attributed to him in
Elian's story.
The way in which Xenocrates is mixed up with
this affair is not to be overlooked. He is represented
as the vindicator of his master's honour, and the
punisher of the insolence and vanity of his rival. But
we shall see presently this same Xenocrates in the
character of Aristotle's travelling companion during the
2 P. 1096. col. i. c. 11. ed. Bekker.
28 REASONS AGAINST THE STORY.
three eventful years of his life which immediately fol-
lowed the death of Plato, consequently at no long
period after the alleged insult took place and was re-
venged; a circumstance which certainly is very far
from harmonizing with that conduct of the two philo-
sophers towards each other which Elian's narrative
describes.
We must not forget either that Aristotle, although
probably possessed of considerable wealth, and perhaps
also of some influence from his Macedonian connections,
was still only a METIC, or resident alien. How sensi-
tive the pride of the Athenian citizen was to any ap-
pearance of pretension on the part of these, is notorious 1 .
In certain public festivals duties of an inferior, not
to say menial, character were assigned to them 2 . They
could hold no land; they could not intermarry with
citizens, nor even maintain a civil action in their own
persons, but were obliged for this purpose to employ a
citizen as their patron or sponsor, (Tr^oo-Tar^ 3 .) Plato,
on the contrary, was of one of the most illustrious fa-
milies in Athens, and, if we may judge by the anecdotes
of his connection with Chabrias and Timotheus, pos-
sessed friends among the most influential public cha-
racters of the day 4 . It is scarcely credible therefore,
1 Eurip. SuppL 892.
Ai/7r;po<? OVK tjv, oJB' 7ri(f)dovo<;
ouB' ^epi(TTtj<; TWV \oytov, oQev fiapvs
ULO.XKTT av eir] Bf/uoT/s T KOI e'i/<K.
Aristoph. Acharn. 58. TOUS yap /JLCTOIKOVS a-^ypa T<av dcrTtav Ae'ytu,
which after all, was doubtless meant and taken as a compliment.
2 They were the o-KCKpytyopoi, a-Kia^tityopoi, and v$pia(popoi.
3 See the authorities collected by Schoemann. Jus publicum
Grcccum, p. 190.
4 Diog. Laert. Vii. Plat. sec. 1, 23. ^lian, Var. Hist. ii. 18.
PARALLEL BETWEEN HIM AND PLATO. 29
even had all better motives been wanting, that fear of
making a powerful enemy should not have restrained
Aristotle from behaving to his master in the way which
has been described.
It is not difficult to imagine how such stories grew
up. There is a most marked contrast observable in the
modes of thought of the two philosophers, such a dif-
ference indeed as seems incompatible with congeniality,
although quite consistent with the highest mutual ad-
miration and respect. It manifests itself in their very
style; Aristotle's being the dryest and most jejune
prose, while that of Plato teems with the imagery of
poetry. The one delights to dress his thoughts in all
the pomp of as high a degree of fancy as one can con-
ceive united to a sound judgment ; the other seems to
consider that the slightest garment would cramp their
vigour and hide their symmetry. In Aristotle we find
a searching and comprehensive view of things as they
present themselves to the understanding, but no attempt
to pass the limits of that faculty, no suspicion indeed
that such exist. Plato, on the contrary, never omits an
opportunity of passing from the finite to the infinite,
from the sensuous to the spiritual, from the domain of
the intellect to that of the feelings : he is ever striving
to body forth an ideal, and he only regards the actual
as it furnishes materials for it. Hence he frequently
forgets that he violates the conditions to which the
actual world is subjected ; or, perhaps we should rather
say, he disregards the importance of this. A striking
exemplification of the essential difference between the
two great philosophers is afforded by the Republic of
Plato compared with the criticism of it by Aristotle.
(Pol. ii.) The former seems to have grown up out of a
wish to embody an ideal of justice, and is the genuine
30 THEIR DIFFERENCES GREAT.
offspring of a vigorous and luxuriant imagination review-
ing the forms of social life and seeing in all analogies to
the original conception which it was the aim of the artist
to set forth. But from this point of view it is never once
contemplated by its critic. Essentially a picture, it is
discussed by him as if it were a map 1 . The natural
consequence of these different bents is that Aristotle's
views always form parts of a system intellectually com-
plete, while Plato's harmonize with each other morally;
we rise from the study of the latter with our feelings
purified, from that of the former with our perceptions
cleared ; the one strengthens the intellect, the other ele-
vates the spirit. Consistently with this opposition it
happened that in the earlier centuries Christianity was
often grafted on Platonism, and even where this was not
the case, many persons were prepared for its reception
by the study of Plato ; while in the age of the School-
men an age when religion had become theology
Aristotle's works were the only food which the philoso-
phy of the time could assimilate.
The difference which is so strikingly marked between
the matured philosophical characters of these two giant
1 The sacred subjects, as they were treated by the early Italian
painters, indeed down to the time of Raffaelle and Correggio,
present an analogy to this work. There is in them a certain do-
minant thought, which it is the artist's problem to embody, and
which all the details, however incongruous they may be in all
other respects, assist in bringing out more fully and clearly. Thus
in the celebrated Vierge au Poisson there is a real unity of feeling
to which each of the particulars contributes its share. But a
spectator who misses this will at once remark on the glaring ab-
surdity of the evangelist, an old man, reading his gospel to the
subject of it, an infant in arms; and of Tobias presenting a fish
of the size of a mackerel, as that one which "leaped out of the
river and would have devoured him." Exactly on such principles
does Aristotle's critique on the Republic proceed.
LIKELY TO BE MISINTERPRETED. 31
intellects is of a kind which must have shown itself
early. Neither could have entirely sympathized with
the other, however much he might admire his genius;
and this circumstance may very well have produced a
certain estrangement, which hy such of their followers
as were of too vulgar minds to understand the respect
which all really great men must entertain for each
other, would readily he misinterpreted. Difference of
opinion would, if proceeding from an equal, be repre-
sented in the light of hostility, if from a former
pupil, in that of ingratitude. The miserable spirit of
par tizan ship prevailing among the Greeks, which is so
strongly reprobated by Cicero 2 , rapidly gave birth to
tales which at first probably were meant only to illus-
trate the preconceived notions which they were in course
of time employed to confirm. And so, if Plato had
ever made a remark in the same sense and spirit as
Waller's Epigram to a lady singing one of his own
songs 3 , this might very easily in its passage through
inferior and ungenial minds have been distorted into
the bitter reflection we have noticed above.
Respecting the relation between Aristotle and an-
other celebrated contemporary of his, there can be no
manner of doubt. All accounts agree with the infer-
ence we should draw from what we find on the subject
in his works, that between him and Isocrates the
rhetorician there subsisted a most cordial dislike, ac-
2 Sit ista in Graecorum levitate perversitas, qui maledictis msec-
tantur eos, a quibus de veritate dissentiunt.
De Finibtts, ii. 25.
The eagle's fate and mine are one,
Who on the shaft that made him die
Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.
32 HIS DISLIKE OF ISOCRATES.
companied, on the part of the former at least, with as
cordial a contempt. Isocrates was in fact a sophist
of hy no means a high order. He did not possess the
cleverness which enabled many of that class to put
forth a claim to universal knowledge, and under many
circumstances to maintain it successfully. He professed
to teach nothing but the art of oratory, and the subject-
matter of this he derived exclusively from the field of
politics. But his want of comprehensiveness was not com-
pensated by any superior degree of accuracy or depth, and
Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1 is right in considering this
limitation as the characteristic which distinguishes him
from the more ambitious pretenders Gorgias and Protago-
ras. Oratory, according to his view, was the art of making
what was important appear trivial, and what was trivial
appear important, in other words, of proving black white
and white black 2 . He taught this accomplishment not
on any principles even pretending to be scientific, but
by mere practice in the school 3 like fencing or boxing.
Indignation at this miserable substitute for philosophical
institution, and at the undeserved reputation which its
author had acquired, found vent with Aristotle in the
application of a sentiment 4 which Euripides in his Phi-
loctetes, a play now lost, put into the mouth of Ulysses.
He resolved himself to take up the subject, and his
success was so great that Cicero appears to regard the
reputation arising from it as one of the principal motives
which induced Philip to intrust him with the education
1 De Isocr. jud. p. 536.
2 Isocrat. Panegyr. 8.
3 ov jueflo'Sw a'xx' d<rKij<rei. Pseudo- Plutarch, Fit. Isocr. Compare
Cicero, De Invent, ii. 2. Brut. 12.
4 alo-ypov (Tito-Trm/, (3ap/3dpovs ' eav Xeyetv. Aristotle substituted
the word 'lo-oK^aVt; for /3ap(3apov<;.
HIMSELF TEACHES RHETORIC. 33
of Alexander 5 . The expressions too, which he uses in
describing Aristotle's treatment of his subject apply
rather to lectures combined with rhetorical practice and
historical illustration than a formal treatise 6 . And this
is an important point, inasmuch as it proves that he
assumed the functions of an instructor during this his
first residence at Athens. However, such part of his
subject as embraced the early history of the art, and
might be regarded in the light of an introduction to
the rest, would very likely appear by itself; and this is
exactly the character of the work so highly praised by
Cicero in another place, but unfortunately lost, to
which we have before alluded (p. 20). It was purely
historical and critical, and contained none of his own
views. These were systematically developed in another
work 7 , perhaps the one which we possess, which was
certainly not written at this early period. Apparently,
in the lost work the system of Isocrates was attacked
and severely handled. The assailed party does not
seem to have come forward to defend himself; but a
scholar of his, Cephisodorus, in a polemical treatise of
considerable length, did not confine himself to the de-
fence of his master's doctrines, but indulged in the
most virulent attacks upon the moral as well as intel-
lectual character of his rival 8 . Upon this work Dio-
6 De Orat. iii. 35.
6 Itaque ornavit et illustravit doctrinam illam omnem, rerumque
cognitionem cum orationis exercitatione conjunxit Hunc Alex-
androjilio doctorem accivit, a quo eodem ille et agendi acciperet pras-
cepta et eloquendi. Cicero, loc. cit.
7 Cujus \_Aristotelis~\ et ilium legi librum, in quo exposuit dicendi
artes omnium superiorum, et illos, in quibus ipxe sua qucedam de eddem
arte dixit. De Orator, ii. 38.
8 Aristodes ap. Euseb. loc. cit. Athenaeus, p. 60.
3
34 HIS POLEMICS WITH CEPHISODORUS.
nysius of Halicarnassus, perhaps sympathizing with a
brother rhetorician, passes a high encomium 1 . But from
the little which we know of it, there is but scanty room
for believing that its author carried conviction to the
minds of many readers not predisposed to agree with
him. One of the grounds on which he holds his adver-
sary up to contempt is the having made a Collection
of Proverbs, an employment, in the opinion of Cephi-
sodorus, utterly unworthy of one professing to be a
philosopher. Such as have not, like Cephisodorus, an
enemy to overthrow by fair means or foul, will be
inclined to smile at such a charge, even if indeed they
do not view it in something like the contrary light.
" Apophthegms," says Bacon, " are not only for delight
and ornament, but for real businesses and civil usages ;
for they are, as he said, secures aut mucrones verborum,
which by their sharp edge cut and penetrate the knots
of Matters and Business; and occasions run round in
a ring, and what was once profitable may again be
practised, and again be effectual, whether a man speak
them as ancient or make them his own." Proverbs are
the apophthegms of a people, and from this point of
view Aristotle appears to have formed his estimate of
their importance. He is said to have regarded them
as exhibiting in a compressed form the wisdom of the
ages in which they severally sprang up ; and in many
instances to have been preserved by their compactness
and pregnancy through vicissitudes that had swept
away all other traces of the people which originated
them 2 .
1 De Isocratejudicium, sec. 18. He calls it TTO.VV dav/jiaa-T^v. But
Dionysius utterly fails where he attempts literary criticism. Witness
the absurd principles on which he proceeds in his comparison of
Herodotus and Thucydides.
a Synesius, Encom. Calvitii, p. 59, ed. Turneb.
CHAPTER III.
ARISTOTLE IN ASIA,
WE now pass to another stage in the life of
Aristotle. After a twenty years' stay at Athens, he,
accompanied hy the Platonic philosopher Xenocrates,
passed over into Asia Minor, and took up his residence
at Atarneus or Assos (for the accounts vary), in Mysia,
at the court of Hermias 3 . Of the motives which im-
pelled him to this step we have, as is natural, very
conflicting accounts. His enemies imputed it to a
feeling of jealousy, arising from Speusippus having
been appointed by Plato, who had died just before, as
his successor in the school of the Academy 4 . Others
attributed it to a yet more vulgar motive, a taste
for the coarse sensualities and ostentatious luxury of
an oriental court 5 . But the first of these reasons will
3 Strabo, xiii. p. 126, ed. Tauchnitz. Diodorus Siculus, xvi.
53.
4 jElian, Var. Hist. iii. 19. Eubulides (ap. Aristocl. Euseb.
Prcep. Ev. xv. <2.) alleged that Aristotle refused to be present at
Plato's death-bed.
5 To this the Epigram of Theocritus of Chios (ap. Aristocl. loc.
cit.) perhaps alludes : i
Hh'i '
'HLppiov cvvov^ov -re KCU 'Eu/?ouAou To'Se SouAoi ^\*'
Mi/tj/ia Kevov Kevofyptav drjitev 'ApurTOTeXw
O? Sta Tf/i/ aKpctTtj yaa-Tpos (f>va-iv e'i\TO vaieiv
AI/T' *AKCt$7/A6ta$ fiopfiopov ei> Tr^o^oaiV.
although Plutarch applies it to his residence in Macedonia. The
cenotaph spoken of in the second line is probably the foundation for
32
36 REASONS FOR GOING THERE.
seem to deserve but little credit, when we consider
that the position which Plato had held was not recog-
nised in any public manner ; that there was neither
endowment nor dignity attached to it ; that all honour
or profit that could possibly arise from it was due solely
to the personal merits of the philosopher; that in all
probability Aristotle himself had occupied a similar
position before the death of Plato ; and, that if he felt
himself injured by the selection of Speusippus (Plato's
nephew), he had every opportunity of showing, by the
best of all tests, competition, how erroneous a judgment
had been formed of their respective merits. And with
regard to the second view, it will be sufficient to remark,
that for the twenty years preceding this epoch, as well
as afterwards, he possessed the option of living at the
court of Macedonia, where he probably had connexions,
and where there was equal scope for indulging the
tastes in question. We shall, therefore, feel no scruple
in referring this journey to other and more adequate
causes. The reader of Grecian history will not fail
to recollect that the suspicions which the Athenians
had for some time entertained of the ambitious designs
of Philip received a sudden confirmation just at this
moment by the successes of that monarch in the Chal-
cidian peninsula. The fall of Olynthus and the de-
struction of the Greek confederacy, of which that town
was at the head 1 , produced at Athens a feeling of in-
dignation mixed with fear, of which Demosthenes did
not fail to take advantage to kindle a strong hatred of
the " altar" to Plato, of which the latter writers speak. See above,
p. 7. Theocritus of Chios was a contemporary of Aristotle. The
Syracusah poet of the same name, in an Epigram ascribed to him,
protests against being identified with him.
1 Above, p. 13.
STATE OF POLITICS. 37
any thing belonging to Macedon. The modern ex-
ample of France will enable us readily to understand
how dangerous must have been the position of a
foreigner, by birth, connexions, or feelings in the
slightest degree mixed up with the unpopular party,
especially when resident in a democratic State, in
which the statute laws were every day subject to be
violated by the extemporaneous resolutions (^Yi^ia^ara)
of a popular assembly. Philip indeed was accustomed
or at any rate by his enemies believed to make use
of such aliens, as from any cause were allowed free
ingress to the States with which he was not on good
terms, as his emissaries 2 . It is scarcely possible under
these circumstances to conceive that the jealousy of
party hatred should fail to view the distinguished
philosopher, the friend of Antipater, and the son of a
Macedonian court-physician, with dislike and distrust,
especially if, as from Cicero's description appears highly
probable, political affairs entered considerably into the
course of his public instructions.
Here, then, we have a reason, quite independent of
any peculiar motive, for Aristotle's quitting Athens at
this especial time. And others, scarcely less weighty,
existed to take him to the court of Hermias. Some
little time before, the gigantic body of the Persian
empire had exhibited symptoms of breaking up. Egypt
had for a considerable period maintained itself in a
state of independence, and the success of the experi-
ment had produced the revolt of Phoenicia. The cities
of Asia Minor, whose intercourse with Greece Proper
was constant, naturally felt an even greater desire to
throw off the yoke, and about the year 349 before
The case of Anaxirious (see vEschines c. Ctes. p. 85. Demosth.
De Cor. p. 272.) may serve as one instance among many.
38 REVOLT OF PERSIAN DEPENDANCIES.
the Christian era, most of them were in a state of
open rebellion. Confederacies of greater or less extent
were formed among them for the purpose of maintaining
the common independence ; and over one of these, which
included Atarneus and Assos, one Eubulus, a native of
Bithynia, exercised a sway which Suidas represents as
that of an absolute prince 1 . This remarkable man, of
whom it is much to be regretted that we know so little,
is described as having carried on the trade of a banker 2
in one of these towns. If this be true, the train of
circumstances which led him to the pitch of power
which he seems to have reached was probably such a
one as, in more modern times made the son of a
brewer of Ghent Regent of Flanders, or the Medici
Dukes of Tuscany. A struggle for national existence
calls forth the confidence of the governed in those who
possess the genius which alone can preserve them, as
unboundedly as it stimulates that genius itself; and
there appears no reason why the name of tyrant or
dynast should have been bestowed upon Eubulus more
than upon Philip van Artevelde or William of Orange.
He was assisted in the duties of his government, and
afterwards succeeded by Hermias, who is termed by
Strabo his slave, an expression which a Greek would
apply no less to the Vizier than to the lowest menial
servant of an Asiatic potentate. He is also described
as an eunuch, but, whether this was the case or not,
he was a man of education and philosophy, and had
during a residence at Athens attended the instructions
of both Plato and Aristotle 3 . By the invitation of this
'ITOV. Strabo, xiii. vol. iii. p. 126.
3 Strabo, loc. cit.
SUPPRESSION OF THE REVOLT. 39
individual, the latter, accompanied by Xenocrates, passed
over at this particular juncture into Mysia ; and it will
surely not seem an improbable conjecture that the
especial object for which their presence was desired was
to frame a political constitution, in order that the little
confederacy, of which Hermias may perhaps be regarded
as the general and stadtholder, might be kept together
and enabled to maintain its independence in spite of
the formidable power of the Persian empire. Ably as
such a task would doubtless have been executed by so
wise a statesman, as even the fragmentary political
work that has come down to us proves Aristotle to have
been, it was not blessed with success. Fortune for a
time favoured the cause of freedom, but the barbarian's
hour was not yet come. The treachery of a Rhodian
leader of condottieri in the service of the revolted
Egyptians enabled the Persian king, Artaxerxes Ochus,
rapidly to overrun Phoenicia and Egypt, and to devote
the whole force of his empire to the reduction of Asia
Minor. Yet Hermias made his ground good, until
at last he suffered himself to be entrapped into a per-
sonal conference with the Greek general Mentor, the
traitor whose perfidy had ruined the Egyptian cause,
and who now commanded the Persian army that was
sent against Atarneus. In spite of the assurance of a
solemn oath, his person was seized and sent to the
court of the Persian king, who ordered him to be
strangled ; the fortresses which commanded the coun-
try surrendered at the sight of his signet ; and Atar-
neus and Assos were occupied by Persian troops'.
The two philosophers, surprised by these sudden
misfortunes, were however fortunate enough to succeed
4 Strabo. loc. cit. Diodorus, xvi. sec. 52, 53, 54.
40 MARRIAGE OF ARISTOTLE.
in escaping to Mytilene, whither they carried with them
a female named Pythias, who according to the most
probable accounts was the sister and adopted daughter
of Hermias l . It is singular that Aristotle's intercourse
with the Prince of Atarneus, and more especially that
part which related to his connection with this woman,
whom he married, should have brought more calumny
^non him than any other event of his life ; and the
angest thing of all, according to our modern habits
ol thinking, is that he himself should have thought
it necessary, for the satisfaction of his own friends, to
give a particular explanation of his motives to the mar-
riage. In a letter to Antipater, which is cited by Aris-
tocles 2 , he relates the circumstances which induced him
to take this step; and they are calculated to give us
as high an opinion of the goodness of his heart as his
works do of the power of his intellect. The calamity
which had befallen Hermias would necessarily have
entailed utter misery, and in all probability death, upon
his adopted daughter, had she been left behind. In
this conjuncture, respect for the memory of his murdered
friend, and compassion for the defenceless situation of
the girl, induced him, knowing her besides, as he says,
to be modest and amiable 3 , to take her as his wife. It
is a striking proof of the utter want of sentiment in the
intercourse between the sexes in Greece, that this noble
and generous conduct, as every European will at once
confess it to have been, should have drawn down ob-
loquy upon the head of its actor ; while, if he had left
the helpless creature to be carried off to a Persian ha-
rem, or sacrificed to the lust of a brutal soldiery, not
1 Aristocles, #p. Euseb. /be. cit.
- Ap. Euseb. loc. cit.
CALUMNIES AGAINST HIM. 41
a human being would have breathed the slightest word
of censure upon the atrocity. Even his apologists ap-
pear to have considered this as one of the most vul-
nerable points of his character. When Aristocles 4 dis-
cusses the charges which had been made against him,
he dismisses most of them with contempt as carrying
the marks of falsehood in their very front. " Two, how-
ever," he adds, "do appear to have obtained credit,
the one that he treated Plato with ingratitude, the
other that he married the daughter of Hermias." And
indeed the relation of Aristotle to the father furnished
a subject for many publications 5 in the second and third
centuries before Christ, and appears to have excited as
much interest among literary antiquarians of that day,
as the question of the Iron Mask or of who wrote the
Letters of Junius, might do in modern times. The
treatise of Apellicon of Teos, a wealthy antiquary and
bibliomaniac contemporary with Sylla, was regarded as
the classical work among them. We shall have occasion,
in the sequel, to say something more about this per-
sonage. Aristocles 6 speaks of his book as sufficient
to set the whole question at rest, and silence all the
calumniators of the philosopher for ever. Indeed, if
we may judge of the whole of their charges from the
few specimens that have come down to us, a further
refutation than their own extravagance was hardly
needful. The hand of Pythias is there represented
as purchased by a fulsome adulation of her adopted
father 7 , and a subserviency to the most loathsome
4 Ap. Euseb. loc. cit.
5 Aristocles, loc. cit.
6 Ap. Euseb. loc. cit.
7 She is in some accounts represented, not as his sister, but his
concubine. Others, not considering him an eunuch, call her his
42 SCOLIUM TO HERMIAS.
vices which human nature in its lowest state of de-
pravity can engender; and the husband is said, in
exultation at his good fortune, to have paid to his
father-in-law a service appropriated to the gods alone,
singing his praises, like those of Apollo, in a sacred
paean. Fortunately this composition has come down
to us, and turns out to be a common scolium, or drink-
ing song, similar in its nature to the celebrated one,
so popular at Athenian banquets, which records the
achievement of Harmodius and Aristogiton. It pos-
sesses no very high degree of poetical merit, but as an
expression of good feeling, and as a literary curiosity,
being the only remaining specimen of its author's powers
in this branch, it perhaps deserves a place in the note *.
daughter. One, probably to reconcile all accounts, calls her his
daughter, j?i/ KO.\ 0Aa3<cc<? aY ea-ireipev. (Pseudo-Ammon).
* 'ApcTa TroAujiAoyfle jevei j3poTei(o
Bijpa/jia KCtAAt<rTOi/ (3iia !
o-as Trept, 7rap0ei/, /JLoptyds
KCU Qaveiv ^Awros ev EAXaot TTOT/JIO?,
KCU TTOI/OVS T\rjvai /uaAepoJ? ctKa/jaTOi/9.
Toiov eir\ <f)pev epwra /2aAAet?
napirov (frepeis T' ddavaTov
TC Kpeffcru) Kai yovetav
To 6 UTTI/OU.
<rev B' ei/e' OVK Ato?
Kovpo
epyots <rdv dypevovres
<ro?? re Trodois '
"Ata? T' cu'Bao BOJUO
crcz? T evenev (f>i\iov
KO\ 'Arapi/e
aeAiou ^rjpwtrev at-ya?.
Toiydp a'oi'BtjUO? epyots*
dOdvaTov TC fjnv av
re yepas fiefiaiov.
CHARGE OF BLASPHEMY. 43
The perfection of the manly character is personified as
a virgin, for whose charms it is an enviable lot even to
die, or to endure the severest hardships. The enthu-
siasm with which she inspires the hearts of her lovers
is more precious than gold, than parents, than the lux-
ury of soft-eyed sleep ! For her it was that Hercules
and the sons of Leda toiled, and Achilles and Ajax
died! her fair form, too, made Hermias, the nursling
of Atarneus, renounce the cheerful light of the sun.
Hence his deeds shall become the subjects of song,
and the Muses, daughters of memory, shall wed him
to immortality when they magnify the name of Jupiter
Xenius (i.e. Jupiter as the protector of the laws of
hospitality), and bestow its meed on firm and faith-
ful friendship I By comparing this relic with the sco-
lium to Harmodius and Aristogiton, which Athenaeus
has preserved on the page preceding the one from which
this is taken, the reader will at once see that Hermias
is mentioned together with Achilles and Ajax, and the
other heroes of mythology, only in the same manner as
Harmodius is ; yet not only did this performance hring
down on its author's head the calumnies we have men-
tioned, but many years after it was even made the basis
of a prosecution of him for blasphemy : such straws will
envy and malice grasp at !
The respect of the philosopher for his departed friend
was yet further attested by the erection of a statue, or,
as some say, a cenotaph, to him at Delphi, with an in-
scription, in which his death was recorded as wrought
in outrage of the sacred laws of the gods, by the mo-
This Scolium is preserved in Diogenes Laert. Vit. Arist. sec. 7 ;
Athenaeus, p. 696; and Stobaeus, Serm. i. p. 2. From the first,
sec. 27, we learn that Aristotle also composed some epic and some
elegiac poetry.
44 ARISTOTLE IN MACEDONIA.
narch of the bow-bearing Persians, not fairly by the
spear in the bloody battle-field, but through the false
pledge of a crafty villain ! / And " the nearer view
of wedded life " does not seem in any respect to have
diminished the good opinion he had originally formed
of his friend's daughter. She died, how soon after
their marriage we cannot say, leaving one orphan
daughter ; and not only was her memory honoured hy
the widower with a respect which exposed him, as in
the former instance of her father, to the charge of
idolatry 2 , but, in his will, made some time afterwards,
he provides that her hones should be taken up and
laid by the side of his, wherever he might be buried,
as, says he, she herself enjoined 3 .
At this epoch of Aristotle's life, when the clouds of
adversity appeared to be at the thickest, his brightest
fortunes were about to appear. He had fled to Myti-
lene an exile, deprived of his powerful friend, and ap-
parently cut off from all present opportunity of bringing
his gigantic powers of mind into play. But in Myti-
lene he received an invitation from Philip to undertake
the training of one who, in the World of Action, was
destined to achieve an empire, which only that of his
master in the World of Thought has ever surpassed.
A conjunction of two such spirits has not been yet
twice recorded in the annals of mankind ; and it is
impossible to conceive any thing more interesting and
fruitful than a good contemporary account of the in-
tercourse between them would have been. But, although
such a one did exist, as we shall see below, we are not
1 Diog. Fit. sec. 6.
2 Ibid. sec. 4.
; 7A/W. sec. 16.
PREVIOUSLY KNOWN TO PHILIP. 45
fortunate enough to possess it. The destroying hand
of time has been most active exactly where we should
most desire information as to details, and almost all the
description we can give of this period is founded upon
the scanty notices on the subject furnished by Plutarch
in his biography of the Great Conqueror.
How much the mere personal character of Aristotle
contributed to procuring him the invitation from Philip,
it is difficult to say. Cicero represents the King as
mainly determined to the step by the reputation of the
philosopher's rhetorical lectures 4 . But a letter preserved
by Aulus Gellius 5 , which is well known, but can
scarcely be genuine, would induce us to believe that,
from the very birth of Alexander, he was destined by
his father to grow up under the superintendence of his
latest instructor. It is, indeed, not unlikely that, at
this early period, Aristotle was well known to Philip.
We have seen that, not improbably, his earliest years
were passed at the court, where his father possessed the
highest confidence of the father of Philip. Moreover,
he is said, although neither the time nor the occasion
is specified, to have rendered services to the Athenians
as ambassador to the court of Macedon 6 . But if Gel-
lius's letter be genuine, how are we able to account for
the absence of the philosopher from his charge during the
thirteen years which elapsed between its professed date
and the second year of the 109th Olympiad, in which
we know for certain that he first entered upon his im-
portant task? For that it was not because he consi-
dered the influences exerted upon this tender age
4 De Oratore, iii. 55.
5 ix. 3.
6 Diog. Vit. sec. 2.
46 ALEXANDER'S EARLY PRECEPTORS
unimportant, is clear from the great stress he lays upon
their effect in the eighth book of his Politics, which
is entirely devoted to the details of this subject 1 . And
although Alexander was only thirteen years old when
his connection with Aristotle commenced, yet the seeds
of many vices had even at that early period been sown
by the unskilful hands of former instructors; and per-
haps the best means of estimating the value of Aris-
totle's services, is to compare what his pupil really
became with what he would naturally have been had
he been left under the care of these. Two are par-
ticularly noticed by Plutarch 2 , of totally opposite dis-
positions, and singularly calculated to produce, by their
combined action, that oscillation between asceticism and
luxury which, in the latter part of his life especially,
was so striking a feature in Alexander's character. The
first was Leonidas, a relation of his mother Olympias,
a rough and austere soldier, who appears to have di-
rected all his efforts to the production of a Spartan en-
durance of hardship and contempt of danger. He was
accustomed to ransack his pupil's trunks for the pur-
pose of discovering any luxurious dress or other means
of indulgence which might have been sent to him by his
mother : and, at the outset of Alexander's Asiatic expe-
dition, on the occasion of an entertainment by his adopted
mother, a Carian princess, he told her that Leonidas's
early discipline had made all culinary refinements a
matter of indifference to him ; that the only cook he had
ever been allowed to season his breakfast was a good
night's journey ; and the only one to improve his supper,
1 See especially p. 1334, col. 2, line 25, et seq. ; p. 1338, col. 1,
line 5, et seq. ed. Bekker.
2 Fit. Alex. sec. 5.
LEONIDAS LYSIMACHUS. 47
a scanty breakfast 3 . An education of which these traits
are characteristic might very well produce the personal
hardiness and animal courage for which Alexander was
distinguished; it might enable him to tame a Buce-
phalus, to surpass all his contemporaries in swiftness
of foot, to leap down alone amidst a crowd of enemies
from the ramparts of a besieged town, to kill a lion in
single combat 4 ; it might even inspire the passion for
military glory which vented itself in tears when there
was nothing left to conquer 5 ; but it would be almost
as favourable to the growth of the coarser vices as to the
developement of these ruder virtues, and we learn that,
to the day of his death, the ruffianly and intemperate
dispositions which belong to barbarian blood, and which
the influences of Leonidas had tended rather to increase
than diminish, were never entirely subdued by Alex-
ander 6 .
The character of Lysimachus, the other instructor
especially noticed by Plutarch, was very different, but
hardly likely to have produced a much more beneficial
effect. He was by birth an Acarnanian, and an expert
flatterer, by which means he is said to have gained
great favour. His favourite thought appears to have
been to compare Alexander to Achilles, Philip to Pe-
3 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 22.
4 Ibid. 640, &c.
5 Unus Pellceo juueni non sufficit orbis. Juv. Sat. x. 168.
6 Leonidas Alexandri pcedagogus, ut a Babylonia Diogene traditur,
quibusdam cum vitiis imbuit, quce robustum quoque et jam maximum
regem ab ilia institutione puerili sunt prosecuta. Quintilian, Inst.
Or. i. 1. 8. Is it not probable that Aristotle, in the seventh book
of his Politics, (p. 1324, col. 1, line 23, et seq., and p. 1333, col. 2,
line 10, et seq.) has a particular reference to the views of Leonidas?
See also above, p. 4-6. note 1 .
48 LITTLE GAIN FROM THEM.
leus, and himself to Phoenix, as the characters were
described in the epic poetry of Greece, and this insipid
stuff it was his delight to act out in the ordinary busi-
ness of life. At a later period, this passion for scene-
making nearly cost poor Phcenix and his master their
lives ' ; and to it is probably due, in a great measure,
the cormorant appetite for adulation which is the most
disgusting feature in the history of the latter.
To neither then of these two individuals, and if
not to these, of course much less to the crowd of mas-
ters in reading, writing, horsemanship, harp-playing,
and the other accomplishments included by ancient
education in its two branches of HOUVIKJ and yvfjivofrriKri,
can we ascribe a share in the production of that cha-
racter which distinguishes Alexander from any successful
military leader. But to Aristotle some of the ancients
attribute a degree and kind of merit in this respect
which is perfectly absurd. Plutarch says that his pupil
received from him more towards the accomplishment of
his schemes than from Philip 2 . Alexander himself was
accustomed to say, that he honoured Aristotle no less
than his own father, that to the one he owed life, but
to the other all that made life valuable 3 ; and it is
very likely that the misinterpretation of such phrases
as these led to the belief that the Conqueror had re-
ceived from his instructor direct advice for the accom-
1 Plutarch, Fit. sec. 24.
2 Plutarch, De Fortun. Alexandri. p. 327- See Ste. Croix,
Examen critique des historiens d' Alexandre-le-grand, p. 84. Such
expressions as these led later writers to yet more extravagant ones,
such as Roger Bacon's, per vias sapientice mundum Alexandra
tradidit Aristoteles ; and probably to the same source is to be traced
the romance of the philosopher having personally attended his
pupil in his expedition.
3 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 8.
EFFECTS PRODUCED BY ARISTOTLE. 49
plishment of the great exploit which has made him
known to posterity.ViBut the obligations to which he
really alluded were probably of a totally different
kind. Philip is said to have perceived at a very early
age that his son's disposition was a most peculiar one,
sensible in the highest degree of kindness, and tract-
able by gentle measures, but absolutely ungovernable
by force, and consequently requiring, instead of the
austerity of a Leonidas, or the flattery- of a Lysi-
machus, the influence of one who could by his cha-
racter and abilities command respect, and by his tact
and judgment preserve it. Such qualifications he found
in Aristotle, and the good effects seem to have speedily
shown themselves. From a rude and intemperate bar-
barian's his nature expanded and exhibited itself in an
attachment to philosophy, a desire of mental eultiva- /
tion, and a fondness for study. Klo completely did he
acquire higher and more civilized tastes, that while
at the extremity of Asia, in a letter to Harpalus he
desires that the works of Philistus the historian, the
tragedies of ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and
the dithyrambs of Telestes and Philoxenus, should be
sent to him. Homer was his constant travelling com- \
panion. A copy, corrected by Aristotle, was deposited
by the side of his dagger, under the pillow of the couch
on which he slept 4 ; and on the occasion of a magnifi-
cent casket being found among the spoils of Darius's
eamp, when a discussion arose as to how it should be
employed, the King declared that it should be appro-
priated to the use of containing this copy 5 . But his
education had not been confined to the lighter species
4 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 7, 8.
3 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 26. Strabo, xiii. Plin. Nat. Hist. v. SO.
4
50 HIS RAPID EDUCATION.
of literature ; on the contrary, he appears to have been
introduced to the gravest and most abstruse parts of
philosophy, to which the term of acroamatic was specifi-
cally applied. We shall in the sequel examine more
fully what exact notion is to be attached to this term:
in the mean time, it will be sufficient to observe that it
included the highest branches of the science of that day.
In a letter, then, preserved by Plutarch and Aulus
Gellius 1 , Alexander complains that his preceptor had
published those of his works to which this phrase was
applied. "How," he asks, "now that this is the case,
will he be able to maintain his superiority to others in
mental accomplishments, a superiority which he valued
more than the distinction he had won by his conquests?"
Gellius likewise gives us Aristotle's answer, in which he
excuses himself by saying, " that although the works in
question were published, they would be useless to all
who had not previously enjoyed the benefit of his oral
instructions." Whatever may be our opinion as to the
genuineness of these letters, which Gellius says he took
from the book of the philosopher Andronicus, (a contem-
porary of Cicero's, to whom we shall in the sequel
again revert,) it is quite clear that if they are forgeries,
they were forged in accordance with a general belief of
the time, that there was no department of knowledge
however recondite to which Aristotle had not taken
pains to introduce his pupil.
But the most extraordinary feature in the education
of Alexander is the short space of time which it occupied.
From the time of Aristotle's arrival in Macedonia to
the expedition of his pupil into Asia there elapsed eight
years, (i. e. from Olymp. cix. 2. to Olymp. cxi. 2.) But
1 Plutarch, Fit. Alex. sec. 7- Gellius, Noc. Ait. xx. 5.
BOOKS WRITTEN FOR HIM. 51
of this only a part, less than the half, can have been de-
voted to the purpose of systematic instruction. For in
the fourth year of this period 2 , we find Philip during an
expedition to Byzantium leaving his son sole and abso-
lute regent of the kingdom. Some barbarian subjects
having revolted, Alexander undertook an expedition in
person against them, and took their city, which he called
after his own name, Alexandropolis. From this time
he was continually engaged in business, now leading
the decisive charge at Chseronea, and now involved in
court intrigues against a party who endeavoured to gain
Philip's confidence and induce him to alter the succes-
sion 3 . It is clear therefore that all instruction, in the
stricter sense of the word, must have terminated. Yet
that a very considerable influence may have been still
exerted by Aristotle upon the mind of Alexander, is not
only in itself probable, but is confirmed by the titles of
some of his writings which are now lost. Ammonius,
in his division of the works of the philosopher, mentions
a certain class 4 as consisting of treatises written for the
behoof of particular individuals, and specifies among
them those books " which he composed at the request
of Alexander of Macedon, that On Monarchy, and In-
structions on the Mode of establishing Colonies." The
2 Plutarch, Fit. sec. 9- Diodorus, xvi. 77. See Clinton, Fast.
Hell a. 340, 339-
3 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 9, 10.
4 TO. MojOiKct. Ammon. Hermeneut. ad Aristot. Categor. p. 7- ed.
Aid. The two works alluded to are cited by the anonymous au-
thor of the Life printed by Buhle in his edition of Aristotle, p. 60
67, under the titles irep\ jSaa-tXeias and 'AAe'ai/fyjo<?, 17 wVep diroiKioiv.
Diogenes mentions the latter by the same name, and Pseudo-
Ammonius the former. The anonymous writer adds a third QTepi]
'A\eai/Bpou, 17 TTp\ ptJTopos 17 TroXiTiKou, by which he probably means
the ptfTopiKri 7rpo\ 'AXefrti/Spo*', which we have.
42
52 HIS POLICY AS A CONQUEROR.
titles of these works may lead us to conjecture that
the distinguishing characteristics of Alexander's sub-
sequent policy, the attempt to fuse into one mass his
old subjects and the people he had conquered, the as-
similation of their manners, especially by education and
intermarriages, the connection of remote regions by
building cities, making roads, and establishing com-
mercial enterprises, may be in no small measure due to
the counsels of his preceptor. A modern writer indeed
has imagined an analogy between this assimilative
policy of the conqueror, and the generalizing genius
of the philosopher 1 . And there really does seem some
ground for this belief, in spite of an observation of
Plutarch's 2 , which is at first sight diametrically oppo-
sed to it. After speaking of the Stoical notions of an
universal republic, he says, that magnificent as the
scheme was, it was never realized, but remained a mere
speculation of that school of philosophy; and he adds
that Alexander, who nearly realized it, did so in op-
position to the advice of Aristotle, who had recom-
mended him to treat the Greeks as a general,
vtKwsy) but the barbarians as a master, (^
the one as friends, the other as instruments. But
there is no other authority than Plutarch for this
story; and it seems far from improbable that it is en-
tirely built upon certain expressions used by Aristotle
in the first book of his Politics. In that place he
recognises the relation between master and slave as a
natural one; and he also maintains the superiority
of Greeks over barbarians to be so decided and per-
manent as to justify the supremacy of the one over
the other. Of the latter he argues that they have not
1 Joh. von Mueller, Allgemeine Geschickte, i. p. 160.
2 De Virt. et Fort. Alexandri. p. 329-
ARISTOTLE'S DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 53
the faculty of governing in them, and that therefore
the state of slavery is for them the natural and pro-
per form of the social relation 3 . But it should not
be overlooked, as by some modern writers it has been 4 ,
that Aristotle explicitly distinguishes between a slave
de facto and a slave de jure, and that he grounds his
vindication of slavery entirely on the principle that such
a relation shall be the most beneficial one possible to
both the parties concerned in it. Where this condition
is wanting, wherever the party governed is susceptible
of a higher order of government, he distinctly main-
tains that the relation is a false and unnatural one 5 -
If therefore his experience had made him acquainted
with the highly cultivated and generous races of upper
Asia to which Alexander penetrated, he must in
consistency with his own principle, that every man's
nature is to be developed to the highest point of which
it is capable, have advised that these should be treat-
ed on the same footing as the Greeks, and Alexander's
conduct would only appear a natural deduction from
the general principles inculcated by his master. As
far as concerned the barbarians with whom alone the
Greeks previously to Alexander's expedition had been
brought into contact, the neighbours of the Greek
3 P. 1252, col. 1, lin. 34, et seq.
* Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy, ch. v. p. 12. " Aristo-
tle lays down, as a fundamental and self-evident maxim, that nature
intended barbarians to be slaves; and proceeds to deduce from
this maxim a train of conclusions, calculated to justify the policy
which then prevailed. And I question whether the same maxim
be not still self-evident to the company of merchants trading to
the coast of Africa."
* See p. 1255, col. 1, line 5 ct scq. and col. 2, line 4. et seq, also
p. 1259, col. 2, line 21, ft seq.
54 STAGIRUS REBUILT.
cities in Asia Minor and the Propontis, the savage
hordes of Thrace, or the Nomad tribes inhabiting the
African Syrtis, Aristotle's position was a most reason-
able one. Christianity seems the only possible means
for the mutual pacification of races so different from
one another in every thought, feeling, and habit, as
these and the polished Greeks were : and Christianity
itself solves the problem not by those modifications of
social life through which alone the statesman acts, or
can act ; but by awakening all to the consciousness
that there exists a common bond higher than all so-
cial relations ; it does not aim at obliterating national
distinctions 1 9 but it dwarfs their importance in compa-
rison with the universal religious faith. If we would
really understand the opinions of a writer of antiquity,
we ought to understand the ground on which he rests,
and must rest. We have no right to require of a
pagan philosopher three centuries before Christ, that
in his system he should take account of the influ-
ences of Christianity; and they who scoff at the im-
portance which he attaches to the differences of race,
would do well to point out any instance in the his-
tory of the world where a barbarous people has be-
come amalgamated with a highly civilised one by any
other agency.
If Aristotle might reasonably feel proud of the
talents and acquirements of his pupil, his gratification
would be yet more enhanced by the nature of the
reward which his services received. We have men-
1 This was the essence of the Stoic theory, of which Plutarch
gives the substance, loc. cit. Ivn [iq Kara 9t<\eic, utj$e wrd
Bmt? 6Kao"rot duapur/nevoi BtKaio/c, aX\a iravra^ a
^tj/jLOTas KO.\ ?roArra<?, eis 6e pios y Ka\
<rvvvofjLOV i'0/jiw Koivta (rvvr pe(po[jit I/JJT.
INHABITED BY ARISTOTLE. 55
tioned above the unhappy fate of Stagirus, Aristotle's
birthplace. Although his own fortunes were little af-
fected by this calamity, his patriotism, if we may
believe the account in Plutarch, induced him to de-
mand as the price of his instructions, the restoration
of his native town. It was accordingly rebuilt, such
of the inhabitants as were living in exile were re-
stored to the home of their infancy, such as had been
sold for slaves were redeemed, and in the days of Plu-
tarch strangers were shown the shady groves in which
the philosopher had walked, and the stone benches
whereon he used to repose 2 . The constitution under
which the new citizens lived was said to be drawn up
by him 3 , and long afterwards his memory was celebra-
ted by the Stagirites in a solemn festival, and, it is
said, one month of the year (perhaps the one in
which he was born) called by his name 4 . There is
every reason to believe that during the latter part of
his connection with Alexander, when the more direct
instruction had ceased, the newly built town furnished
2 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 7- In this matter the accounts are con-
fused. Julian, (Far. Hist. iii. 1?. xii. 54.) Diogenes, (v. 4.) and Pliny
(vii. 29.) attribute the restoration to Alexander. If it took place
at the commencement of the regency these may be reconciled
with Plutarch. But the testimony of Valerius Maximus (v. &)
would refer both the destruction and rebuilding of Stagirus to
Alexander, and that too at a time when Aristotle was very old
and residing in Athens. The gentlest mode of reconciling this
inaccurate epitomizer with possibilities, is to suppose that he has
confounded Stagirus with Eressus, the birthplace of Theophrastus,
of whom Diogenes and Pseudo-Ammonius relate a somewhat simi-
lar story.
3 Plutarch adv. Colot. extr.
4 Pseudo-Ammon. and Vit. Lat. The name " Stagirites " shows
the very late growth of this feature of the story. It may be built,
however, on a true foundation.
56 FELLOW PUPILS OF ALEXANDER.
him with a quiet retreat, and that he then and there
composed the treatises we have mentioned ahove, for
the use of his absent pupil. While their personal com-
munication lasted, Pella, the capital of Macedonia, was
perhaps his residence 1 , as it is scarcely prohahle that
Philip would have liked to trust the person of the
heir apparent out of his dominions.
We shall conclude the account of this portion of
Aristotle's life hy the mention of three other remark-
able persons who probably all shared with Alexander
in the benefit of his instructions, although this is only
positively stated of the last of them 2 . The first of
these was Callisthenes, a son of Aristotle's cousin, who
afterwards attended Alexander in his Asiatic expedition,
and to whom we shall have occasion to revert in the
sequel. The second was Theophrastus, Aristotle's suc-
cessor in the school of the Lyceum some years after-
wards; and the third was one Marsyas, a native
of Pella,. brother to the Antigonus who, after the
1 This has been by Stahr, Aristotelia, i. p. 104, inferred from the
expression fio'pftopov ev irpo-^om^ in Theocritus's Epigram quoted
above p. 35. note. The Macedonians, Plutarch says> called the river,
on whose banks Pella stood, by the name Bo'jo/3opo?.
2 Suidas, v. Ma^o-Ja?. That Callisthenes and Theophrastus
were together pupils of Aristotle appears from Diogenes, Vit.
Theoph. sec. 3$. And the Macedonian connections of both would
incline us to believe that it was in that country that this rela-
tion existed. Theophrastus was personally known to Philip and
treated with distinction by him. (/Elian, War. Hist. iv. 19.) And
if Callisthenes had been Aristotle's pupil at Athens, his character
would surely have been sufficiently developed eleven years after-
wards to exhibit his unfitness as an adviser of Alexander to
any eye, certainly to the sharp- sighted one of Aristotle. Besides,
it is not likely that Alexander would have chosen one whom he was
not already acquainted with, to attend him* in such a capacity as
Callisthenes did.
THEOPHRASTUS CALLISTHENES MARSYAS. 57
death of Alexander, when the generals of the monarch
divided their master's conquests among them, became
King of Lycia and Pamphylia. He was a soldier
and a man of letters ; and one work of his On the
Education of Alexander is perhaps as great a loss
to us as any composition of antiquity which could be
named.
UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER IV.
ARISTOTLE RETURNS TO ATHENS.
ON Alexander commencing his eastern expedition,
Aristotle, leaving his relation and pupil Callisthenes to
supply his own place as a friendly adviser to the youthful
monarch, whom he accompanied in the ostensible cha-
racter of historiographer 1 , returned to Athens. ^Whe-
ther this step was the consequence of any specific in-
vitation or not, it is difficult to say. Some accounts
state that he received a public request from the Athe-
nians to come, and conjointly with Xenocrates to suc-
ceed Speusippus 2 . But these views appear to proceed
upon the essentially false opinion that the position of
teacher was already a publicly recognised one, and be-
sides to imply the belief that Xenocrates and Aristotle
were at the time on their travels together; whereas we
know that the latter was in Macedonia till B.C. 335,
and that the former had four years before this time
succeeded Speusippus, not by virtue of any public ap-
pointment, but in consequence of his private wish 3 .
If any more precise reason be required for the philo-
sopher's change of residence than the one which pro-
bably determined him at first to visit Athens, namely
the superior attractions which that city possessed for
cultivated and refined minds, uve should incline to
believe that the greater mildness of climate was the
1 Arrhian, iv. 10.
2 Pseudo-Ammon. Vit. Lat.
3 Diog. Laert. iv. 3.
TEACHES TN THE LYCEUM. 59
influencing cause 1 . His health was unquestionably
delicate ; and perhaps it was a regard for this, com-
bined with the wish to economize time, that induced
him to deliver his instructions (or at least a part of
them) not sitting or standing, but walking backwards
and forwards in the open air. u-The extent to which
he carried this practice, although the example of Pro-
tagoras 5 in Plato's Dialogue is enough to show that
he did not originate it, procured for his scholars, who
of course were obliged to conform to this habit, the
soubriquet of Peripatetics, or Walkers backwards and
forwards 6 .]^ From the neighbouring temple and grove of
Apollo Lyceus, his school was commonly known by the
name of the Lyceum 7 ; and here every morning and even-
ing he delivered lectures to a numerous body of scholars.
Among these he appears to have made a division. The
morning course, or, as he called it from the place where
it was delivered, the morning walk, (ewdti/o? Tre^/Traros),
was attended only by the more highly disciplined part
of his auditory, the subjects of it belonging to the higher
branches of philosophy, and requiring a systematic at-
tention as well as a previously cultivated understanding
4 This seems to be the true interpretation of the expression of
Aristotle cited by Demetrius. De Elocut. sec. 29, 155: ejta CK ^eV
a rj\0ov /a TOV j3a<ri\ea TOV
5 P. 314. E. 315. C.
6 Cicero, Academ. Post. i. 4. Cicero translates the word
by inambulare. Hermipptis explained it by
Diogenes Laertius (v. 2.) attributes the origin of this practice
with Aristotle to a regard not for his own health but for that of
Alexander.
7 Before the Peloponnesian War it had been used as a gymna-
sium, and was said to have been built by Pisistratus. See Aristoph.
Pac. 355, and the Scholiast.
60 DIVISION OF HIS SCHOLARS.
on the part of the scholar. In the evening course (<5a~
\ivo<? 7re/o/7raTos) the subjects as well as the manner of
treating them were of a more popujar cast, and more
appreciable by a mixed assembly, ^^ulus Gellius 1 who
is our sole authority on this matter, affirms that the
expressions acroatic discourses and exoteric discourses
(\oyoi aKpwaTiKoi and \oyoi e^curepiKoi) were the appro-
priate technical terms for these instructions; and he
further says that the former comprised Theological,
Physical, and Dialectical investigations, the latter Rhe-
toric, Sophistic, (or the art of disputing,) and Politics.-
We shall in another place examine thoroughly into
the precise meaning of these celebrated phrases, a
task which would here too much break the thread
of the narrative. We may, however, remark that the
morning discourses were called acroatic or subjects of
lectures, not because they belonged to this or that
branch, but because they were treated in a technical
and systematic manner ; and so the evening discourses
obtained the name of exoteric or separate, because each
of them was insulated, and not forming an integral
part of a system. It is obvious that some subjects
are more suitable to the one of these methods, and
others to the other; and the division which Gellius
makes is, generally speaking, a good one. But that
it does not hold universally is plain, not to mention
other arguments, from the fact that the work on Rhe-
toric which has come down to us is an acroatic work,
and that on Politics apparently the unfinished draught
of one ; while on the contrary, a fragment of an exo-
teric work preserved by Cicero in a Latin dress is upon
a theological subject.
1 Noct. Alt. xx. 5.
PHILOSOPHICAL SYMPOSIA. 61
The more select circle of his scholars Aristotle used
to assemble at stated times on a footing, which without
any straining of analogy we may compare to the periodi-
cal dinners held by some of the literary clubs of modern
times. The object of this obviously was to combine
the advantages of high intellectual cultivation with the
charms of social intercourse ; to make men feel that
philosophy was not a thing separate from the daily uses
of life, but one which entered into all its charities and
was mixed up with its real pleasures. '--'These reunions
were regulated by a code of rules 2 , of which we know
enough to see that the cynicism or pedantry, which fre-
quently induces such as would be accounted deep thinkers
to despise the elegancies or even the decencies of life,
was strongly discountenanced 3 . In these days, espe-
cially in England, where so many different elements
combine to produce social intercourse in its highest per-
fection, it is difficult to estimate the important effect
which must have been brought about by a custom such
as that just mentioned. k^To enjoy leisure gracefully
and creditably 4 ," is not easy for any one at any time,
but for the Athenian in the days of Aristotle was a
task of the greatest difficulty. ^-"Deprived of that kind
of female intercourse which in modern social life is the
great instrument for humanizing the other sex, soften-
ing, as it does, through the affections, the disposition
to ferocity and rudeness, and checking the licentious
passions by the dignity of matronly or maidenly purity,
8 Athenseus, p. 186.
Apio-TOTeAf/s 3e U\OVTOV KCLI KOVIOOTOV 'jrXtjprj r/Wti/ TIVU eTri TO <rv/Ji-
yro<riov air penes elvai (prj<riv. Athenseus, p. 186. E.
4 a"^o\a'(eiv KaAws. Polit. viii. p. 1337, col. 2, line 34. Compare
also Nicom. Ethic, p. 1177, col. 2, line 4>, and Polit. vii. p. 1334, col.
1, line 1834.
62 STATE OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.
the youth of ancient Greece almost universally fell either
into a ruffianly asceticism, or a low and vulgar profli-
gacy. Some affected the austere manner and sordid
garb of the Lacadaemonians L , regarding as effeminate
all geniality of disposition, all taste for the refinements
of life, every thing in short which did not directly tend
to the production of mere energy : while others entirely
quenched the moral will and the higher mental facul-
ties in a debauchery of the coarsest kind 2 . To open
a new region of enjoyment to the choicer spirits of the
time and thus save them from the distortion or corrup-
tion to which they otherwise seemed doomed, was a
highly important service to the cause of civilization.
The pleasure and utility resulting from the institution
was very generally recognised. Xenocrates, the friend
of Aristotle, adopted it. Theophrastus, his successor,
left a sum of money in his will to be applied to defray-
ing the expenses of these meetings ; and there were
in after times similar periodical gatherings of the fol-
lowers of the Stoic philosophers, Diogenes* Antipater,
and Panaetius 3 . If some of these, or others of similar
nature, in the course of time degenerated into mere
excuses for sensual indulgence, as Athenseus seems to
hint, no argument can be thence derived against their
1 That the AaKowoucma so admirably hit off by Aristophanes (Av.
1729; e * se( l') tasted long after his time, is clear, not to mention other
arguments, from the evident prevalence of the views which Aristotle
(Politic, vii. p. 1324, col. 1, line 23, et seq., also p. 1332, col. 2,
line 20, p. 1334, col. 2, line 28) takes so much pains to controvert.
TTfcK yap ov
"ffivfi-v oi$> Koi fiiveiv /JLOVOV j Aristoph. Ran. 751.
The manners of the latter comedy, as preserved in Terence's
plays, are a sufficient evidence that this sarcasm was little less
applicable at Athens throughout the fourth century before the
Christian era.
3 Athenseus, p. 186.
DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOLARS. 63
great utility while the spirit of the institution was pre-
served.
^Another arrangement made by Aristotle in the ma-
nagement of his instructions appears particularly wor-
thy of notice. In imitation, as some say, of a practice
of Xenocrates, he appointed one of his scholars to play
the part of a sort of president in his school, holding
the office for the space of ten days, after which another
took his place V^This peculiarity seems to derive illus-
tration from the practice of the universities of Europe
in the middle ages, in which, as is well known, it
was the custom for individuals on various occasions to
maintain certain theses against all who chose to con-
trovert them. A remnant of this practice remains to
this day in the Acts (as they are termed) which are
kept in the University of Cambridge by candidates
for a degree in either of the Faculties. It is an
* a\\ct KCU i/
%Ka rjpepcK; ap-^ovra -rroieiv. Diog. Laert. Fit. sec. 4. The follow-
ing passages from Cicero seem to furnish a kind of commentary
on these obscure expressions. Itaque mihi semper Peripateticorum
Academiasque consuetude de omnibus rebus in contrarias paries dis-
serendi non ob earn causam solum placuit, quod aliter non posset, quid
in qudque re veri smile esset, inveniri ; sed etiam quod esset ea
maxima dicendi exercitatio: qua princeps usus est Aristoteles, deinde,
eum qui secuti sunt. Tusc. Qu. ii. 3.
Sin aliquis extiterit aliquando, qui Aristotelio more de omnibus
rebus in utramque partem posset dicere, et in omni causa duas con-
trarias orationes, prceceptis illius cognitis, explicare ; aut hoc Arcesilce
modo ei Carneadi, contra omne quod propositum sit disserat;
quique ad earn rationem adjungat hunc rhetoricum usum mo-
remque dicendi, is sit verus, is perfectus, is solus orator. De
Oral. iii. 21.
The passage from Quintilian, (i. 2. 23.) quoted by Menage in
his note on Diogenes, (loc. cit.) refers to an essentially different
kind of discipline, arising out of other grounds and directed to
other, ends.
64 ANALOGOUS MODERN PRACTICES.
M~ ** & for$e */ '**-*- &J++0U+&, Ytfon.<
arrangement which results necessarily from the scarcity
of books of instruction, and is dropped or degenerates
into a mere form when this deficiency is removed.
While information on any given subject must be
derived entirely or mainly from the mouth of the
teacher, as was the case in the time of Aristotle no
less than that of Scotus and Aquinas, the most satis-
factory test of the learner's proficiency is his ability to
maintain the theory which he 'has received against all
arguments which may be brought against it. We
shall probably be right in supposing that this was the
duty of the president (ap-^wv) spoken of by Diogenes.
He was, in the language of the sixteenth century,
keeping an act. ^Re had for the space of ten days to
defend his own theory and to refute the objections,
(a.7ropiai) which his brother disciples might either en-
tertain or invent,Vthe master in the mean time taking
the place of a moderator, occasionally interposing to
show where issue must be joined, to prevent either party
from drawing illogical conclusions from acknowledged
premises, and, probably, after the discussion had been
continued for a sufficient time, to point out the ground
of the fallacy. This explanation will also serve to
account for a phenomenon, which cannot fail to strike
a reader on the perusal of any one of Aristotle's wri-
tings that have come down to us. The systematic
treatment of a subject is continually broken by an ap-
parently needless discussion of objections which may
be brought against some particular part. These are
stated more or less fully, and are likewise taken off;
or it sometimes happens that merely the principle on
which the solution must proceed is indicated, and it
is left to the ingenuity of the reader to fill up the
details. To return to our subject, it is quite obvious
EFFECT OF THE DISCIPLINE. 65
that such a discipline as we have described must have
had a wonderful effect in sharpening the dialectical
talent of the student, and in producing perhaps at
the expense of the more valuable faculty of deep
and systematic thought extraordinary astuteness and
agility in argumentation. Indeed, if we make ab-
straction of the subject-matter of the discussions, we
may very well regard the exercise as simply a practi-
cal instruction in the art of disputation, that which
formed the staple of the education of the Sophists.
And now we may understand how Gellius 1 , writing in
the second century after Christ, should place this art
among the branches which Aristotle's evening course
embraced, although in the sense in which the Sophists
taught it, he would have scorned to make any such
profession 2 . In what other light could this compiler
have viewed the fact, that insulated topics arising out
of a subject which they had heard fiystematicaUy
treated by their master in his lectures (d/f/ooaVets) of
the morning, were debated by Aristotle's more advanced
scholars, in the presence of the entire body, in the
evening, the master being himself present and regulat-
ing the whole discussion.
It is evident that in this species of exercise it is
not the faculty of comprehending philosophic truth
that plays the most prominent part. As regards the
subject-matter of such debates, nothing which is at all
incomplete, nothing unsusceptible of rigid definition
is available. Consequently the whole of that extensive
1 Noct. Alt. xx. 5. See above, p. 60.
2 See, for instance, the contempt with which he speaks of the
Sophistical principle, the one on which Isocrates taught rhetoric.
Rhetoric, i. inil.
5
66 ITS EFFECT ON PHILOSOPHY.
region, where knowledge exists in a state of growth
and gradual consolidation, the domain of half-evolved
truths, of observations and theories blended together
in varying proportions, of approximately ascertained
laws, in the main true, but still apparently irreconcil-
able with some phenomena, all this fertile soil, out
of which every particle of real knowledge has sprung
and must spring, will be neglected as barren and unpro-
fitable. Where public discussion is the only test to be
applied, an impregnable paradox will be more valued than
an imperfectly established truth 1 . And it is not only by
diverting the attention of the student away from the pro-
fitable fields of knowledge that a pernicious effect will be
produced. He will further be tempted to give, perhaps
unconsciously, an artificial roundness to established facts
by means of arbitrary definitions. In Nature every thing
is shaded off by imperceptible gradations into something
entirely different. Who can define the exact line which
separates the animal from the vegetable kingdom, or the
family of birds from that of animals ? Who can say ex-
actly where disinterestedness in the individual character
joins on to a well-regulated self-love ? or where fanati-
cism ends and hypocrisy begins? But on the other hand
the intellect refuses to apprehend what is not clear and
distinct. Hence a continual tendency to stretch Na-
ture on the Procrustes-bed of Logical Definition, where,
with more or less gentle truncation or extension, a
plausible theory will be formed. Should one weak point
after another be discovered in this, a new bulwark of
1 Sapientis hanc censet Arcesilas vim esse maximam, Zenoni
assentiens, cavere ne capiatur ; ne fallatur, videre. Cicero, Aca-
dem. Prior, ii. 21. Who can fail to recognise the disputatious habit
of mind which gave birth to this principle? Compare sec. 21.
Si ulli rei sapiens assentietur unquam, aliquando etiam opinabitur :
nunquam autem opinabitur ; nulli igitur rei assentietur.
ITS EFFECT ON PHILOSOPHERS. 67
hypothesis will be thrown up to protect it, and at last
the fort be made impregnable, but alas ! in the mean
time it has become a castle in the air. Should however
the genius of the disputant lie less in the power of
distinguishing and refining, than in that of presenting
his views in a broad and striking manner, should his
fancy be rich and his feelings strong, above all, should
he be one of a nation where eloquence is at once the
most common gift and the most envied attainment,
he will call in rhetoric to the aid of his cause; and,
in this event, as the accessory gradually encroaches and
elbows out that interest to aid which it was originally
introduced, as the handling of the question becomes
more important, and the question itself less so, there
will result, not, as in the former case, a Scholastic
Philosophy, but an arena for closet orators, who will 2
abandon the systematic study of philosophy, and var-
nish up declamations on set subjects. Such results
doubtless did not follow in the time of Aristotle and
Xenocrates. Under them, unquestionably, the original
purpose of this discipline was kept steadily in sight ;
and it was not suffered to pass from being the test
of clear and systematic thought to a mere substitute
for it. But the transition must have been to a con-
siderable extent effected when an Arcesilaus or a Car-
neades could deliver formal dissertations in opposition
to any question indifferently, and when Cicero could
regard the rhetorical practice as co-ordinate in import-
ance with the other advantages resulting to the stu-
dent 3 , In the very excellence and reputation then of
(j)i\oa'o(p6Tv TTjoay/jiaTJKto?, a'AAa dfcrets \r}Kvdifeiv, Strabo,
xiii. p. 124. ed Tauchnitz.
3 See the passages cited above p. 63. not. Compare also Acad.
Prior, ii. 18. Quis enim ista tarn aperte perspicueque et perversa et
68 RESOURCES OF ARISTOTLE.
this peculiar discipline of the founder of the Peripa-
tetic school, we have a germ adequate to produce a
rapid decay of his philosophy, and we have no occa-
sion to look either to external accidents or to the
internal nature of his doctrines for a reason of the
degeneracy of the Peripatetics after Theophrastus. The
importance of this remark will be seen in the sequel.
y It was probably in the course of this sojourn at
Athens, which lasted for the space of thirteen years,
that the greater number of Aristotle's works were pro-
duced. His external circumstances were at this time
most favourable. The Macedonian party was the pre-
valent one at Athens, so that he needed be under no
fears for his personal quiet; and the countenance and
assistance he received from Alexander enabled him to
prosecute his investigations without any interruption
from the scantiness of pecuniary means. The Con-
queror is said in Athenseus to have presented his
master with the sum of eight hundred talents (about
two hundred thousand pounds sterling), to meet the
expenses of his History of Anima&}aud enormous as
this sum is, it is only in proportion to the accounts
we have of the vast wealth acquired by the plunder
of the Persian treasures 2 . Pliny also relates that some
thousands of men were placed at his disposal for the
purpose of procuring zoological specimens which served
as materials for this celebrated treatise. The under-
falsa secutus esset, nisi tanta in Arcesila, multo etiam major in
Carneade, et copia rerum, et dicendi vis fuisset. Yet the eloquent
Arcesilaus and Carneades left nothing behind them in writing. (Plu-
tarch, Defort. Alex. p. 323. ed. Paris.)
1 Athenaeus, p. 3p8. E.
2 See the authorities on this subject collected by Ste. Croix. Eza-
men Hisiorique, pp. 428 430.
HIS NATURAL HISTORY. 69
taking, he says, originated in the express desire of
Alexander, who took a singular interest in the study
of Natural History 3 . For this particular object indeed, i
he is said to have received a considerable sum from i
Philip, so that we must probably regard the assistance
afforded him by Alexander, (no doubt after conquest
had enlarged his means), as having effected the ex-
tension and completion of a work begun at an earlier
period, previous to his second visit to Athens 4 . Inde-
pendently too of this princely liberality, the profits of
his occupation may have been very great 5 , and we
have before seen reason to suppose that his private for-
tune was not inconsiderable. *^It is likely therefore
that not only all the means and appliances of know-
ledge, but the luxuries and refinements of private life
were within his reach, and having as little of the cynic
as of the sensualist in his character, there is every pro-
bability that he availed himself of them.t-'Indeed the
charges of luxury which his enemies brought against
him after his death, absurd as they are in the form
in which they were put, appear to indicate a man that
could enjoy riches when possessing them as well as in
case of necessity he could endure poverty.
3 Hist. Nat. viii. 17-
4 &lia.n, Var. Hist. iv. 12.
5 See the beginning of the Hippias Major of Plato for the profits
of the sophists, which there is no reason to suppose were greater
than those of their more respectable successors. Hippias professes
to have made during a short circuit in Sicily more than six
hundred pounds, although the celebrated Protagoras was there as
a competitor. (5.) Hyperbolus's instructions in oratory cost him
a talent, or two hundred and fifty pounds. (Aristoph. Nub. 874.)
But there is nothing to enable us to determine whether Aristotle's
teaching was or was not gratuitous.
CHAPTER V.
TURBULENT POLITICS AT ATHENS.
FORTUNE, proverbially inconstant, was even more
fickle in the days of Aristotle than our own. At an
earlier period of his life, we have seen the virulence
of political partizanship rendering it desirable for him
to quit Athens. The same spirit it was which again,
in his old age, forced him to seek refuge in a less
agreeable but safer spot. The death of Alexander had
infused new courage into the anti-Macedonian party at
Athens, and a persecution of such as entertained con-
trary views naturally followed. Against Aristotle, the
intimate friend and correspondent of Antipater, (whom
Alexander on leaving Greece had left regent,) a pro-
secution was either instituted or threatened for an
alleged offence against religion 1 . The flimsiness of
this pretext for crushing a political opponent, or ra-
ther a wise and inoffensive man, whose very imparti-
ality was a tacit censure of the violent party-spirit of
his time, will appear at first sight of the particulars,
of the charge. Eurymedon the Hierophant, assisted by
Demophilus, accused him of the blasphemy of paying
divine honours to mortals. He had composed, it was
said, a paean and offered sacrifices to his father in law
Hermias, and also honoured the memory of his deceased
wife Pythias with libations such as were used in the
worship of Ceres. This p&an is the scolium 'Aperd
1 Phavorinus ap. Diog. Laert. Fit. 5. -flSlian, Far. Hist. iii. 36.
Athenaeus, p. 696. Origen c. Celsum, i. p. 51. ed. Spencer. Demo-
chares cited by Aristocles, (ap. Euseb. Prcep. Ev. xv. 2.)
ARISTOTLE GOES TO EUBO3A. 71
e, &c., which we have described above (p. 42.)
and although we cannot tell what the circumstance
was which gave rise to the latter half of the charge,
we may reasonably presume that it as little justified the
interpretation given to it as the ode does. That igno-
rance and bigotry stimulated by party hatred should find
matter in his writings to confirm a charge of impiety
founded on such a basis, was to be expected; and he
is related to have said to his friends, in allusion to
the fate of Socrates, "Let us leave Athens, and not
give the Athenians a second opportunity of committing
sacrilege against Philosophy." He was too well ac-
quainted with the character of "the many-headed
monster" to consider the absurdity of a charge as a
sufficient guarantee for security under such circumstan-
ces, and he retired with his property to Chalcis in
Euboea 2 , where at that time Macedonian influence pre-
vailed. In a letter to Antipater he expresses his regret
at leaving his old haunts, but applies a verse from
Homer in a way to intimate that the disposition that
prevailed there to vexatious and malignant calumnies
was incorrigible 3 . It is not impossible that his new
asylum had before this time afforded him an occasional
retreat from the noise and bustle of Athens 4 . Now
however he owed to it a greater obligation. He was
out of the reach of his enemies, and enabled to justify
himself in the opinion of all whose judgement was
2 Apollodorus, ap. Diog. Vit. 10. Lycon the Pythagorean cited
by Aristocles ap. Euseb. Prcep. Ev. xv. 2, grounds a charge of lux-
ury on the number of culinary utensils which were passed at the
custom-house in Chalcis.
3 Pseudo-Ammon. ^lian, V. H. iii. 36. (compare xii. 52.) Pha-
vorinus (ap. Diog. Fit. 9.)
4 Diog. Vii. Epicuri, 1. Strabo, x. p. 325.
72 IS PERSECUTED.
valuable by a written defence of his conduct 1 , and an
exposure of the absurdities which the accusation in-
volved. " Was it likely," he asks, " that if he had
contemplated Hermias in the light of a deity, he should
have set up a cenotaph to his memory as to that of a
dead man? Were funeral rites a natural step to apo-
theosis?" Arguments like these, reasonable as they are,
were not likely to produce much effect upon the minds
of his enemies. The person of their victim was beyond
their reach ; but such means of annoyance as still re-
mained were not neglected. Some mark of honour at
Delphi, probably a statue, had been on a former occa-
sion (perhaps the embassy alluded to above) decreed
him by a vote of the people. This vote seems to have
been at this time rescinded, an insult the more mor-
tifying, if, as appears likely, it was inflicted on the
pretext that he had acted the part of a spy in the
Macedonian interest 2 . In a letter to Antipater he
speaks of this proceeding in a tone of real greatness,
perfectly free from the least affectation of indifference.
He alleges 3 that it does not occasion him great uneasi-
1 Athenaeus, (p. 697.) quotes a passage from this work, to which
he gives the title of aVoAoyi'a aVe/Je/a?, but at the same time men-
tions a suspicion that it was not genuine. It might very well be
written by one of his scholars in his name, and embody his senti-
ments, just as the Apology of Plato does those of Socrates. This
is the more likely, as Aristotle at this time appears to have been
in a very weak state of health. It seems to be identical with the
\oyos ZLKUVIKOS mentioned by Phavorinus, (ap. Diog. Fit. 9.) and to
be so called because written in that form, although probably never
intended to be recited in court.
8 Demochares cited by Aristocles, (Euseb. Prcep. Ev. xv. 2.)
3 .ZElian, Var. Hist. xix. 1. OU'TW? e'}a>, cos nt'/re /not <r<po%pa fjieXeiv
vircp avTiov, jufjre /uty^eV /xc/Xeiv. Pausanias (vi. 4. 8.) speaks of a statue
at Olympia said to be his; but it had no name, nor was it known
who had placed it there.
ESTRANGEMENT OF ALEXANDER. 73
ness, but that he still feels hurt by it. It is impos-
sible to find expressions more characteristic of an un-
affectedly magnanimous nature, or which better illustrate
the description of that disposition given by himself in
one of his works 4 .
A subject which it is likely occasioned him during
the latter years of his life far greater pain than any
thing which the fickle public of Athens could think
or do, was the coolness which had arisen between him-
self and his illustrious pupil. It seems to have been
closely connected with the conduct of Callisthenes,
whom we have mentioned above (p. 56.) who had ac-
companied Alexander into Asia by his particular re-
commendation. This individual possessed a cultivated
mind, a vigorous understanding, and a bold and fear-
less integrity, combined with a strong attachment to
the homely virtues and energetic character of the Ma-
cedonians, and a corresponding hatred and contempt
for the Persian manners which had been adopted by
Alexander after his successes. Unfortunately no less
for those whom it was his desire to reform than for
himself, the sterling qualities of his mind were obscured
by a singular want of tact and discretion 5 . He had no
talent for seizing the proper moment to tell an un-
welcome truth, and so far from being able to sweeten
a reproof by an appearance of interest and affection
for the party reproved, he often contrived to give his
real zeal the colouring of offended vanity or personal
malice. Aristotle is said to have dreaded from the
very first that evil would follow from these defects in
4 Nicom. Ethic, iv. pp. 1123. col. i. 1. 341125. col. i. 1. 35.
5 Aristotle himself said of him, on hearing of his behaviour at
court that he was \oy<i> /ieV Si/i/aroc ai fieyaSj vovv ' OVK f*X ev '
mippus ap. Plutarch. Fit. Alex. 54.
74 CONDUCT OF CALLISTHENES.
his character, and to have advised him to abstain from
frequent interviews with the king, and when he did
converse with him, to be careful that his conversation
was agreeable and goodhumoured 1 . He probably judged
that the character and conduct of Callisthenes would of
itself work an effect with a generous disposition like
Alexander's, and that its influence could not be in-
creased, and would in all probability be much dimin-
ished, by the irritation of personal discussion, producing,
almost of necessity, altercation and invective. Callis-
thenes however did not abide by the instructions of
his master; and perhaps the ambition of martyrdom
contributed almost as much as the love of truth to his
neglect of them. The description of Kent, which Shaks-
peare puts into the mouth of Cornwall 2 would certainly
not do him justice ; but it is impossible to shut our
eyes to the fact that he made it " his occupation to be
plain." Disgusted at the ceremony of the salaam, and
the other oriental customs, which in the eyes of many
were a degradation to the dignity of freeborn Greeks, he
did not take the proper course, namely, to withdraw
himself from the royal banquets, and thus by his ab-
sence enter a practical protest against their adoption; but,
1 Valerius Maximus, vii. 2.
-This is some fellow,
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature : He cannot flatter, he !
An honest mind and plain ! he must speak truth :
An they will take it, so: if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends,
Than twenty silly ducking observants
That stretch their duties nicely !
King Lear, Act ii sc. 2.
HIS HATRED OF ANAXAKCHUS. 75
while he still did not cease to attend these, he took every
opportunity of testifying his disapprobation of what he
saw, and his contempt of the favours which were he-
stowed on such as were less scrupulous than himself.
One of them who appears to have particularly excited
his dislike was the sophist Anaxarchus, an unprincipled
flatterer, who vindicated the worst actions and encou-
raged the most evil tendencies of his master 3 ; and per-
haps the jealousy of this miscreant and an unwillingness
to leave him the undivided empire over Alexander's
mind, was one reason which prevented him from adopt-
ing what would have been probably the most effectual
as well as the most dignified line of conduct. Some
anecdotes are related by Plutarch, which exhibit in a
very striking manner both the mutual hatred of the
philosophers breaking out in defiance of all the de-
cencies of a court, and the rude bluntness of Callisthe-
nes's manners. On one occasion, a discussion arose at
supper time, as to the comparative severity of the win-
3 When Alexander, after having slain his friend Clitus in a fit of
drunken passion, threw himself upon the earth, overwhelmed with
remorse, deaf to the solicitations of his friends, and obstinately
refusing to touch food, Callisthenes and Anaxarchus, the philoso-
phers of that day standing in the place of the priests of this, were
sent to offer him spiritual consolations. The latter, wise in his
generation, determined to sear the conscience which he could not
heal, and entered the tent with an expression of indignation and
surprize. "What," he cried, " is this Alexander on whom the eyes of
the whole world are bent ? is this he lying weeping like a slave, in fear
of the reproaches and the conventional laws of men, when he ought
to be himself the law and the standard of right and wrong to them ?
Why did he conquer the world but to rule and command it ; surely
not to be in bondage to it and its foolish opinions ? " " Dost thou
not know/' he continued, addressing the unhappy prince, "that
Justice and Law (A/K^i/ not Qcpiv) are represented the Assessors of
Jupiter, as a sign to all that whatever the mighty do is lawful and
just ? " Plutarch, Vit. Alex. 52.
76 HIS DISLIKE OF PERSIAN HABITS.
ters in Macedonia and in the part of the country where
they then were. Anaxarchus, is opposition to his rival,
strongly maintained the former to be the colder. Cal-
listhenes could not resist the temptation of a sneer
at his enemy. " You at least," said he, " should
hardly be of that opinion. In Greece you used to
get through the cold weather in a scrubby jacket,
(ev Tpifiwvi) ; here, I observe that you cannot sit down
to table with less than three thick mantels (SdiriSai)
on your back V* Anaxarchus, whose vulgar ostentation
of the wealth which his low servilities had procured him
was observed and ridiculed by all, could not turn off
this sarcasm ; but the meanest animal has its sting,
and he took care not to miss any opportunity for lower-
ing the credit of Callisthenes with Alexander, a task
which the unfortunate wrong-headedness 2 of the other
rendered only too easy. On the occasion of another
royal banquet, each of the guests as the cup passed
round, drank to the monarch from it, and then after
performing the salaam, received a salute from him,
a ceremony which was considered as an especial mark
of royal favour. Callisthenes, when his turn arrived,
omitted the salaam, but advanced towards Alexander,
who being busy in conversation with Hephsestion, did
not observe that the expected act of homage had been
omitted. A courtier of Anaxarchus's party, however,
Demetrius, the son of Pythonax, determined that their
enemy should not benefit by this casualty, and accord-
1 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. 52.
2 c-Kaiorrjs and vVepoK-yo? a(3e\T6pia are terms in which Arrhian,
who perfectly appreciates the manly spirit of Callisthenes and is
no idolater of Alexander, characterizes his manners. (De cxped.
Alex. iv. c. 12.)
0,
POPULAR WITH THE MACEDONIA!*^ 77
ingly called out, " Do not salute that fellow, sire ; for
he alone has refused to salaam you." The king on
hearing this refused Callisthenes the customary com-
pliment; but the latter far from heing mortified, ex-
claimed contemptuously as he returned to his seat,
" Very well, then I am a kiss the poorer 3 ! " Such
gratuitous discourtesy as this could hardly fail to alien-
ate the kindness of a young prince, whose mere taste
for refinement, leaving entirely out of consideration
the intoxication produced by unparalleled success and
the flatteries which follow it, must have been revolted
by it 4 . It however gained him great credit with the
Macedonian party, who were no less jealous of the
favour which the Persian nobles found with the Con-
queror than disgusted with the adoption of the Persian
customs. He was considered as the mouthpiece of the
body, and as the representative and vindicator of that
manly and plain speaking spirit of liberty which they
regarded as their birthright 5 , and the satisfaction
which his vanity received from this importance, com-
bined with a despair of reconquering the first place in
Alexander's favour from the hated and despised Anaxar-
chus, probably determined him to relinquish all attempts
at pleasing the monarch, and to adopt a line which
might annoy and injure himself but could hardly bene-
fit any one. When an account was brought to Aris-
totle in Greece of the course pursued by his relation,
3 Plutarch, Fit. 54. Arrhian, iv. 12.
4 "Do not the Greeks seem to you," said he, to two of his friends,
on the occasion of Clitus's outrageous behaviour, " compared with
the Macedonians, like demigods among brute beasts ? " (Plutarch,
ru. 51.)
5 Plutarch, Fit. 53. Arrhian, iv. 12.
78 HIS BAD TASTE AND TEMPER.
his sharp-sigh tedness led him at once to divine the re-
sult. In a line from the Iliad J ,
Ah me! such words, my son, bode speedy death!
he prophetically hinted the fate which awaited him. In-
deed the latter himself appears not to have been blind
to the ruin preparing for him ; but this conviction did
not produce any alteration in his conduct, or, if any-
thing, it perhaps induced him to give way to his tem-
per even more than before. At another banquet, the
not unusual request was made to him, that he would
exhibit his talents by delivering an extemporaneous ora-
tion, and the subject chosen- was a Panegyric upon the
Macedonians. He complied, and performed his task so
well as to excite universal admiration and enthusiastic
applause on the part of the guests. This circumstance
appears to have nettled Alexander, whose affection for
his old fellow-pupil had probably quite vanished, and
he remarked in disparagement of the feat, in a quo-
tation from Euripides, that on such a subject it was
no great matter to be eloquent. " If Callisthenes
wished really to give a proof of his abilities," said he,
" let him take up the other side of the question, and
try what he can do in an invective against the Mace-
donians, that they may learn their faults and reform
them." The orator did not decline the challenge :
his mettle was roused, and he surpassed his former
performance. The Macedonian nation was held up to
utter scorn, and especial contempt heaped upon the
warlike exploits and consummate diplomacy of Alex-
ander's father Philip. His successes were attributed
to accident or low intrigue availing itself of the dis-
ttj fjiot, TKo<?, t<r<rea, ot" ayopeven. Diog. Laert. Vit. 5.
HIS INTIMACY WITH THE PAGES. 79
sensions which existed at that time in Greece; and
the whole was wound up by the Homeric line
KO.I o TrajKctKos eAAave
When civil broils prevail, the vilest soar to fame !
The effect of this course was such as might have been
expected. Alexander fell into a furious passion, tell-
ing the performer what was not far from the truth, that
his speech was an evidence not of skill, but of male-
volence, and the latter, perhaps conscious that he had
now struck a blow which would never be forgiven, left
the room repeating as he went out a verse from the
Iliad, which seems to be an allusion to the death of
Clitus, and an intimation that he expected to be made
the second victim to his sovereign's temper 2 .
A victim he was destined to be, although not in
the way in which he appears to have expected. A
practice had been introduced by Philip, similar to that
which prevailed in the courts of the feudal sovereigns
in the Middle Ages, that the sons of the principal no-
bles should be brought up at court in attendance on
the person of the king. Of these pages, esquires, or
grooms of the bed-chamber, (for their office appears to
have included all these duties 3 ), who attended on Alex-
ander, there was one named Hermolaus, a youth of
high spirit and generous disposition, who was much
attached to Callisthenes and took great pleasure in his
society and conversation. The philosopher appears to
have considered his mind as a fit depository for the
manly principles of Grecian liberty, which the tenets
of Anaxarchus and the corrupt example of the monarch
2 KCtT0ai/e KCII OaTpoKAo?, oirep ceo troXXov a/ue'ji/a>i/. Plutarch,
Fit. 54.
3 Arrhian, iv. c. 13.
80 HIS RHETORICAL COMMONPLACES.
threatened utterly to extinguish, and, in the inculca-
tion of these, to have made use of language and of
illustrations, which considering the circumstances of
the case were certainly dangerous, although in refer-
ence to the then prevailing tone of morality we shall
scarcely he justified in censuring them. Harmodius and
Aristogiton having with the sacrifice of their own lives
been fortunate enough to bring about the freedom of
their country, had been canonized as political saints,
and were held up to all the youth of the free states of
Greece for admiration and imitation; and Callisthenes
can hardly deserve especial blame for participating in
this general idolatry, or for representing the glory of a
tyrannicide as surpassing that of a tyrant, however bril-
liant the fortunes of the latter might be. Neither can
we at all wonder that he should delight in depreciating
the "pride, pomp and circumstance" of greatness in
comparison with dignity of character and manly energy,
and in exposing the impotence of externals to avert
any of "the ills to which flesh is heir." Such con-
siderations have been in all ages and ever will be the
staple both of Philosophy and of the sciolism which is
its counterfeit, and the necessity for dwelling upon
them might to Callisthenes appear the greater in order
to counterbalance the habits of feeling which Persian
manners and sophistry like that of Anaxarchus were
calculated to spread among the Macedonian youth. He
is said indeed to have continually professed that the
only motive which induced him to accompany Alex-
ander into Asia was that he might be the means of
restoring his countrymen to their father-land, as true
Greeks as they went out, uncorrupted by the manners
or the luxury of the Barbarians 1 , and he seems un-
* l Plutarch, Fit. 53.
CONSPIRACY OF THE PAGES. 81
questionably to have succeeded in putting a stop, at
least for a time, to the ceremony of the salaam, of all
Eastern customs the one most galling to Macedonian
pride 8 . In an evil day however to Callisthenes, it hap-
pened, that Hermolaus was out boar-hunting with Alex-
ander, when the animal charged directly towards the king.
The page, influenced probably more by the ardour of
the chase, and his own youthful spirits, than by any just
apprehension for his sovereign's safety, struck the crea-
ture a mortal wound before it came up to him. Alex-
ander, the keenest of huntsmen, baulked of his ex-
pected sport, in the passion of the moment, ordered
Hermolaus to be flogged in the presence of his brother-
pages, and deprived him of his horse, (apparently the
sign of summarily degrading him from his employment.)
Such an insult to a Greek could only be washed out in
the blood of the aggressor, and Hermolaus found ready
sympathy among his compeers. It was agreed by them
that Alexander should be assassinated while asleep, and
the execution of the design was fixed for a night on which
Antipater, the son of Asclepiodorus, (whom Alexander
had made lord-lieutenant of Syria,) was to be the groom
in waiting. It so happened, that on that night Alex-
ander did not retire to bed at all, but sat at table
carousing until the very morning, whether by acci-
dent, or in consequence of the advice of a Syrian fe-
male, to whom in the character of a soothsayer he paid
great respect, is not agreed by the contemporary histo-
rians. But this circumstance, whatever was the cause
of it, saved the king and led to the detection of the
plot. The next day, Epimenes, one of the conspira-
2 Plutarch, Vit. 54. Compare Arrhian, iv. 14, where Hermo-
laus is said to have complained of TYJV Trpo^Kvutja-iv TVJV
Bt'ia'Ctv KCti ovirta
6
82 CALL1STHENES INCULPATED.
tors, mentioned the matter to an individual who was
strongly attached to him. This person communicated it
to Eurylochus, the brother of Epimenes, perhaps consider-
ing that his relationship was a sufficient guarantee for
secrecy. Eurylochus, however, at once laid an informa-
tion before Ptolemy the son of Lagus, subsequently the
first of the Greek dynasty in Egypt, and then one of the
guard of honour in attendance on Alexander. He re-
ported to the king the names of those who he had
been told were concerned in the affair : they were ar-
rested, and on being put to the torture confessed their
crime and gave up the names of others who were par-
ticipators 1 . So far all accounts agree as to the sub-
stantial facts of this story, but here a great discrepancy
commences. Ptolemy and Aristobulus 2 both asserted that
the pages named Callisthenes as the instigator of their
design. This however was denied by the majority of
contemporary writers on the subject, who related that
the ill will towards Callisthenes previously existing in
the mind of Alexander, combined with the intimacy that
subsisted between Hermolaus and the former, furnished
1 Arrhian, iv. 13, 14.
8 Aristobulus was one of Alexander's generals, and wrote an
account of his campaigns. He did not however commence this
work till his 84th year, (Lucian, De Macrob. 22) long enough
therefore after the transaction in question, to allow us to sup-
pose that by a slip of the memory he may have confused circum-
stantial with direct evidence. Moreover as there was no act
which made Alexander so unpopular as the execution of Callis-
thenes, (Quintus Curtius, De rebus gestis Alex. viii. c. 8), so there
was nothing which his biographers took so much pains to exte-
nuate. See Ste Croix, p. 360, seqq. Arrhian (iv. 14,^.) at the same
time that he speaks of the opportunities of knowledge possessed
by Ptolemy and Aristobulus, and of their general fidelity, yet
remarks that their accounts of the details of this affair differ from
one another.
PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 83
ample means to his enemies to raise a strong suspicion
against him 3 . They alleged, that to a question from
Hermolaus, " how a man might make himself the most
illustrious of his species"? he replied, " Bij slaying him
that is most illustrious": and that to incite the youth
to the rash act, he hade him "not be in awe of the
couch of gold, but remember that such a one often
holds a sick or a wounded man"; also, that when
Philotas had asked him whom the Athenians honoured
most of all men, he replied, " Harmodius and Aristo-
giton, the tyrannicides" and when the querist expressed
a doubt whether such a person would at the existing
time, find countenance and protection any where in
Greece, he replied, "that if every other city shut its
gates against him, he would certainly find a refuge in
Athens" and in support of this opinion quoted the in-
stance of the Heraclidae who there found protection
against the tyrant Eurystheus 4 . It requires hut little
penetration to see how, under circumstances of such
peculiar irritation, the words of Callisthenes might with
very little violence and with the greatest plausibility,
be interpreted in a treasonable sense, although they
were nothing more than Macedonian principles expressed
in a strong and antithetical manner. Indeed, the very
admixture of legendary history in the instance of the
sons of Hercules seems to betray the common places of
the rhetorician. And that this account of the matter,
to which Arrhian, following the majority of contempo-
rary accounts, inclines, is the true one, seems proved
3 Arrhian, loc. cit.
4 Plutarch, Vit. 55. Arrhian, iv. 10. This Philotas is not the
son of Parmenio, put to death together with his father on a
former occasion, but a page, the son of Carsis, a Thracian. See
Arrhian, iv. 13.
62
84 ARISTOTLE INCULPATED.
beyond all doubt by two letters of Alexander himself,
which are cited by Plutarch. In the former of these,
written immediately after the event to his general,
Craterus, he states, " that the pages on being put to
the torture confessed their own treason, but denied
that any one else was privy to the attempt." He
wrote to Attains and Alcetas to the same effect. But
afterwards in a letter to Antipater, he says, " the
pages have been stoned to death by the Macedonians ;
but as for the sophist I intend to punish him, and
those too who sent him out, and also the cities which
harbour conspirators against me." In the latter part
of this phrase, according to Plutarch, he alludes to
Aristotle, as being the great-uncle of Callisthenes, and
the person by whose advice he had joined the court. It
seems plain that in the interval between the writing of
these letters, Alexander's mind had been worked upon
by those whose interest it was to identify the cause of
manliness and virtue with that of disloyalty and trea-
son, by Anaxarchus and the crew of court sycophants
whose practice he sanctioned by his example, and
attempted to justify by his philosophy. The tide of
hatred however was setting too strong against Cal-
listhenes for him to stem it. He was placed under
confinement, and according to accounts which there is
too much reason to fear are true, cruelly mutilated.
It is said to have been Alexander's intention to bring
him to a trial in the presence of Aristotle on his re-
turn to Greece ; but the unfortunate man after remain-
ing in his deplorable situation for a considerable time,
died from the effects of ill treatment.
Whatever prejudices against his old master may
have been raised in the mind of Alexander on the
score of Callisthenes, and whatever ill consequences
DEATH OF ALEXANDER. 85
might perhaps have followed if the conqueror had lived
to revisit Europe, intoxicated with his military suc-
cesses, and hardened by the influence of those flat-
terers who after Callisthenes's death reigned supreme
at court, it is explicitly stated by Plutarch, that while
he lived his estrangement never led him to injure Aris-
totle in the slightest degree. Mortification therefore at
the degeneracy of his pupil, and sorrow at the loss of
an affection in which he doubtless took both pride
and pleasure, were the only evils which the latter
during his remaining days had to endure. But a few
years after the death of both, a story began to be
circulated which at last grew into a form in the highest
degree detrimental to his character. It is impossible
to doubt that Alexander died from the fever of the
country, caught immediately after indulgence in the
most extravagant excesses. At the moment no suspicion
to the contrary was entertained l . But some time after-
wards, the ambitious and intriguing Olympias, who had
long indulged a bitter hostility towards Antipater, (a
hostility which the successful establishment of the latter
in the government of Macedonia after her son's death
had inflamed into a fiendish hatred,) seized the oppor-
tunity which Alexander's rapid illness afforded to throw
the suspicion of poisoning him upon her enemy, whose
younger son lolaus had been his cupbearer. It was not
till the sixth year after the fatal event that this story
was set on foot; and it seems to have originated in
nothing] but Olympias's desire of vengeance, which
then first found a favourable vent. The bones of lo-
laus, who had died in the interim, were torn from
their grave, and a hundred Macedonians, selected from
among the most distinguished of Antipater's friends,
1 Plutarch, Vit. 77-
OO SAID TO HAVE BEEN POISONED.
barbarously butchered 1 . The accusation of poisoning
the king seems at first to have been vaguely set on
foot, the only circumstantial part of the story being
the point necessary to justify Olympias's malignity,
namely, that lolaus was the agent in administering the
poison. But in process of time the minutest details of
the transaction were supplied. We give them in the
last form which they assumed. The fears of Antipater,
it was said, arising from the growing irritation of
Alexander incessantly stimulated against him by Olym-
pias, induced him, on hearing that he was superseded
by Craterus and ordered into Asia with new levies,
to plot against his master's life. A fit means for
this purpose was pointed out to him by his friend
Aristotle, who dreaded the personal consequences to
himself which seemed likely to follow from Alexan-
der's anger against Callisthenes 2 . The nature of this
is quite in keeping with the other features of the nar-
rative. It was no other than the water of the river
Styx, which fell from a rock near the town of Nona-
cris in Arcadia, and which, according to a local su-
perstition which is not extinct to this day 3 , possessed
not only the property of destroying animal life by its
1 Diodorus, xix. 11. Plutarch, loc. cit.
2 Although Callisthenes had been put to death five years before,
i. e. in B.C. 328 ! See Clinton, F. H. ii. p. 376.
3 See Col. Leake's Travels in the Morea, vol. iii. pp. 165 9.
The natives say that the water which they call TU Mavpa-vepta (the
black waters) and ra ApctKo-vepta (the terrible waters) is unwhole-
some, and also that no vessel will hold it. It is a slender perennial
stream falling over a very high precipice, and entering the rock
at the bottom, which is said to be inaccessible from the nature of
the ground. Col. Leake quotes the phrases of Homer KaTi{3dfj.cvov
STuyo? v^xap and STUYO? i/Baro? aiTrd peeOpa as exact descriptions of it.
See also Herod, vi. 74. Hesiod, Theog. 785805.
ARISTOTLE INCULPATED. 87
cold and petrifying qualities (\l/v^pov mi Trcryera^es) but
also that of dissolving the hardest metals, and even
precious stones. One substance alone was proof against
its destructive influences, the hoof of a Scythian ass !
In a vessel made out of this, a small portion of the
fluid was conveyed by Cassander, lolaus's elder brother,
into Asia, and, on the occasion of the debauch at which
Alexander was taken ill, administered to him by the
latter. lolaus was stimulated to the act by the desire
of revenging an outrage upon himself by the king,
and attachment to him induced Medius, a Thessalian,
at whose palace the debauch took place, to be an ac-
complice in the treason. The assassin, according to
the author of the Lives of the Ten Orators falsely
attributed to Plutarch 4 , was rewarded by a proposition
of the demagogue Hyperides at Athens, to confer pub-
lic honours upon him as a tyrannicide, and the horn
cup in which the fatal draught had been conveyed from
Greece deposited in the temple of Delphi 5 .
4 p. 849, ed. Paris. The same is stated by Photius, Biblioth.
p. 496. 1. 3, Bekk.
6 Epig. ap. ^Elian. De Nat. Animal, x. 40. That it should have
been deposited there,, as the epigram states, by Alexander himself, is
a circumstance scarcely necessary to increase the incredibility of the
story.
An almost equally great confusion of times and circumstances
appears in Mr Landor's Imaginary Conversations, Vol. ii. pp. 495
530. Callisthenes himself is represented as exciting Aristotle's fears
for his own personal safety by describing Alexander's jealousy of
every thing great; and the dialogue between them ends as fol-
lows :
" ARISTOTELES. Now Callisthenes ! if Socrates and Anytus were
in the same chamber, if the wicked had mixed poison for the vir-
tuous, the active in evil for the active in good, and some divinity
had placed it in your power to present the cup to either, and touch-
88 IMPROBABILITY OF THE STORY.
The absurdity of this account is glaringly manifest
to readers of the present day, of whom nine out of
every ten are probably better acquainted with the nature
and operation of petrifying springs than the best in-
formed of the Greek naturalists were. The ancients
were not in possession of the touchstone for the dis-
covery of falsehood which modern science affords ; but
even they were long before they attached any credence
to the calumny. " The greater part of the writers on
the subject," says Plutarch 1 , " consider the whole matter
of the reputed poisoning a mere fiction, and in confirma-
tion of this view they quote the fact, that although the
royal remains lay for several days unembalmed, in con-
sequence of the disputes of the generals, and that too
in a hot and close place, they exhibited no marks of
corruption, but remained fresh and unchanged." Arrhian 3
too, who as well as Plutarch derives his account of the
king's illness and death from the court gazettes (etyrjue-
piSes), and confirms the statements of these by the narra-
tives of Ptolemy and Aristobulus, says of the charge of
ing your head, should say, ( This head also is devoted to the Eume-
nides if the choice be wrong/ what would you resolve ?
CALLISTHENES. To do that by command of the god which I
would likewise have done without it.
ARISTOTELES. Bearing in mind that a myriad of kings and
conquerors is not worth the myriadth part of a wise and virtuous
man, return, Callisthenes, to Babylon, and see that your duty be
performed."
Alexander did not enter Babylon until the spring of 324. B. c.,
consequently till four years after the death of Callisthenes. The
conspiracy of the pages, in which Callisthenes was, whether justly
or unjustly, mixed up, was detected while Alexander was in Bactra.
But before this conspiracy there is no reason to suppose that Alex-
ander entertained any coolness towards Aristotle.
1 Fit. Alex. ult.
2 vii. 27-
ITS GROWTH. 89
poisoning, which he afterwards mentions, that he has
alluded to it merely to show that he has heard of it,
not that he considers it to deserve any credence. In
fact, the sole source of the story in its details appears
to have heen one Hagnothemis (an individual of whom
nothing else is known), who is reported to have said that
he had heard it told by King Antigonus 3 . But its
piquancy was a strong recommendation to later writers,
and it is instructive and amusing to observe how their
statements of it increase in positiveness about in pro-
portion as they recede from the time in which the facts
of the case could be known. Diodorus Siculus and
Vitruvius, living in the time of the two first Caesars,
merely mention the rumour that Alexander's death was
occasioned by poison, through the agency of Antipater,
but do not pretend to assert its credibility. Quintus
Curtius, writing under Vespasian, considers the autho-
rities on that side to preponderate. The epitomizer of
a degenerate age, Justin, flourishing in the reign of
Antoninus Pius, slightly alludes to the intemperance
which he allows had been assigned as the cause of
Alexander's death, but adds that in fact he died from
treason, and the disgraceful truth was suppressed by the
influence of his successors. And finally Orosius, in
the fifth century, states broadly and briefly that he
died from poison administered by an attendant, with-
out so much as hinting that any different belief had
ever even partially obtained 4 . But it is remarkable
3 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. loc. cit.
4 Diodorus xvii. 117, Vitruvius viii. 3, Q. Curtius x. 10, Justin
xii. 14, Orosius iii. 20. It is possible that some readers may quote
Tacitus (An?ial. ii. 73), as opposing the view we have given in the
text of the gradual progression of credulity. But the exception is
only apparent. Tacitus does not give his own view, but merely
90 REVIVED BY CARACALLA.
that of all these writers, not one mixes up Aristotle's
name with the story ; and it is probable that the foolish
charge against him mentioned (and discountenanced)
by Plutarch and Arrhian, fell into discredit very soon
after it arose, and perhaps was only remembered as a
curious piece of scandalous history, until the half-lunatic
Caracalla thought proper to revive it, in order to gratify
at once the tyrant's natural hatred for wisdom and
virtue, and his own morbid passion for idolizing the
memory of Alexander. It is recorded of him that he
persecuted the Aristotelean sect of philosophers with
singular hatred, abolishing the social meetings of their
body which appear to have taken place in Alexandria,
confiscating certain funds which they possessed, and
even entertaining the design of destroying their master's
works, on no other ground than that Aristotle was
thought to have aided Antipater in destroying Alex-
ander 1 .
that of those who chose to draw a parallel between the circumstances
of Germanicus's life and those of Alexander ; for which purpose this
version of the death of the latter was necessary, and perhaps to this
i,t owed much of its subsequent popularity. With respect too to
the silence concerning Aristotle, it is to be remarked that the ex-
pressions of Pliny, magna Aristotelis infamid excogitatum, (H. N.
xxx. ult.), if they are genuine, do not imply a belief either on his
own part or that of people in general, that the Philosopher was
guilty of abetting Antipater. But they seem more likely to be a
marginal note implying that "the story of the poisoning by such
water was a figment that had done Aristotle's character much
harm."
1 Xiphilinus, Epilom. Dionis. pp. 329, 30. Caracalla wore arms
and used drinking cups which had belonged to Alexander, erected
a great number of statues to him both in Rome and at the several
military stations, and raised a phalanx of Macedonians, armed all
after the manner of five centuries back, which he named after the
Conqueror of the East. In his wish to destroy the philosopher's
ITS PROBABLE ORIGIN. 91
To attempt to account for the origin of so absurd
a charge as that we have been discussing may perhaps
appear rash. We cannot however resist the temptation of
hazarding a conjecture, that while the intimacy of Aris-
totle with Antipater undoubtedly furnished a favourable
soil for the growth of the story, the actual germ of it
is to be looked for at Delphi. The cup in the treasure
house there, which the epigram we have quoted above
represents as presented by Alexander, was probably of
onyx, a stone of which the coloured layers resembling
as they do the outer coats of a hoof, procured it the
name by which it goes. Now it is obvious that in the
time of which we are speaking, when the merchant
who sold the wares was for the most part himself a
traveller in distant countries, marvellous tales would be
related respecting the strange commodities which he
imported. The onyx might to the admiring Greek be
represented as the solid hoof of some strange animal,
with no less plausibility than in the fourteenth cen-
tury a cocoa nut could be sold as a griffin's egg, a
long univalve shell represented as the horn of a land
animal, or the ammonites of Malta regarded as ser-
pents changed into stone by St Paul 2 . And although
works (KO\ TCC f3ij3\'ia avrov KaraKav<rai edeXtjcrai) he had the pre-
cedent of Caligula. See above, p. 6. not.
2 Compare for instance the stories related by Herodotus, iii.
102 111, of the way in which gold dust and the various spices
brought from the East were procured. The account which he
gives of cinnamon is confirmed with a little variation in the de-
tails by Aristotle. Hist. Anim. ix. 13. p. 6l6. col. 1. Bekk. Theo-
phrastus (H. P. iv. 7, 8) represents various corals as plants growing
in the Indian Ocean. The madrepora muricata is termed by him
" stone thyme." The authority of Herodotus is no doubt some of
the travelling merchants who came by the caravans to Egypt, and
one of these probably furnished the egg, which Pausanias saw hang-
92 RELICS IN ANCIENT TEMPLES.
the more extensive communication with the East, which
commenced after Alexander's expedition, would in pro-
cess of time spread more correct views on the subject of
natural productions, the old legends would linger in
the temples, handed down traditionally by the atten-
dants, who showed the curiosities to strangers, and
were expected to be provided with a story for every
relic 1 . If any one of these ciceroni (efiryirrcu), aware
of the intimate friendship which subsisted between
Aristotle and Antipater, and also of the rumour that
Alexander had been poisoned through the agency of
the latter, had either chanced to stumble himself, or
to be directed by a more learned visitor to a passage
in a work of Theophrastus, (Aristotle's favourite scholar
and successor,) at that time extant, which stated " that
in Arcadia there was a streamlet of water dropping
from a rock, called the water of Styx, which those who
wished for, collected by means of sponges fastened to
the end of poles ; and that not only was it a mortal
ing up in the temple of Phoebe Leucippis at Sparta, and which he
was informed was the production (not of an ostrich, but) of Leda.
(iii. 16. 1.)
1 It has been remarked by Heeren that Herodotus's account
of the history of Egypt is derived entirely from local narrations
connected with public monuments. (Manual of ancient History,
pp. 52, 53. Eng. transl.). This remark admits of far wider appli-
cation. It would not be difficult to show that almost all the early
events recorded by that author rest on the same basis. For in-
stance the history of the Lydian Kings in the first book is obvi-
ously entirely made up of stories connected with offerings in the
temples of Apollo at Delphi and Miletus. This is plain from the
fact that every narrative at all circumstantial of any of these mo-
narchs, terminates with a reference to one of these temples. The
historians before him, with perhaps the exception of Hellanicus,
made use even of the topographical form in the composition of
their works.
ORIGIN LATER THAN ARISTOTLE. 93
poison to whoever drank it, but it possessed the pro-
perty of dissolving all vessels into which it was put,
except they were of horn 1 " he must have possessed much
less fancy, and a much greater regard for historical
accuracy than the rest of his countrymen, if he did not
upon the visit of the next pilgrim to the temple, ad 3. at
least a conjecture or two as to the connection which
the relic in question had with a story possessing so
much interest to all. It should not be forgotten, in
reference to that part of the account which represents
Aristotle as the discoverer of this peculiar property of
the ' Stygian water,' that Theophrastus is the earliest
authority for its possessing it, and that if Aristotle had
been aware that such a belief existed, we should hardly
fail to find it in the book Trepl Qavttatrkav aKovfffj.ara)v 9 in
the 121st Chapter of which there is an account of a
pestilential fountain in Thrace, the water of which was
said to be clear and sparkling, and to the eye like any
other, but fatal to all who drank of it.
1 Theophrastus ap. Antigonum Carystium, Hist. Mirab. 174.
Pausanias where he describes the water and its singular effects,
speaks of the story of Alexander having been destroyed by it as
one which he had heard, but not as if it had been told him at
the place. Beckmann (ad. Antig. Caryst. I. c.) supposes that a part
of the legend is due to the fact that the water contained in solu-
tion a volatile acid, which exercised a corrosive effect upon metallic
cups.
CHAPTER VI.
DEATH OF ARISTOTLE.
WE must now return from the discussion of the
imputed share of Aristotle in the death of his illustrious
pupil, to the narrative of his own. He did not long
survive his departure from the city in which he had
spent so large a portion of his life. He retired to
Chalcis in the year of Cephisodorus's archonship (B. c.
323 322), and early in that of his successor Philocles,
died (as we are justified hy Apollodorus's authority in
stating positively 1 ), from disease- ^t nearly the same
time the greatest orator that the world ever saw, the
leader of that party whose influence had expelled Aris-
totle from Athens, was driven to have recourse to poison,
to escape a worse fate. /There are not wanting accounts
that the philosopher also met a violent death. That he
poisoned himself to avoid falling into the hands of his
accusers is the view of Suidas and of the anonymous
author of his Life 2 . But independently of the superior
authority of Apollodorus, and the evidence which Aris-
totle's own opinions, expressed in more than one place,
on the subject of suicide, afford in contradiction of this
story, the fact of Chalcis heing then under Macedonian
influence, and consequently a perfectly secure refuge for
1 Ap. Diog. Laert., and Dionys. Hal. Ep. Amm. p. 728.
2 They appear to follow one Eumelus, whom Diogenes, (Fit.
Arist. 6,) cites and contradicts. He related that Aristotle died by
drinking hemlock, at the age of 70, and had become a pupil of
Plato at that of SO. See above, p. 18.
VARIOUS ACCOUNTS. 95
any one persecuted for real or supposed participation in
Macedonian politics, is quite enough to induce us to
reject this story. A yet more absurd one is repeated by
some of the early Christian writers./ Mortification, ac-
cording to them, at being unable to discover the cause
of the Euripus ebbing and flowing seven times every
day, induced him to throw himself headlong into the
current^ Of this story it is scarcely necessary to say
more than that the phenomenon which produced such
fatal consequences to the philosopher does not really
j?xist*. The stream constantly sets through the narrow
channel between Eubcea and the mainland from north
to south, except when winds blowing very strongly in
an opposite direction, produce for a time the appearance
of a current from south to north. But instead of
wasting time upon the refutation of these foolish ac-
counts, we shall perhaps please our readers better by
bringing together a few circumstances which appear to
confirm the statement of Apollodorus, to which inde-
pendently of these, we should not be justified in refusing
belief.
Aulus Gellius 5 relates that Aristotle's scholars, when
their master had past his sixty-second year, and being in
a state of extremely bad health gave them but little
hopes that he would survive for any length of time,
8 Pseudo-Justin Martyr, Parcenet. ad Grcecos, p. 34, diet
7ro\\rjv cl%oiav a\ al<r^(yvt]v \VTrr}deis, ^ereff-rri TOV (3iov. Gregor.
Nazianz. Or at. i. in Julian, p. 123. Later writers go so far as to
put various sentiments into his mouth immediately before the per-
petration of this rash act. Elias Cretensis (Comm. in S. Greg.
Oral, iv.) attributes to him the words, Quoniam Aristoteles Euripum
non cepit, Aristotelem Euripus habeat.
4 Tanaquil Faber. Epp. Critic, i. Ep. xiv.
* Noct. Alt. xiii. 5.
96 A DISEASE THE REAL CAUSE.
entreated him to appoint some one of their body as
his successor, to keep their party together and preserve
the philosophical views which he had promulgated.
" There were at that time," says Gellius, " many dis-
tinguished men among his disciples, hut two preemi-
nently superior to the rest, Menedemus" (or, as some
suppose it should be written, Eudemus), " a Rhodian,
and Theophrastus, a native of Eresus, a town in the
island of Lesbos." Aristotle, perhaps unwilling that
his last moments should be disturbed by the heart-
burnings which a selection, however judicious, might
produce, contrived to avoid the invidious task, and at
the same time to convey his own sentiments on the
subject. He replied, that at the proper time he would
satisfy their wishes, and shortly afterwards when the
same persons who had made the request happened to
be present, he took occasion to complain that the wine
which he usually drank did not agree with him, and to
beg that they would look out for some sort which might
suit him better, ' for instance', said he, e some Lesbian
or Rhodian' ; two wines which, as is notorious, were
beyond almost any others celebrated in antiquity. When
a sample of each had been brought to him, he first
tasted the latter and praised it for its soundness and
agreeable flavour. Then trying the Lesbian, he seemed
for a time to doubt which he should choose, but at last
said, 'Both are admirable wines, but the Lesbian is
the pleasanter of the two' He never made any further
allusion to the matter of a successor, and the disciples
universally concluded that this observation relative to
the Rhodian and Lesbian vintages was meant as an
answer to their question, Theophrastus the Lesbian
being a man singularly distinguished for suavity both
of language and manners ; and accordingly on the death
PROBABLE NATURE OF THE DISEASE. 97
of Aristotle they unanimously acknowledged him as
the chosen successor. That this anecdote implies the
belief that a disease of some duration was the cause of
the philosopher's death is quite ohvious ; and there is
some ground for supposing that this disease was an
affection of the intestines, from which he had long
suffered. " This affection," says another ancient author 1 ,
" which he bore with the greatest fortitude, was of such
a nature that the wonder is that he contrived to prolong
his life to the extent of sixty-three years, not that he
died when he did." For complaints of this kind warm
fomentations of oil applied to the stomach were recom-
mended in the medical practice of antiquity 2 . Now
Lycon the Pythagorean 3 , a bitter calumniator of Aris-
totle, grounded a charge of inordinate luxury against
him, upon the assertion that he indulged himself in
the habit of taking baths of warm oil ; an assertion
which, if we should fail at once to recognize it as a
misrepresentation of the medical treatment alluded to,
will be unquestionably explained by the more accurate
description of another writer 4 , who obviously alludes
to the same circumstance.
Diogenes Laertius, as we have mentioned in an
earlier part of this essay, speaks of having seen Aris-
totle's will, and proceeds to give the substance of it 5 .
That this is not an abstract of the authentic document
1 Censorinus, De die natali, cited above, p. 23. not. 3.
2 Celsus. ii. 17? iii. ult.
3 Cited by Aristocles ap. Euseb. 1. c. He adds, that his avarice
induced him to sell the oil after this use had been made of it.
4 Diog. Laert. Fit. 16. He adds to Ly con's account, evtot
e ica\ ctffKiov defjiov \aiov eiriTiBcvai avrov Tta
5 Fit. Arist. 1216.
7
98 CODICIL TO HIS WILL.
is obvious, from the circumstance that no mention what-
ever is made in it of his literary property, which was
very considerable, and which we know from other sources
came to Theophrastus l . Neither however does there
appear to us any good grounds for suspicion that the
account of Diogenes is either a forgery or the copy of
a forgery. The whole document bears the stamp, in
our judgment, of a codicil to a previously existing will,
drawn up at a time when the testator was dangerously
ill, and had but little expectation of recovery. Thus,
at the very commencement, Antipater, the Regent of
Macedonia, is appointed the supreme arbiter and referee,
and four other persons besides Theophrastus, " if he be
willing and able,' 9 are directed to administer until Ni-
canor the son of Proxenus, to whom he gives his
orphan daughter in marriage, and the guardianship of
his orphan son Nicomachus, together with the whole
management of his property, shall take possession.
(e'ft>s av KCLTaXdfiri). Nicanor was apparently abroad on
some service of danger. If he escapes, he is directed
by the codicil to erect certain statues of four cubits
in height in Stagira, to Jupiter and Athene the Pre-
servers (A HioTrjpi /ecu 'AOrjva crcoTeipr}), in pursuance of
a vow which the testator had made on his account. If
anything should happen to Nicanor before his marriage,
or after his marriage before the birth of children, and
he should fail to leave instructions, Theophrastus is to
take the daughter, and stand for all purposes of ad-
ministration in the place of Nicanor. Should he decline
to do so, the four provisional trustees are to act at their
own discretion, guided by the advice, of Antipater,
Besides these arrangements, all which seem adopted to
1 Strabo, xiii. p. 124.
HIS REMAINING FAMILY. 99
meet a sudden emergency, such as that of a man dying,
away from the person in whom he puts the most con-
fidence, and in doubt whether the one whom he next
trusted would be able to act, we find legacies to more
than one individual which apparently imply a former
bequest 2 , and a trifling want of arrangement in the
latter part, quite characteristic of a document drawn
up under the circumstances we have supposed. Thus
he orders statues to be erected to Nicanor, and Nica-
nor's father and mother; also to Arimnestus (his own
brother), " that there might be a memorial of him, he
having died childless." A statue of Ceres, vowed by
his mother, is to be set up at Nemea or elsewhere.
Then, as if the mention of one domestic relation had
suggested another, he commands that wherever he
should be buried, the bones of his deceased wife
should be taken up and laid by his side according
to her desire; and after this he again reverts to the
subject of statues to be set up, and gives directions
for the fulfilment of the vow which he had made for
the safety of Nicanor.
Aristotle left behind him a daughter named after
her mother, Pythias. She is said to have been three
" A legacy is left to Herpyllis vrpos ro?<? trporepov
( 13), and one Simus is to have ^w/o? TOV irpoTepov dpyvpiov,
another slave, or money to buy one ( 15). The battle of Cranon
took place in August, B. c. 322 ; but it is very probable that it
could not be safely conjectured till a short time after what course
Greek politics would take. If now Theophrastus was in Athens,
and not with Aristotle at Chalcis, as seems far from improbable,
(see Diog. Laert. Fit. Theophrasti, 36), Aristotle might reasonably
fear that he perhaps would not be able to act as his executor. Thus
too when he directs a house and furniture to be provided for Her-
pyllis, he selects Chalcis and Stagira, both places where she would
be safe from Athenian hatred, for her to choose between as a re-
sidence ( 14).
72
100 HERPYLLIS.
times married, first to Nicanor the son of Aristotle's
guardian Proxenus and his own adopted child ; se-
condly to Procles, a descendant apparently son or
grandson of Demaratus King of Lacedaemon, by whom
she had two sons named Procles and Demaratus, scho-
lars of Theophrastus ; and thirdly to Metrodorus, an
eminent physician, to whom she bore a son named after
his maternal grandfather 1 . He also left behind him an
infant son, named after his paternal grandfather, Nico-
machus, by a female of the name of Herpyllis, of whom
it is very difficult exactly to say in what relation she
stood to him. To call her his mistress would imply a
licentious description of intercourse which the name by
which she is described (TraXXa/o/) by no means warrants
us in supposing, and which the character of Aristotle,
the absence of any allusion to such a circumstance in
the numerous calumnies which were heaped upon him,
and the terms of respect in which she is spoken of in
his will 2 , would equally incline us to discredit. It seems
most probable that he was married to her by that kind
of left-handed marriage which alone the laws of Greece
and Rome permitted between persons who were not
both citizens of the same state. The Latin technical
term for the female in this relation was concubina. She
was recognized by the law, and her children could in-
herit the sixth part of their father's property. Mark
Antony lived in this kind of concubinage with Cleo-
patra, and Titus with Berenice. The two Antonines,
men of characters the most opposite to licentiousness,
1 Stahr, Aristotelia, p. 164.
9 He provides amply for her, and enjoins his executors, if she
should desire to marry, to take care that she is not disposed of in
a way unworthy of him, reminding them that she has deserved well
of him (on (nrov^aia trepi e/*e eyei/ero). Diog. Laert. 1 3.
LEFT HANDED MARRIAGES. 101
were also instances of this practice, which indeed re-
mained for some time after Christianity became the re-
ligion of the state, and was regulated by two Christian
Emperors, Constantine and Justinian 3 . The Greek
term is not used so strictly in a technical sense, and
may be said to answer with equal propriety to either
of the Latin words pellex and concubina. Where
however the legal relation was denoted, there was no
other word selected in preference 4 ; and we may safely
say that this, in the case before us, is the probable in-
terpretation, although there is no positive authority
that it is the true one. The son of Nicomachus was
brought up by Theophrastus, and if we are to credit
Cicero's assertion that the Nicomachean Ethics which
3 Taylor, Elements of the Civil Law, p. 273. The terms Semi-
matrimonium and Conjugium incequale, were applied to this con-
nexion, which was entered into before witnesses (testatione inter-
posita), and with the consent of the father of the woman. Both
contracting parties too were obliged to be single. See Gibbon,
chap. 44. Vol. v. pp. 368370.
4 The author of the Oration against Nesera thus uses it in the
distinction which he draws (p. 1386), TCIS /xei/ yap eraipa* t/Soi/t/s
eveKct eyo/xei/, Tot? B Tree A \aca9 TJ/S xafl' tj/jiepav Bepctireia^ TOV <ra)juaT09
ra? Se 7ui/a?Ka? TOV 7raj2o7roieT(r0at yvr]<ri(i}S K.OLI Ttov evcov (f)v\a.K.a
TTt<rrtjv e^ei!/. It must not be concealed that Athenaeus, p. 589, (and
perhaps Hermippus whom he quotes), called Herpyllis by the
term erdipa. But possibly the word eVa'tjoa was used by him in
that sense which Athenaeus (p. 571. C.) speaks of. And even if
Herpyllis had been originally an adventurer of the same description
as Aspasia, we shall not necessarily think the worse of Pericles
for his connection with the latter, or Aristotle for his with the former,
when we consider that every thing which elevates marriage above
a faithful intercourse of this kind is due to the religious sanction and
the religious meaning which it derives from Christianity. In Pa-
ganism the superiority of the one to the other was purely legal and
conventional. The wife was the housekeeper and the breeder of
citizens, and nothing whatever more.
102 NICOMACHUS.
are found among Aristotle's works, were by some attri-
buted to him, must have profited much by his master's
instructions. It seems however more likely that Aris-
tocles's account of him is the correct one, who relates
that he was killed in battle at a very early age 1 .
1 Aristocles ap. Eitseb. 1. c. Cicero, De Finibus v. 5.
CHAPTER VII.
REPUTED BURIAL OF ARISTOTLE'S WRITINGS.
THE works of Aristotle are said to have met with
a most singular mischance. They are related to have
been buried some time after his death, and not to
have been recovered till two hundred years afterwards.
This story is so curious in itself, and of such vital
importance in the History of Philosophy, that we shall
make no apology for investigating it thoroughly, in
spite of the tediousness which a minute examination
of details necessarily brings with it.
The main authority for the opinion is Strabo in
a passage of his Geographical Work, where having
occasion to speak of Scepsis, a town in the Troad, he
mentions two or three persons of eminence who were
born there. One of these is Neleus, the son of Co-
riscus, a person who was a scholar both of Aristotle
and Theophrastus, and who succeeded to the library
of the latter in which was contained that of the former
also. "For Aristotle 2 ," Strabo goes on to say, "made
2 Geogr. xiii. p. 124. We have translated the whole of this
celebrated passage as it stands in the text of all the printed
editions. But besides the words TO. re 'Apto-ToreXou? KOI ret 6eo-
(f>pd<TTov fli(3\ia, which we look upon as a marginal note that has
crept into the text, there appears to us to be unquestionably a
corruption in the latter part. In default of the authority of MSS.
a conjecture can only be received with great caution : but still we
should be inclined to think that immediately after the word 7rpo<r-
\df3eTo should come KU\ /3t/3\io7ra>\ai r/e9 'AXefai/Speia, and
that after ftift\ioQnK^ probably followed something like KCU -nap
tu7rop7<rac TWV dvTiypd<buv ek pevov
104 STRABO'S ACCOUNT.
"over his own library to Theophrastus, (to whom he
"also left his school), and was the first that I know
" of, who collected books and taught the kings in Egypt
"to form a library. Theophrastus made them over to
"Neleus; he took them over to Scepsis and made
" them over to his heirs (rots /uer' aJroV), uneducated
"men, who let the books remain locked up without
"any care. When however they observed the pains
"which the kings of the Attalic dynasty, (in whose
" dominions the town was) were at in getting books to
"furnish the library at Pergamus, they buried them
" under ground in a sort of cellar. A long time after,
"when they had received much injury from damp and
"worms, the representatives of the family sold"them to
"Apellicon of Teos, the books both of Aristotle and
"of Theophrastus, for a very large sum. Apellicon
" was more of a book-collector than a philosopher ; and
"the result was that in an attempt to supply the gaps
" when he transcribed the text into new copies, he filled
"them up the reverse of well, and sent the books a-
" broad full of mistakes. And of the Peripatetic phi-
" losophers, the more ancient who immediately succeeded
" Theophrastus, as in fact they had no books at all,
"except a very few, and those chiefly of the exoteric
"class, were unable to philosophize systematically, but
KCU dveypa\l/ TOUS vvv (pepopevovs Tru/ciKd?. Plutarch, ( Vit. Syll. C. 26,)
from whom we have taken these words, unquestionably follows
Strabo in the account of which he gives of this affair. He cites him
by name almost immediately afterwards, as is remarked by Schnei-
der (Prcef. ad Aristot. H. A. p. LXXX.) It was however scarcely
the Geography, but the Historical Memoirs of Strabo, which was his
authority through the Life of Sylla. Hence the slight divarication
of the two narratives ; in the topographical work the circumstances
of the story which are most connected with Scepsis are principally
dwelt upon ; in the other those connected with Sylla.
PLUTARCH'S ACCOUNT. 105
" were obliged to elaborate rhetorical disquisitions (/m^ev
6i eyew <pL\oao<pl.v Trpay/uLariKMs a\\d 9e<rei$ XrjKvOi^eiv)
" while their successors after the time when these books
" came out, speculated better and more in Aristotle's
"spirit than they, although they too were forced to
"explain most of his views by guess work (ret TroXXa
" eiKOTct \eyeiv} from the multitude of errors. And to
"this inconvenience Rome contributed a large share.
"For immediately after the death of Apellicon, Sylla
" having taken Athens, seized upon the library of Apel-
" licon : and after it had been brought here, Tyrannio
" the grammarian, who was an admirer of Aristotle, had
" the handling of it (^e^e^/o-aro) l by the favour of the
" superintendant of the library ; and [so had] some
"booksellers, who employed wretched transcribers, and
"neglected to verify the correctness of the copies, an
" evil which occurs in the case of all other authors too
" when copied for sale, both here and in Alexandria."
Plutarch in his Biography of Sylla 2 , confirms a part
of this account, and adds a feature or two which is
wanting here. His authority is obviously Strabo him-
self in another work now lost, and he is therefore not
to be reckoned as an additional witness, but as the
representative of the one last summoned, again re-
called to explain some parts of his own testimony.
From him we learn that Sylla carried the library of
Apellicon containing the greater part of the books of
Aristotle and Theophrastus, with which up to that time
most people had no accurate acquaintance 3 , to Rome.
"There," he continues, "it is said, Tyrannio the gram-
1 In the parallel narrative of Plutarch, the term
is used.
3 Vit. Syll. 26.
3 OVTTU) Tore <ra<p<a<; jvwpi^o/jLfvct TO
106 GENERAL BELIEF OF THE STORY.
"marian arranged (evaKtvdaavQai) the principal part of
" them, and Andronicus the Rhodian, ohtaining copies
"from him, published them and drew up the syllabuses
" (TrivaKos) which are now current." He confirms the ac-
count of Straho that the early Peripatetics had neither
a wide nor an accurate acquaintance with the works
of Aristotle and Theophrastus, from the circumstance
of the property of Neleus, to whom Theophrastus be-
queathed his books, falling into the hands of illiterate
and indifferent persons; but of the story of burying
the books he says nothing, nor yet of the endeavours
of Apellicon to repair the damaged manuscripts.
Our readers have here the whole authority 1 which
is to be found in the writers of antiquity for this
celebrated story, which has been transmitted from one
mouth to another in modern times without the least
question of its truth until very lately. And not only
has it been accepted as a satisfactory reason for an
extraordinary and most important fact, the decay of
philosophy for the two centuries preceding the time of
Cicero, but editors and commentators of the works of
Aristotle have resorted to it without scruple for a so-
lution of all the difficulties which they might encoun-
ter. They have allowed themselves the most arbitrary
transpositions of the several parts of the same work,
and acknowledged no limit to the number or magnitude
of gaps which might be assumed as due to the damp
and worms of the cellar at Scepsis 2 . Of late years
however, as the critical study of the Greek language
1 The account of Suidas (V. SuAXa?) is obviously extracted
from the passage in Plutarch.
2 Thus Antonius Scainus interpolated the seventh and eighth
books of the Politics between the third and fourth. Conringe,
who followed him, made up for a scrupulous abstinence from this
course by indulging himself freely in hypothesized lacunccy to
THE STORY EXAMINED. 107
has increased, and the attention of scholars been more
drawn towards the philosophical department of anti-
quity, the inadequacy of this story to account for the
state in which Aristotle's writings have come down to
us has become more and more apparent; notices have
been found which were quite incompatible with it;
and at the present time it may safely be said that the
falsity of the account in the main is completely proved.
We will endeavour to give our readers some idea of
the laborious researches which have led to this result.
They have been carried on chiefly, if not entirely, by
German philologers, the pioneers in this as in almost
every other uncleared region of antiquity' 5 . But we
must first call their attention to other circumstances
which would, antecedently to the investigations of
of which we speak, dispose us to look with some sus-
picion on the tale unless very considerably qualified.
The work of Athenseus to which we are indebted
for so much fragmentary information on matters of
antiquity, is cast in a form which had particular at-
tractions for the readers of the time in which the
author live/d, the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and
Commodus. A wealthy Roman is represented as hos-
such an extent that Goettling somewhat facetiously observes "as-
teriscis suis interpositis noctem Aristoteliam quasi stellis illustrare
sategit." Prcef. ad Arist. Polit. p. vi.
3 Brandis, Ueber die Schicksale der Aristotelischen Buecher, und
einige Kriterien ihrer Aechtheit, in Niebuhr's Rheinisches Museum.
vol. i. Kopp, Nachtrag zur Brandisischen Untersuchung &c. in
the same work. vol. iii. Fabricius (Biblioth. Grceca. iii. c. 5)
mentions a French author who in a work entitled Les amenites
de la Critique, published at Paris in 1717? impugns the story
of Strabo. Of the two German writers the former has contributed
by far the more important investigations of this subject. Stahr,
Aristotelia, Zweiter Theil, has availed himself of both, but has
added little of his own.
*" \lp\-
108 ATHEN^EUS'S ACCOUNT.
pitably entertaining several persons eminent for their
acquaintance with literature and philosophy, and the
most curious notices imaginable from a multitude of
writers, and upon all subjects, are woven ingeniously
into the conversation of the guests. Nearly in the
beginning of the work, the author, who himself is
one of them, enlarges on the splendid munificence, the
literary taste, and the accomplishments of the host.
Among other things he praises the extent and value
of his library. " It was of such a size," he says, " as
" to exceed those of all who had gained a reputation
" as book collectors, Polycrates the Samian, Pisistra-
" tus the tyrant of Athens, Euclid, (also an Athenian,)
" Nicocrates of Cyprus, aye, the kings of Pergamus too,
" and Euripides the poet, and Aristotle the philosopher,
" [and Theophrastus,] and Neleus who had (^aT^^o-ai/ra)
" the books of these, from whom king Ptolemy my
" countryman, surnamed PhiladelphusT^ow^/ the whole,
u and carried them away together with those he got
" from Athens and those from Rhodes, to the fair city
" of Alexandria 1 ." It is obvious that the author here
follows an account very different from Strabo's, one
which represented Neleus's library including the costly
collections of Aristotle and Theophrastus 2 as forming,
together with some others, the basis of the famous
collection at Alexandria. Now it is utterly incon-
ceivable that if Ptolemy bought the whole library of
Neleus, he should have been satisfied to leave the
works of Aristotle and Theophrastus only behind in
the hands of men so ignorant of their value and care-
less of what became of them, as Neleus's heirs are repre-
1 Athenaei Epitome, p. 3.
2 The words KCU Qeo<f>pa<rTov are inserted by conjecture. But
the MSS. all have rd TOVTWV SiaTtjptja-avTa fiif3\ia.
SILENCE OF THE ANECDOTE-COLLECTORS. 109
sented to have been, if no other copies of these works
existed; and even supposing it possible that he should
have done so, would not so singular an incident of
literary history have been mentioned by some author
of antiquity? Should we not find some record of it
in Cicero, from whom we learn so much of the his-
tory of Greek philosophy? He even mentions the
degeneracy of the Peripatetic school after Theophrastus
in strong terms 3 : is it conceivable that if it had been
really attributable to the want of their founders' works,
he should either not have heard of this, or should not
think it worth mentioning? Could such a story have
escaped the anecdote-collectors under the Empire,
jElian, Phavorinus, and a host of others? Would
Diogenes Laertius, who relates how many cooking uten-
sils Aristotle passed at the Euboean custom-house, have
neglected so interesting an anecdote as this? Such
considerations combined with the notice in Athenaeus
must prevent an impartial judge from attaching more
than a very small degree of credit to that part of Strabo's
narrative which denies the publication of the works of
Aristotle to any considerable extent before the time
of Sylla. And this scepticism will not be diminished
when we consider, that the greater part of Aristotle's
works are so closely connected with each other that
if any were published, all or nearly all must have
been so. He continually refers from the one to the
other for investigations which are necessary to the argu-
3 De Finibus, v. 5. Simus igitur content! his p. e. Aristotele
et Theophrasto] Namque horum posteri, meliores illi quidem med
sententid quam reliquarum philosophi disciplinarum ; sed ita de-
generarunt, ut ipsi ex se nati esse videantur. It is strange that
the words in italics should not have opened the eyes of men to
look for a general cause of a general deterioration. Could they
suppose that all the schools had lost all their books ?
110 DIFFICULTY OF THE QUESTION.
merit which he has in hand. And although these re-
ferences may he, and prohably often are, due to a
later hand, still this objection cannot be made in all
cases ; in those for instance where the special work
referred to is not named, but described in such a way
that it is impossible not to identify it 1 .
But after all, these arguments are little else than
negative, and although they lead to a probability of a
very high order against the truth of Strabo's narrative,
they are not absolutely conclusive. In fact the work
of disproof is a most difficult one, from the circum-
stance of the whole of the literature of the two centu-
ries after Theophrastus, enormous as its extent was,
having been swept away, except such scanty fragments
as are found here and there imbedded in the work of
some grammarian or compiler. This will be strikingly
evident from the consideration, that if the works of
Aristotle which have come down to us had been lost,
and a similar story had been related of Plato's works
to that which we read in Strabo respecting those of
Aristotle and Theophrastus, its refutation would be
quite as difficult as that of the one about which we
are at present concerned. But the difficulty of the
problem did not damp the ardour of the German
scholars we have spoken of above. They have rum-
maged the voluminous works of the commentators upon
1 Hitter, (Geschichte der Philosophic, vol. iii. p. 35.) gives a
list of the passages in which the philosopher alludes to his own
writings. Against many of them the objection we have noticed
may be made. A more conclusive one is Poetic, p. 1454. col. 2.
lin. 18. (quoted by Stahr. Aristotelia, ii. p. 296) from which it
is certain than an Ethics not however necessarily the Nicoma-
chean, was published at the time the passage was written. But
unfortunately, (supposing the work alluded to really to be the Nico-
machean Ethics,) there is perhaps no one of Aristotle's writings
so independent of all the rest.
REVIVAL OF PHILOSOPHY. Ill
Aristotle which the learned eclecticism of the third, fourth
and fifth centuries of the Christian era produced, some
of them still only existing in manuscript 2 , with indefati-
gable diligence, and have detected in the works of much
more modern scholiasts extracts from their predecessors,
which prove to demonstration that the notice in Athe-
nseus in all probability true, and that certainly so much
of Strabo's account as is incompatible with it, is false.
We have seen that, according to the authorities on
which the story rests, a very considerable impulse was
given in the first century before the Christian era to
the study of the Peripatetic philosophy. Andronicus
the Rhodian is mentioned as the principal promoter of
this revival, having re-arranged the works of Aristotle
in a way which was generally received in the time of
Strabo, and which formed the basis of the present di-
vision. Contemporary with Andronicus, although younger
than him, was Athenodorus of Tarsus; and in the next
3 The Royal Academy of Berlin were induced by the advice of
Schleiermacher to publish a complete edition of Aristotle's works,
based upon the collation of as many manuscripts as could be made
available for the purpose. The execution of this work was placed
under the superintendance of two most distinguished men, the
one, Immanuel Bekker, the celebrated .editor of Plato, Thucydides,
and the Greek Orators, a scholar whose piercing intuition into the
genius of the Greek language can only be compared to that of
Newton into the laws of the Universe, or that of Niebuhr into
the institutions of Antiquity; the other, Christian Brandis, the
friend of Niebuhr and guardian of his orphan children. The
former fulfilled his portion of the task in 1831, by publishing
the text of Aristotle's works, from the collation of more than a
hundred manuscripts, in two quarto volumes. The latter, on whom
the task of collecting and arranging the Greek Commentators, and
of elucidating the philosophy, devolved, published one volume of
these (some from hitherto unedited manuscripts) in 1836, and
promises in the preface a second, with prolegomena, as soon as
the pressure of bad health will allow.
112 ANDRONICUS BOETHUS ADRASTUS.
generation to Athenodorus, Boethus of Sidon, both ce-
lebrated for their acquaintance with the doctrines of
Aristotle, and for their investigations of the literary
questions connected with them. Now, although the
works of all these writers have perished 1 , they were
not lost until they had furnished materials to Adrastus
and Alexander of Aphrodisias in the second century,
and to the eclectic philosophers Ammonius Saccas, Por-
phyry, Ammonius the son of Hermias, Simplicius, and
David the Armenian in the third, fourth, and fifth ;
and of most of these considerable remains have come
down to the present time 2 , so that we are enabled,
with very great precision, to ascertain the views of " the
ancient commentators" (o\ TraXaioi e^^rcu) as Andron-
icus and his contemporaries are called by their more
modern followers, on several particulars, and among
others, on some having a direct bearing upon the
story of Strabo.
We find, for instance, that a point which occupied
much of the attention of "the ancients," was to de-
termine between the claims of rival works, bearing the
same name and upon the same subject, to be reputed
the genuine productions of Aristotle. Andronicus ques-
tioned the pretensions of the treatise wepl e^o^i/ems, and
those of the latter part of the Categories 3 . Adrastus
found two editions (if we may use the expression) of
the latter work, differing very considerably from each
other. The same is stated by him of the seventh
1 The Paraphrase of the Nicomachean Ethics which has come
down to us under the name of Andronicus's, is generally considered
to be of a later date.
* Adrastus, Trept Trjs TCt^eoK TWI/ 'AprroTeA.ovs ffvyypafjifjidrdaVf is
said still to exist in an Arabic version. Brandis, 1. c. p. 263.
3 Brandis, p. 241.
NO DOCUMENTS POSSESSED BY THEM. 113
Book of the Physical Lectures 4 . Cicero mentions it as
a question which could not he decided, as to whether
a work on Ethics (apparently that which has come
down to us under the title of f}0<*a NiKo/mx eia ) was writ-
ten hy Aristotle or by his son Nicomachus. And that
the only evidence on the one side or the other was
merely internal, is obvious from the remark in which
he expresses his inclination towards the latter opinion,
" that he does not see, why the style of the son should
not bear a close resemblance to that of the father 5 ."
Another question which occasioned considerable per-
plexity was the arrangement of the several works which
were held to be genuine. The present distribution is
entirely based upon an arrangement which goes no
further back than the time of Andronicus, and is en-
tirely different from the one or more which appear to
have prevailed before him. There are at this day three
known catalogues of the writings, the first is the one
given by Diogenes Laertius in his Life, the second,
that of the anonymous Greek Biographer, published by
Menage. These resemble one another very much, and
bear every appearance of having been derived, probably
however through secondary channels, from the same
source, which has been conjectured with great plausi-
bility to be Hermippus of Smyrna's work 6 of which we
have spoken in the early part of this essay. But it
is impossible to imagine a greater difference than is
found between these lists and the works which have
come down to us. The names are so completely un-
like, and there are so many reciprocal omissions, that
a scholar of the sixteenth century was able, with the
4 Brandis, 1. c.
5 De Fin. v. 5.
8 Brandis, p. 249 262. See above p. 2.
114 DIFFICULTY OF ARRANGING THE WORKS.
aid of a mortal antipathy to the Aristotelian philosophy,
to succeed in persuading himself that every thing which
has come down to us under the name of the great Sta-
girite, was, with very slight exceptions, spurious 1 . The
third catalogue is found only in Arahic, and is said to
correspond much more nearly with our own 2 . And in-
deed a great part of the difference between this and
the two former is explicable from the fact that the
same work is often referred to under more names than
one, not merely by subsequent commentators on Aris-
totle, but also by the philosopher himself 3 . But such
differences, independently of positive testimony, abun-
dantly show that many pieces which now form the
component parts of a larger treatise were not left by
the author in such an order, or at least, that no au-
thentic documents from which any given arrangement
could be decisively inferred, came to the knowledge of
Andronicus and his brethren. If they had, if, that
is, the manuscripts of Apellicon had been, as they are
represented, a genuine copy of all or most of Aristotle's
works, never till then known, the task of these critics
would have been a most easy one. There would have
been no occasion for discussions of the internal evidence
1 Patritius (Discussiones Peripatetics i. p. 16. sqq.) His only
exceptions were the Mechanics and the treatise on the doctrines
of Xenophanes, Zeno and Gorgias. Some years afterwards a yet
more extravagant opinion was propounded, that the present Greek
manuscripts of Aristotle were translations from the Arabic. Phi-
lippe Cattier (quoted by Harles on Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. vol. iii. p. 207),
mentions it as the belief of some.
3 Brandis, p. 262.
3 Brandis, p. 26l. Petiti (Observatt. Miscell. iv. 9) and Buhle
(Comment ationes Societatis Reg. Gottingensis, vol. xv. p. 57) quoted
by Brandis, give several instances of this identity : as also Brandis
himself (Diatribe de perditis Arist. librix De ideis ei De bono, p. 7).
ARISTOTLE'S IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS. 115
to determine between various readings of the text, dif-
ferent systems of arrangement, or contending claims as
to authorship. A simple reference to a primitive copy
would at once have settled all. And what shall we
say to the letter of Alexander to Aristotle, complain-
ing that he had published his acroamatic works and
thus put the world on a footing with his most highly
instructed pupils? It is of no avail to say that the
letter is not genuine: it very likely may not be so,
but it was extracted by Gellius from the book of the
very Andronicus whom this tale represents as the first
publisher of these writings, and therefore proves his
belief at any rate that some of them had been pub-
lished long before 4 .
This evidence seems to prove incontrovertibly that
the part of Strabo's and Plutarch's narrative which re-
lates to the extraordinary treasure first made available
by Andronicus, cannot be true. By another chain of
testimony equally elaborate, Brandis has shown that
many of the works of Aristotle of the highest and most
recondite character that we now possess, were actually
in the hands of the Peripatetic school, whose degeneracy
has been attributed to the loss of them. It is well known
that the successors of the great philosopher in several
instances composed works on the same subject (and
sometimes identical in title also), with existing treatises
of their founder 3 . For indeed the spirit of dogmatism,
which is often imputed to the Aristotelian philosophy by
persons who are only acquainted with the schoolmen's
4 Aulus Gellius, Noel. Alt. xx. 5.
6 Ammonius, Proem, ad Categor. ol yap
juoc Koi Oai/j'a^ KOI Qco<ppa<TTO<: Kara tyjXov TOV
s KCU 7Tp\ fp/jirive me KOI
82
116 HIS WORKS KNOWN TO THEJVI.
modifications of it in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
turies, is really so alien to it, that it would be difficult
to find in the history of civilization an example of a
more vigorous and healthy independence of thought, and
a greater ardour for investigation than is afforded by the
earlier disciples of the Lyceum 1 . Although the works
in question have long since been lost, Brandis has suc-
ceeded in eliciting from the notices which remain of
them in the Commentators we have referred to, very
many particulars, which show in some instances that the
author actually followed the course of the Aristotelian
parallel work, and in more that he made use of it. Under
the first of these two classes are brought, by decisive
arguments, the Physical Lectures and the first book
of the Former Analytics; and there is a considerable
probability that the second book of the Former Analytics
and thejifth of the Metaphysics may be added to these 2 .
Under the second we may number the Latter Analytics,
the Categories, perhaps the treatise irepl ep/uj/i/ei'as, the
1 Aristotle himself is especially noticed for having modified some
of his views which had been attacked by other philosophers, with
perfect readiness, and without attempting any vexatious resistance,
or exhibiting any annoyance : eW rtav 7rpo<r6ev auVo?? (besides Aris-
totle, Democritus and Chrysippus are spoken of), dpea-Kovruv ddopv-
/?OK /cat dStjKTtas KO\ /ue0' ijbovrjs a<pci<rdv. Plutarch, De virtute morali,
p. 448. This passage will serve to show how little Bacon's well-
known representation of him as one who " bore, like the Turk, no
brother near the throne," is founded on fact. But, in truth, the
great father of modern science imputed to Aristotle all the positive-
ness and dogmatism of the modern Aristotelians : his disgust at the
idolaters was extended to the object of their idolatry. Somewhat
similarly he confounds the practice of the later Peripatetics (pi &e<re^
XrjKvQityvTcs) with that of their founder. (Novum Organum, lib. i.
71-)
2 Brandis, pp. 266269, 28 J, 282.
KNOWN ALSO TO THE STOICS. 117
Topica, the treatises on the Heavens, on Generation
and Decay, on the Soul, and the Meteor ologica. Fur-
ther researches on the principle here indicated may very
probably add to the lists, but a very small part of either
would be sufficient to demonstrate, when we consider
that almost every one of these treatises would involve
the possession of some others in order to be itself intel-
ligible, that it was not the want of acroamatic works
that produced the decay of the Peripatetic school.
To make an objection to the inference which these
facts allow us to draw against the correctness of Strabo's
story on the ground that Theophrastus may possibly have
chosen to keep the works of Aristotle as well as his own,
in his private possession, and communicate the use of
them only to the more favoured of his scholars, would be
a most arbitrary proceeding ; as there is not the slightest
historical ground for such an hypothesis. But Brandis
has precluded even this step. He has shown that Chry-
sippus the Stoic (who in his dialectical work quoted by
Plutarch 4 , speaks in the highest terms of the cultivation
of that branch of science by the Academics down to
Polemo, and by the Peripatetics down to Strato inclusive),
in several of his particular doctrines had an especial
reference to the former treatment of the same by Aris-
totle, Eudemus, and Theophrastus 5 . His discussion of
the Idea of Time is entirely based upon that of Aris-
totle, and exhibits an unworthy endeavour to conceal
the similarity 6 . Nay, the ancient commentators of
3 Brandis, pp. 270, 272275.
4 De Stoic. Repugn, p. 1045, fin.
5 Brandis, pp. 246, 247-
6 To the passages illustrative of this position collected by Baguet,
De Chrysippi vita, doclrind, et reliquiis, pp. 170, 181, Brandis adds
Aristot. Phys. Ausc. iv. (1014).
118 KNOWN AT ALEXANDRIA.
highest reputation maintained that the whole of the
Stoics' Logical Science, on which they prided themselves
much, was nothing more than a following out of Aris-
totle's principles, and, in particular that their doctrine
of Contraries (ra evavna) was entirely derived from
Aristotle's hook on Opposites (-n-epl avrwn^evw^h
But it was not only to philosophers either of his
own or of rival sects that the works of Aristotle were
known at the time when they are reported to have
heen lying in the cellar at Scepsis. Aristophanes of
Byzantium, the celebrated grammarian of Alexandria
in the early part of the second century hefore Christ,
made an abridgement of his Zoological works 2 , and also
wrote commentaries apparently on these, or some other
of his works relating to Natural History 3 . But hefore
his time, Antigonus of Carystus under Ptolemy Euer-
getes (B. c. 247 222), in his Collection of Wonderful
Stories, quoted largely both from these and from the
works of Theophrastus on similar subjects. Kopp says,
that he used not only these, but also the work on
Foreign Customs, (fldp&apa vo/uniua,) and that the same
is probable both of Callimachus and Nicander 4 , and he
acutely remarks, that the reason that the works on the
Parts of Animals and the Generation of Animals are
not so often cited as the Natural History, is that the
latter furnished far more material for works that would
1 Simplicius ap. Brandis, p. 247, not 30.
8 TO. Trepi 0u<rews fco'wi/, Hierocles cited by Schneider, Prcef.
ad H. A. p. xviii.
3 Artemidorus Oneirocr. ii. c. 14. on which see Schneider. 1. c.
p. xix.
4 Rheinisches Museum, vol. iii. pp. 95 98- He also says that
Aratus in his Prognostics, made use of the Meteorological works
of Aristotle.
NATURE OF EXOTERIC WORKS. 119
possess a general interest, whereas the former necessarily
implied a certain knowledge of physiology in the reader.
But that they could not have remained unknown while
the last was published, is evident from the circum-
stance that in it the author frequently refers to them.
Nor were the writings which related to physical phe-
nomena the only ones which we are sure reached Alex-
andria. Andronicus related that in the great library
there were found forty books of Analytics and two of
Categories, professedly the work of Aristotle. Of the
former of these four only, of the latter one, in both
instances those which we have, were decided upon by
the ancient critics to be genuine 5 . Besides which the
Alexandrine writers who formed Canons of Classical
Poets, Historians, and Philosophers, included Aristotle
among the last, surely not on the strength either of
his mere reputation, or only of his exoteric works.
But what, after all, was the nature of these exoteric
writings ; for we are now obviously come to a point
at which the accurate determination of this question,
which the continuity of the narrative has hitherto pre-
vented, becomes necessary. We shall endeavour to be
as brief as possible in our answer.
If we apply to Aristotle himself for information,
we shall find nothing at all in his writings to confirm
the popular opinion of a division of his doctrines into
two classes, of which the one was communicated freely,
while the other was carefully reserved for those disci-
ples whose previously ascertained character and talents
were a security for their right appreciation of them.
Wherever the term exoteric occurs, it is with reference
to a distinction not of readers or hearers, but of ques-
5 Ammonias, Simplicius, and David the Armenian, cited by
Brandis, p. 250.
120 HIS OWN USE OF THE TEKM.
tions treated on. It signifies little or nothing more
than extrinsic, separate, or insulated. That facility of
comprehension as regards the main subject-matter was
not necessarily a characteristic of such works, appears
from a passage in the Metaphysics 1 , in which the writer
excuses himself from touching upon the doctrine of
Ideas (or Constituent Forms,) any more than the order
of his work demanded, assigning as a reason, that his
views on this particular were already matters of fa-
miliarity from the exoteric discourses. It is notorious
that this was one of the deepest and most difficult
questions of the ancient philosophy, being in fact the
point where the schools of the Academy and Lyceum
diverged, and, consequently, if any part of Aristotle's
views had been confined to a chosen few, if there had
been such a thing as an interior coterie, here would
have been proper matter to be reserved for them. Simi-
larly, in the Nicomachean Ethics*, he refers his readers
to the " the exoteric discourses" for an analysis of the
human mind. The law of subordination among the
parts of a composite whole, as, for instance, the law
of harmony in music, is another subject which he con-
siders as "rather proper for an exoteric investigation 3 ."
In "the exoteric discourses," he discussed the Philo-
sophy of Life, the relative importance of the several
elements which go to make up happiness, and the con-
ditions which the social relation imposes on a man 4 .
1 p. 1076. col. 1. 1. 28. TedpvXXrjTai jap TCI TroXXa KOI viro TCOV
e'fwTcpiKwi/ \ojtav. Metaph. xiii. init.
2 p. 1102. col. 1.1.26.
3 Politic, i. p. 1254. col. 1. 1. 33. KOI jap cv TOW /A;
o>/? 6<rTi Tie ap-ftf], olov dp^ovia^. dXXa TavTo. pev urwe e
4 Politic, p. 1323. col. 1. 1. 22. In a remarkable passage (Sat.
57 72.) the Stoic Persius sums up all the great questions
ERRONEOUS MODERN
And in the same he proposes that an examination of
the Idea of Time should be gone into 5 . Here then
we have ample evidence that the most abstruse sub-
jects, physical, metaphysical, and moral, were treated
of somehow or other in discourses bearing the name of
exoteric, a name to which modern usage has almost
indissolubly attached the notion of shallowness if not
of something like fraud also. Of any thing like Free-
masonry, any thing amounting to a severance of know-
ledge into two distinct spheres, the one. to be inhabited
by the vulgar, the other by choicer spirits, there is not
a vestige. If any acroamatic work by Aristotle has come
down to us, the Nicomachean Ethics is one. Yet in
it is nothing requiring such profundity of reflection or
sobriety of mind as would be demanded by the psy-
chological discussion in the exoteric work to which the
author refers. And as for the terms by which Plutarch
and Clement of Alexandria denote that class of works
which they place in contradistinction to the exoteric,
they are in part not used by Aristotle at all, and in
part used in a totally different sense 6 . The phrases by
with which the philosophy of his school engaged. The parts
printed in italics would all have been handled by Aristotle in the
exoteric discourses to which he in this passage refers,
causas cognoscite rerum;
Quid sumus ; et quidnam victuri gignimur ; or do
Quis datus ; aut metae quam mollis flexus, et unde;
QMS modus argento; quid fas optare ; quid asper
Utile nummus habet ; patriot, carisque propinquis
Quantum elargiri deceat ; quern te Deus esse
Jussit ; et humand qua parte locatus es in re.
It is apparently to this work of Aristotle that Cicero refers Acad.
ii. 42. De Fin. ii. 6. 13. iv. 18, 20, 26, and De Offic. iii. 8.
5 Phys. Auscult. p. 217. col. 2. 1. 31. Bekk.
6 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. C. 7- opposes TOV ijtiiKOV *a\ ITO\ITIKOV \oyov
to ai airopptjTai KCU fiaQvrepai Si8a<rKu\cu and describes these latter
122 ACROASES, A TECHNICAL PHRASE, LECTURES.
which he designates such works as appear to stand in
opposition to the exoteric are \6yoi eymicXuH, \oyoi Kara
(friXoa-ocfriav and /ue'0oos, and in such cases we are al-
ways directed to scientific treatises containing a system
of several parts methodically arranged and organically
cohering, such in short would be formed by the outline
of a continuous course of lectures on some main branch
of philosophy. And that the works included under the
name acroamatic or acroatic by the philosophers since
the time of Andronicus Rhodius, were of this descrip-
tion seems most probable, not only from the appearance
presented by those which have come down to us, but
from the fact that at the time when Greek philosophy
was first imported into Rome, the word aKpoaaeis had
become the technical term for such productions. Crates
Mallotes, who came to Rome on an embassy between
the second and third Punic war, is spoken of by Sue-
tonius in terms which seem to show that a similar
distinction to that which obtained in Aristotle's works,
prevailed also in his 1 .
as as ol ai/Soes iS/ws ctKpoajmaTtKa? KCU eTTOTTTtKCis Trpocrayopevovre^
OVK egetyepov ek TOUS 7roA\ou?. Clement. Stromm. V. p. 475, classes
Pythagoras, Plato, Epicurus, the Stoics, and Aristotle together as
philosophers who concealed a part of their opinions, (\eyovan Be
KCU ol 'Apio-ToreAoi/s, TO. pev ea-wrepiKCt eivai TWV crvyypaiJLiJiaTtav
avTtav, T-a e KOWO. re Ka\ egwTepiKa,) and says that as the Pythagoreans
have their aKouoyictTtKoV and fjiadrj^aTiKov, so the Peripatetics have
their ev%oov and 67rto-T//xoi/iKOi/. The terms aKpoa^ariKo^, eTroTrrt-
o<?, ewrepiKos and eVto-T^oi/iKo^ are never used by Aristotle, and
the word aVo'/j/otjTo? only in the ordinary classical sense. Even
the phrase efwre^tKo? is often applied by him not in reference to
to these discourses. For instance, TO?? eu>Qev \oyois (Polit. p. 1264,
! 39,) "with discussions foreign to the subject"; egtorepiKif ap%ri
(Id. p. 1272, 1. 19,) "external rule"; eguTepio ir'nT-rowi T-a?? ir\ei-
o-rat? TWV TTo'Xewi/, (Id. p. 12Q5, 1. 32,) " do not apply to the gene-
rality of states."
1 Suetonius, De cl. grammat. cap. 2, " plurimas acroases subinde
TWO CLASSES OF ARISTOTLE ? S WORKS. 123
If now we keep steadily in view this distinction
which it is plain that Aristotle himself made in his
discourses, the distinction between cyclical, methodical,
scientific productions, and insulated, independent essays,
we shall perceive at once from the nature of the case,
that without any premeditated design on the part of
the author, the former would only be appreciable by
genuine disciples, those who were able and willing to
afford a steady and continuous application to the de-
velopement of the whole, while the latter might be
understood by those who brought no previous know-
ledge with them, but merely attended to the matter
in hand 2 ; that the one required a severe and rigid
logic to preserve all parts of the system in due co-
herence, the other readily admitted of the aid which
the imagination affords to the elucidation of single
points, but which often becomes mischievous when they
are to be combined; that to the first the demonstra-
tive form of exposition would alone be appropriate,
to the second any one, narrative or dialogic or any
other, which might be most fit for placing the one
matter to be illustrated in a striking light. But we
must be very careful not to confuse these resulting
fecit, assidueque disseruit" There is obviously a distinction in-
tended between the dissertations which he continually delivered,
and the lectures which he gave from time to time.
2 An illustration may perhaps be useful in clearing up what we
apprehend to have been the real division. For the demonstration of
Pythagoras's celebrated Theorem,, (the 4?th Proposition of the first
Book of Euclid) the whole of the preceding part of the Book is
requisite. This then is an example of a Xoyos Kara QiXcxroQiav. But
in the particular case of an isosceles triangle, the property of the
square of the hypothenuse being equal to twice the square of one
side, may be directly shown to a person ignorant of geometry, as it
is by Socrates in Plato's dialogue Meno. This we conceive might
be described as a
124 CICERO'S IMITATION OF THE EXOTERIC
distinctions with the primitive one from which they
flowed, and still more not to suppose that they were
the cause of it; for we shall see presently that want
of attention to this caused in later writers first of all
inaccurate expressions as to the nature of this cele-
brated division and finally an utterly erroneous view
of it, and of the spirit in which it originated.
Cicero in two of his letters to Atticus 1 speaks of
having composed two works in the manner of Aris-
totle's exoteric ones. The points of comparison which
these two treatises (the De Finibus, and the De Re-
publicd) offer, consist in the dialogic form in which
they are written and the prefaces which serve to in-
troduce to the reader the dramatis persona who carry
on the discussion. The objections which some of these
propound to the view which it is the design of the
author to elucidate are turned into a means of bring-
ing it out in stronger and bolder relief. This mode
of treatment in the hands of a master obviously offers
many advantages. The dramatic interest keeps the at-
tention of the reader from flagging, and the peculiar
obstacles which the differences of individual tempera-
ment not unfrequently interpose to the reception of
any doctrine may be in this way most clearly set
1 Ad Attic, iv. 16. Hanc ego de Republica quam institui dispu-
tationem in African! personam et Phili et Laelii et Manilii contuli :
adjunxi adolescentes, Q. Tuberonem, P. Rutilium, duo Laelii generos,
Scaevolam, et Fannium. Itaque cogitabam, quoniam in singulis libris
utor procemiis, ut Aristoteles in iis, quos egwreptKovs vocat, aliquid
efficere ut non sine causa istum appellarem, &c Ad Attic, xiii.
19. Quae autera his temporibus scripsi, Aristoteleum morem habent;
in quo ita sermo inducitur ceterorum, ut penes ipsum sit principatus.
Ita confeci quinque libros vre/oj reXcoi/, &c. On the same principle he
had constructed his books De Oratore; (Epp. Attic, iv. 16; Epp. ad
Famil i. 9- 23.)
DIALOGUES OF ARISTOTLE. 125
forth and most easily removed. The dialogues of
Plato are an obvious example of this. But if we
consider the De Oratore, De Finibus, and De Re-
publicd of Cicero to represent with tolerable accuracy
the character of the Aristotelian dialogues, we see at
once a very considerable change. The genial produc-
tive power of the artist has given way to the systematic
reflection of the philosopher. The personages intro-
duced are not living and breathing men with all their
feelings, prejudices, and individual peculiarities, they
are mere puppets which speak the opinions entertained
by those whose name they bear. These opinions may
be fairly and lucidly stated, they may be backed by
all the pomp and power of rhetoric, as they are in
Cicero and as they probably were in Aristotle, but the
speakers have no life, the scene no reality, and in spite
of the pains taken by the author to prevent it by al-
lusions to particular times, places, and circumstances,
we rise from the perusal with our opinions more or
less modified, but with no more distinct recollection
of the parties by whom the discussion has been carried
on than if they had been distinguished by the letters
of the alphabet instead of the names of knpwn cha-
racters 2 . But what these productions have lost as
works of art, they have gained as works of science.
The distinct and explicit exposition of a principle
which prevents them from being the former, is a merit
in them as the latter. And as the dialogic form, even
* Bishop Berkeley's Hylas and Philonous, and Minute Philoso-
pher make no pretension to dramatic effect. The very names of the
collocutors indicate the principles which they profess. In our opin-
ion, Berkeley has acted wisely, but would have done better still to have
dropped the dialogic form. Harris's Three Treatises are an attempt
to come much nearer to the Platonic Dialogue, and in our judgment,
a signal failure.
126 THEIR STYLE.
where it fails in producing the dramatic impression
that we receive from Plato, admits to the fullest ex-
tent of all the assistance which rhetoric can afford, it
is not wonderful that it should have been selected by
Aristotle as an appropriate one for many or even most
of his exoteric treatises 1 .
Neither in those cases where he adopted this
form can we be surprized .that Aristotle should have
made use of a style, which however unfit for the pur-
poses of a rigidly scientific investigation, is not at all
inappropriate to compositions such as we have described.
A few relics (and unfortunately a very few,) have come
down to us of them ; about thirty lines in the original
Greek are quoted by Plutarch 2 from one of the most
celebrated, and Cicero has in a Latin dress preserved
two other small fragments 3 . The first of these is part
of a treatise which was either addressed to Eudemus,
Aristotle's disciple, or written on the occasion of his death,
and from the nature of the extract, no less than from
the name it bore, 4 seems to have treated upon the
1 Cicero, although he does not expressly say that the exoteric
works were all dialogues,, speak of them as if they were nearly co-
extensive. So too Ammonius (Introd. ad Categ. 2) divides the
regular treatises of Aristotle into two heads : TWV a-wTaj/jLaTiKwv vd
jueY vvTOTrpoGta-ira K.OLI aKpoa/jLariKO,' TCI Be StaXoyiKCt KOI e^tarepiKCt. But
Simplicius and Philoponus prevent us from construing their expression
too rigidly. The former says B<%7 Be Stgptjficvtftv O.VTOV TWV crvyypafj.-
JJLGITWV, er? Te Ta earre^tKa, oia TO. i<rTOpiKGt KO\ TCI SiaXoyiKct, KCLI O\OK
TGI ij.tj ctKpa^ aKpifleias (ppovTityvTa, at ek TCI aKpoa/jLaTiKa, &C. (ad
Phys. Auscult. init.) and the latter speaking of the exoteric writings,
says " among which are the Dialogues, of which Eudemus is one."
(ad Arist. De Anima, i. 138.)
2 De Consolat. ad. Apollon. p. 115. He also alludes to the same
work in his life of Dion, cap. 22.
3 De naturd Deorum, ii. 37- De Officiis, ii. 16.
' $ -rrepi ^u^ 9 '
SOME FRAGMENTS PRESERVED. 127
immortality of the soul, and the miserable condition of
man while imprisoned in the body, as compared with
that which preceded and will follow the present life.
Our existence on earth is regarded as a punishment in-
flicted upon us by the Gods, and in support of this
opinion an appeal is made to the experience of the
human race manifesting itself in proverbs and mytho-
logical tales to that effect. The dead are represented
as dwelling in a higher sphere of Being than the living,
and as dishonoured by any expressions or feelings on the
part of the latter which involve an opposite opinion.
The language in which these sentiments are embodied
is of proportionate dignity to the theme ; it is totally
unlike the dry and jejune style in which the works
which have come down to us are written ; on the con-
trary it is rather diffuse and ornamented, and fully
enables us to understand the expression of Cicero " Aris-
totle, with his golden flood of language 6 ," which judging
from his rigidly demonstrative works alone, we should
deem singularly inappropriate. One of the passages
preserved in Cicero is even more gorgeous and eloquent
than the one in Plutarch, and for the sake of the subject
we will endeavour to give some notion of its rhythm
and structure, although of course a translation twice
5 It is probably this treatise which is referred to in the Ni-
comachean Ethics, p. 1102. col. 1. 1. 26, and which was quoted by
Cicero in his dialogue Hortensius (ap. Augustin. c. Julian, vol. x.
p. 623. ed. Benedict.). The Fragment is given by Orelli in the
seventh volume of his edition of Cicero's works pp. 485 6.
6 Veniet, flumen orationis aureum fundens, Aristoteles. Acad.
Pr. ii. 38. In another passage Torquatus alleges that his adver-
sary is prepossessed against Epicurus, because his writings are
deficient in those "ornaments of style" which he finds in Plato,
Theophrastus and Aristotle. De Fin. i. 5. To the scientific works
this phrase is about as applicable as to the elements of Euclid.
128 THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.
removed from the original, can do this but very inade-
quately. The argument is the common one of Na-
tural Theology, the evidence which the wonders of the
Universe afford of the existence of an intelligent Crea-
tor. Aristotle's reasoning appears to be directed against
those who asserted that such an inference was the re-
sult of a traditional belief handed down from generation
to generation, and interpreting all phenomena into an
accordance with itself. He attempts by an illustration
to show that this is not the case, but that it proceeds
from the natural conviction of the human mind, un-
swayed by any particular bias, as soon as its attention
is roused to these objects. "Suppose there to exist,"
says he, "a race of beings, who had always inhabited
"a region in the heart of the earth, dwelling in fair
" and lordly mansions adorned by statues and pictures,
" and provided with all the appliances of luxury in which
" those whom the world envies, abound, but who never
"had visited the surface. Now, if these had heard by
"rumours and hearsay that there was a certain Divine
" Power, living and acting, and then at some time the
"jaws of the Earth were to open and allow them to
" quit their obscure dwelling-place and come forth into
" the region which we inhabit, then, when all at once
"they beheld Earth, Sea, and Sky, the enormous
" clouds, the mighty winds, when they gazed on the
" Sun, and perceived how vast, how beautiful it was,
"how potent in its operation, how by diffusing its
" light through the whole of the Heaven it was the
" cause of the day : and again, when night had veiled
" the earth in darkness, and they observed the whole
' firmament studded and lit up with stars, the moon
" with her varying phases, now increasing, now wan-
"ing, and all rising and setting and running on their
EXOTERIC WORKS THE MOST STUDIED. 129
"courses steadily and unvaryingly for an eternity of
"ages; surely, when they heheld all this, they would
"believe hoth that there were Gods, and that these
" mighty works were from their hand !" The passage
in the De Officiis appears rather to be a summary of
Aristotle's expressions in his own words than a trans-
lation like the above, but even there the reader will
easily recognize an oratorical structure quite unlike what
is to be found in any of the philosopher's works which
have come down to us.
From these few and meagre specimens of the ex-
oteric works of Aristotle, we may observe without any
difficulty that in every respect they were calculated in
a rhetorical and superficial age, such as that of the
successors of Theophrastus was, to supersede the others.
Literature became fashionable in high places. Philo-
sophers thronged to the courts of an Antigonus, a
Ptolemy, or an Attains, and exerted themselves in
making royal roads to knowledge for the sake of their
patrons. A general acquaintance with the doctrines of
the school to which they attached themselves was all
that these latter could pretend to, and the instructor
soon found out that very little more would be sufficient
for himself. Why should he bestow time and labour
on what would not be available to his purposes ?
Why should he trouble himself with thinking out the
results which he could find ready provided to his hand ?
Above all, why should he neglect works which supplied
food to his fancy and grace to his style, agreeably and
lucidly written, and generally acceptable in literary so-
ciety, for the dry and laborious systematic treatise whose
only merit was its rigidly logical connection. The very
discipline of the Lyceum, as we have shown in an earlier
part of this essay, contributed its share to the work of
9
130 CICERO'S KNOWLEDGE OF THEM.
deterioration, by producing an unconscious indifference
to the truth of opinions provided only they were plau-
sible and coherent; and the vanity of possessing a
multifarious knowledge lost the only check which could
have restrained it. The age of thought gave way to
an age of mere accumulation of learning, and in such a
one what could take any man to works like Aristotle's
scientific ones? In the time of Cicero a considerable
impulse had certainly been given to philosophy. Yet
how instructive is the story which he relates in the
introduction to his Topica. His friend Trebatius had
stumbled while looking over his library upon the Topica
of Aristotle, of which he had never heard, and on
learning from Cicero the nature of the work was seized
with a strong desire to read it. The obscurity of the
book repelled him, and an eminent rhetorician to whom
he applied for assistance told him that of those works
of Aristotle he knew nothing. " This I was by no
means surprized at," says Cicero, " that a rhetorician
should know nothing of a philosopher, of whom philoso-
phers themselves, with the exception of a very few, knew
nothing 1 ." And although Cicero deservedly prides him-
self upon being the introducer of Greek philosophy
among his countrymen, it is extremely questionable
whether, with the exception of those works which have
a direct application to oratory, his knowledge of Aris-
totle was not confined to the exoteric writings. It is
certainly these which he takes as his model and his
basis in his own philosophical treatises.
Where a writer's opinions are studied rather than
his principles and method, where readers do not take
1 Topica, i. 1. So too in a fragment (ap. Nonium, v. conten-
dere,) he says, " Magna etiam animi contentio adhibenda est expli-
cando Aristoteli."
APPARENT INCONSISTENCY OF ARISTOTLE. 131
the trouble to put themselves upon his standing ground,
to enter into his thoughts, and follow them out through
the ramifications of his system, there will often appear
a want of harmony between the results at which he
arrives. There is indeed a point from which all these
will appear in their true perspective, but this point is
on an eminence which demands both time and labour
to ascend. This want of agreement in his results was
imputed to Aristotle at an early period, certainly be-
fore the time of Cicero, who notes it and gives a partial
explanation of it. " On the subject of the Chief Good,"
says he, " there are two kinds of works, the one written
" in a popular manner, and termed by them exoteric, the
"other elaborated with greater care, (limatius] which
" they left in the form of notes, (quod in commentariis
" reliquerunt.) This makes them thought not always
" to say the same thing ; although in the upshot there
"is no discrepancy at all, in those at least whom I
"mentioned, [Aristotle and Theophrastus] neither do
"the two differ the one from the other 2 ." Here Cicero
only speaks of those works which the author kept by him
and continually made additions to, a class of writings
which did not form an important part of the scientific
ones 3 . But it is quite plain that the remark might be
2 De Finibus, v. 5.
8 Ammonius (Introd. ad. Arist. Categ. ) describes those writings
which he calls yVojui/^/xariKa, which answer to Cicero's commentarii,
as common-place books kept by Aristotle for his own use, some
of them devoted to one subject, some miscellaneous. Simplicius
says of them (Proleg. in Cat.} (We? Be TO. Vtyuty/*onjca M iraVrp
crirov%rj<; af<a elvai. He however does not seem to know much about
them himself, for he quotes Alexander of Aphrodisias as his autho-
rity. But all the ancient Commentators are agreed in making the
acroamatic works a separate class, and a more important than the
h ypomn e.matic.
92
132 INNER AND OUTER DOCTRINES.
extended to the whole of these latter ; in every one of
them might be found instances where Aristotle might
"appear not to say the same thing" as in his more
popular publications, but where at the same time " in
the upshot there would be no discrepancy at all." Now
here we have the fact which formed the basis of the
subsequent opinion that Aristotle had an inner and
an outer doctrine, an opinion which gathered strength
and distinctness as it passed from one hand to
another, and is in modern times repeated with a con-
fidence that would lead one to imagine it rested on the
explicit assertion of the author himself. But neither
in Strabo, Plutarch, nor Gellius is there any hint of
such a wilful suppression of sentiments on the part of
Aristotle 1 , although all three of these authors allude
to a division of his works into two classes adapted to
different mental qualifications in the readers. In Cle-
ment of Alexandria appears the first trace of any such
notion, and the expressions which he makes use of are
hardly sufficient to justify us in concluding that he had
at all a decided opinion on this score 2 . But it was a
suggestion which would not fail to be caught hold of
1 The word dir 6 p prjr a may seem opposed to this statement,
(Plut. Vit. Alex. 7) but it seems only intended to indicate those
writings which were not published; and which were kept secret
not because they contained peculiar doctrines, but from the same
reasons which prevent any man from showing a work yet growing
under his hands to any but his particular friends. One of these
works was the Rhetoric, as has been remarked by Niebuhr in a
note to the History of Rome, vol. i. p. 19. Eng. Trans.
2 Stromm. V. p. 4>7<5. After speaking of double doctrines of the
Pythagoreans, Plato, Epicurus and the Stoics, he adds, Aeyovo-t Be
KO\ 01 'Apt<rTOT\oi9 TO /U6i/ <r(aTpiKa clvat TUV ffvjypa/jiijidrfav airran/j
TO. Be Koivd T KO.\ egu)TpiKci, where the true reading would seem
to be ai/Tou instead of
GRADUAL GROWTH OF THE THEORY. 133
in an age singularly attached, as the declining Roman
empire was, to mystical orgies and secret associations.
Before Clement indeed, Lucian had taken advantage of
it for the purpose of a jest, where in his Sale of Philo-
sophers, he puts Aristotle up to auction as a double
man 3 . But obviously this is only a ludicrous version
of the fact that his works were of very different kinds,
stated, as it is not unlikely that even the Aristotelians of
that age would be fond of doing, in a paradoxical form.
Nay, even when we get down to the close of the fourth
century, to the rhetorician Themistius, a very great
allowance must be made for the conceits of his affected
style, before we can safely form our estimate of
his real sentiments. No one can dream of taking in
their literal sense such phrases as those of "Aristotle
shutting up and fortifying his meaning in a rampart
of obscure phraseology, to secure it from the ravages
of uninitiated marauders*" or " considering that know-
ledge was like food and drugs, one sort proper for the
healthy, another for the sicfr" and therefore " involving
his meaning in a wall of cloud, the doors of which two
guardians, Perspicuity and Obscurity, like the Homeric
Hours, stood ready to open to the initiated and close
upon the profane*" But after making all proper al-
lowance, there is no question that in the time of
Themistius the opinion of the double meaning of Aris-
3 Vol. iii. p. 112. Ed. Bipont.
4 Oral, xxiii. p. 294.
5 Oral. xxvi. p. 319. The allusion is to Iliad. V. 750, and
there are some others in the context, equally tasteless and strained,
to the marshalling of the Median army by Cyaxares (Herod, i. 103.)
and to the palace of Agbatana with its concentric sevenfold walls
(Herod, i. 98.)
134 ITS FINAL ESTABLISHMENT.
totle was widely received 1 . Ammonius, in the fifth
century, thinks it necessary to state, apparently in op-
position to the popular belief, " that the dialogues of
"Aristotle differ very much from the direct treatises
" (avTotrpovwircL) ; that in the latter, as addressing his
" discourse to genuine students, he not only delivers
"his real opinions, but employs the severest methods,
" such as people in general cannot follow ; while in the
" latter, as they are written for general use, he delivers
" his real opinions too, but still employs methods not
"rigidly demonstrative but of such a kind that the
"ordinary run of people are able to follow them 2 ."
But his scholar Simplicius no longer swims against the
tide : he asserts that in the " acroamatic works Aristotle
"aimed at obscurity, in order through it to repel the
more indolent from him 3 ." The wit of the satirist and
the flourishes of the rhetorician were thus translated
into plain prose; and from this time forward the du-
plicity of Aristotle's doctrines may be considered as
reckoned among the most indisputable facts.
Having now thoroughly satisfied ourselves that the
narrative of Strabo requires much qualification, we may
enquire whether there is any part of it which is con-
sistent with what from other sources we know really
was the case. And there seems nothing to prevent
us from believing that Neleus's heirs really possessed
1 One great reason of this no doubt was the desire of recon-
ciling him with Plato, which is observable in Themistius, and was
by his time the great object of philosophers. See especially,
Oral. xx. pp. 235, 6. Utterly unable to ascend to the point which
would enable them to appreciate both, they endeavoured to esta-
blish a spurious agreement by the help of fictions like this.
- Ammonius, /. supr. c.
3 Ad Auscult. Physic, fol. 2, 6. 1. 22.
QUALIFICATION OF STRABO'S STORY. 135
some books which had belonged to Aristotle and Theo-
phrastus, that Apellicon purchased these, and that
they were brought by Sylla to Rome and there first
made known to people in general. But that these
were works of any great importance we have seen
could not be the case ; nor that the decay of the Pe-
ripatetic school was owing to the want of them. A
part of the story relates to matters of fact, for which
Strabo is a most respectable witness; a part to a mat-
ter of opinion, on which he is no authority whatever
beyond any competent person of the present day. The
one half is reconcileable with the fact that the princi-
pal acroamatic works of Aristotle were in the hands of
his successors, and in the Library at Alexandria, du-
ring the interval between Neleus and Apellicon. It is
in accordance also with the notice of Athenaeus that
Ptolemy carried the libraries of Aristotle and Theo-
phrastus to Alexandria, and likewise with various other
stories which having a less obvious bearing upon the
question, we have for the sake of perspicuity omitted
noticing before, but now present to the reader in a
note 4 . The other is inconsistent with these and many
4 1. Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions it as a prevalent opinion
that Demosthenes owed his skill in oratory to the study of Aristotle's
Rhetoric, and takes some trouble to prove by quotations in that
work from Demosthenes, that all his famous orations (the XII. Phi-
lippics, as they were called) were delivered before the treatise was
written. (Ep. i. ad Ammceum.)
II. Theophrastus corresponded with Eudemus concerning cer-
tain errors in the copies of the 5th Book of the Physical Lectures.
(Andronicus Rhodius ap. Simplicium, quoted by Brandis, p. 245.)
III. Valerius Maximus relates that Aristotle first of all gave
his Rhetoric to a favourite Scholar, Theodectes, and that it was
published under his name: but that his greediness for reputation
afterwards induced him to claim it for himself, by quoting from
it in another work as his own production, (viii. 14.)
136 CHARACTER OF APELLICON.
other facts and may be rejected without invalidating
the reputation of Straho either for veracity or accuracy
as regards matters which came within his scope, a re-
putation which we should be the last persons to desire
to destroy.
What then was the nature of these documents the
preservation of which was the foundation for so remark-
able a story? We can only guess an answer, but we
will nevertheless make the attempt.
Athenaeus 1 , quoting from the work of Posidonius
the historian, a contemporary of Pompey the Great,
gives a sketch of the character of Apellicon, which
seems to throw some light upon this question. A man
of vast wealth and of a restless disposition, and an
adopted citizen of Athens, he appears to have alter-
nately plunged himself into the turbulent politics of
his time, and cultivated literature in a spurious kind
of way. His taste for letters was a mere bibliomania,
and brought him into trouble. He purchased, while
the fit for philosophy was upon him, "the Peripatetic
" books and the library of Aristotle and a great many
" others, being a man of great property. Moreover he
" surreptitiously obtained possession of the ancient ori-
" ginal decrees of the Assembly, which were preserved
" at Athens in the temple of the Mother of the Gods,
" and from the other cities too he got hold of what-
" ever was ancient and curious." This theft obliged
him to save his life by flying the country; in the
troublous times however, which soon after succeeded,
he contrived to procure his recal by joining the party
of the demagogue Athenion. This individual had in-
duced his countrymen to take a part in the confederacy
1 Athenaeus, v. cap. 53. pp. 214 -5.
A COLLECTOR OF CURIOSITIES. 137
which Mithridates had organized against the power of
Rome. In an evil hour Apellicon quitted book-collect-
ing for military service. He took the command of an
expedition against Delos, which was occupied by Orbius
the Roman praetor; but displayed such utter ignorance
of the commonest duties of a commander that his ene-
my soon found an opportunity of attacking him una-
wares, destroyed or captured the whole of his troops,
and burnt all the machines which he had constructed
for storming the city. The unfortunate dilettante es-
caped with his life, but died, in what way is not known,
before Sylla stormed Athens and seized on the library
which had cost him so dear 2 . It seems almost certain
from this account of Apellicon, that it was the posses-
sion not of the works but of the autographs of them
which was the attraction to him. Can we then con-
ceive that it was the original autographs of Aristotle
and Theophrastus which he purchased from the repre-
sentatives of Neleus's family? Autographs of what
works ? Not of the exoteric : for these were so gene-
rally known that he would have had no difficulty in
filling up the gaps which the damp and worms had
produced in his copy. Nor of the systematic treatises;
for if the original manuscript of these had existed, An-
dronicus would have had no difficulty in determining
what was the production of Aristotle, and what not,
in the various cases where that question arose. Of
neither of these classes of writing then can we imagine
that the story of Strabo is to be understood But if
we suppose Aristotle to have left behind him, as every
literary man whose energies last to the end of his life
will do, collections on various subjects, rough draughts
2 Stahr, Aristotelia, ii. p. lip.
138 DRAUGHTS OF ARISTOTLE'S WORKS.
of future works, commonplace books some of a miscel-
laneous nature, some devoted to particular matters,
containing, it may be, extracts from other writers, re-
ferences to their opinions, germs of thoughts hereafter
to be worked out, lines of argument merely indicated;
it is very conceivable that these documents, so long as
a healthy and lively philosophical spirit existed in the
Peripatet^. school, would receive very little attention.
If they were too fragmentary and unsystematic for pub-
lication they would remain in the possession of Theo-
phrastus and Neleus 1 , too curious to destroy, too un-
finished to make any use of; and if the heirs of Neleus
were illiterate men, they would see nothing in them
but so many slovenly and disjointed scrawls, and not
dream of putting them among the sumptuous collec-
tion of books which they sold to King Ptolemy. But
in the time of Apellicon, the state of things was
changed. The relics of the founder of the school
would have acquired a sacred character, and unsaleable
as they might have been to Ptolemy, who appears to
have been a real lover of literature and not a mere
book-fancier, would fetch a good price with the pur-
chaser of stolen records. And it is not at all inconsis-
tent with this view, that a person whose acquaintance
with philosophy was of such a kind, should mistake
the nature of the documents he had got hold of,
" attempt to supply the gaps when he transcribed the
" text into new copies, fill these up the reverse of
1 Parts of some of them may very likely have been incorpo-
rated by Theophrastus, Strato, and others, in works of their own;
a proceeding which in those days would not have been considered
a plagiarism. Such too was doubtless the case with all mere col-
lections, such as the Problems and the book irep\ dav/jiaa-itov duov-
o-juaVwi/, which, as we have it now, probably contains additions
from several hands.
PROBABLE SPECIMENS OF THESE. 139
" well, and send the books out into the world full
" of mistakes 2 ."
Such is the theory which, it appears to us, will
reconcile the varying accounts respecting Aristotle's
writings, and while it sweeps away all that is adven-
titious in the statement of the Greek geographer,
will leave his testimony substantially unimpaired. And
this theory is in fact confirmed by the state in which
some of the works of Aristotle have come down to us.
For some of these are not merely books kept by the
author and continually worked at, like the Rhetoric, and
Theophrastus's History of Plants, nor are they mere
notes for lectures, a dry skeleton of the subject, complete
in themselves and only requiring the illustration and
developement which would be supplied by the extem-
poraneous efforts of the instructor. Neither of these
two descriptions will explain all the phenomena which
strike the reader in the Poetics and the Politics, as
these two treatises are found in our manuscripts. Neither
of them complete the discussion of the range of topics
which they promise, and it is impossible to receive as
a satisfactory explication of this fact that they are
only fragments of complete works of which the re-
mainder has been lost. This is quite incompatible with
what we find in them, namely redundancies, whole
paragraphs recast, and standing together with those for
which they seem meant as a substitute. Such appear-
ances are only to be understood on the supposition that
the work in which they occur was an interleaved draught
of a future treatise, itself never published (nor yet in-
tended for publication) by the author. In such a case
we should expect to find what we do find here, and
3 Strabo, /. supr. c.
140 POETICS POLITICS.
certainly not, to the same extent, in any other work,
scholia containing archaeological or historical notes in-
serted in the midst of metaphysical divisions, imperfect
analyses, defective enumerations, tacit references to
writings of others or to opinions current at the
time, allusions to questions treated on by the author
in the work, which are no where to he found, gaps
where obviously something was to be inserted, and ex-
pressions so slovenly as to be almost or wholly ungram-
matical 1 . And on the supposition that these works
were note-books devoted to the particular subjects on
which they treat, kept by the author until the materials
they contained had been worked up and published in a
complete form, and then discarded by him, we shall
see in what relation they probably stood to the works
read by Cicero 2 , and named in the catalogues of Dio-
genes Laertius and the anonymous Biographer 3 , and
understand what kind of writings those in all proba-
1 See the Appendix.
3 De leg. iii. 6. De divin. ii. 1. Epp. ad Quint. Frai. iii. 5.
3 Diogenes quotes Trep\ TTOJ/TWI/ in three books, Trpay/jiareia Tc'^i/t/9
TroirjTiKrjs in two books, Troif/TiKa in one book (perhaps the treatise
we have), trep\ TpayuSuav in one book ; all of which had some rela-
tion to the Poetics ; and TroAtriKo? in two books, virep airo'uuav in
one book, Trep\ (3a<ri\eias in one book, 7rep\ TraiBeia? in one book,
OiKOi/o/JUKO? in one book, TroXiTiKa. in two books, TroAiTiK^ anpoao-i cos
tj Qeofypdo-Tov in eight books, 7rep\ liKa'uav in two books, SiKaito/xara
in one book and 158 constitutions of democratic, oligarchal, aristo-
cratic, and monarchical states, all having some bearing on the
Politics. To these perhaps may be added from the anonymous
writer 7rep\ evyeveias in one book, Trep\ ffva-a-n-iiov J) <rv/j.iro<ri(av in one
book, 0e<reis TroXtrtKat in two books, TroXiTiKrj axjodao-/? in twenty
books, TpuAAo? in three books, SiKaita/jiaTa iroXeiav in one book.
However these writings may have been confused by the unskilful
epitomizers of Hermippus, it is quite plain that Aristotle wrote a
great deal more on both these subjects than has come down to
us.
ESTIMATE OF THEM. 141
bility were, which descended with the rest of Aristotle's
lihrary to Theophrastus, and from Theophrastus to
Neleus, which were neglected by the librarians of
Ptolemy Philadelphia, and emerged from their ob-
scurity in the vault of Scepsis to be purchased by the
antiquarian Apellicon. Only in making this estimate
we must not forget the different importance which such
writings possess for us, deprived for ever of those which
were formed out of them, from that which they may
have had for their author and his immediate successors,
to whom they would appear in no other light than the
scaffold, by the aid of which the cathedral has been
erected, does to the architect. And perhaps we may
properly imagine that the greater fulness of these pro-
cured their preservation after they were recovered, while
many others of the same kind, but yet further removed
from completeness, were suffered to perish.
CHAPTER VIII.
REMAINING WORKS OF ARISTOTLE.
WE shall conclude this memoir hy a list and a brief
literary notice of the Works which have come down to
us under the name of Aristotle, in the order in which
they are given in the edition of the Berlin Academy.
I. Categories. (Karriyopiai or KCtTqyopiai ire pi TWV
Seicct i yeviKO)TGLTwv yevwv.)
The genuineness of this work was much disputed
in the time of the ancient commentators. Adrastus
found a work on the same subject hearing the name
of Aristotle, and, singularly enough, consisting of ex-
actly the same number of lines. It was however by
them determined to be genuine, with the exception of
the last part, which treats on what the Latin Logi-
cians term the Post-pr&dicamenta. This extends from
the tenth chapter to the end. The work of Harris
called Philosophical Arrangements is an exposition,
very much in the manner of the old commentators, of
this Treatise. A short but most masterly critique on
it will be found in Kant's Kritik der reinen Ternunft,
p. 79- Adrastus wished to call the work rd -n-po TCOI>
TOTTt/coji/, considering it as merely an introduction to
the Topics, an appellation of which Porphyry disap-
proves. The evidence which determined the ancient
critics in their decision between the rival works bear-
ing this name was solely internal. The cast of thought
and the phraseology appeared to them to be Aristotle's,
and they conceived that references to this one were to
LOGICAL WRITINGS. 143
be found in others of the Aristotelian writings. But
before Aristotle, Archytas the Pythagorean philosopher,
in his work irepl TTCLVTOS, had written on the Ten
Categories, and some of the moderns 1 have considered
that this work was to be referred to one of that School.
Grotius quotes the book without naming Aristotle as
the author*. Brandis however on the principle we have
indicated above (p. 116) has established the prevalent
opinion on this subject, on evidence possessing a very
high degree of authority.
II. On interpretation. (Trepl e
A philosophical treatise on grammar as far as re-
lates to the nature of nouns and verbs. Some of the
old commentators from its obscurity imagined it to be
a mere collection of notes, and Andronicus considered
it not to be Aristotle's. Alexander of Aphrodisias,
however, and Ammonius proved it to be his, and to
have been used by Theophrastus in a treatise of the
same name which he wrote. Still the latter of these,
as well as Porphyry, suspected that the last part of
the work was the addition of some more modern hand.
III. Former Analytics, i. n. Latter Analytics,
I. II. (avaXvTiKa TrpOTepa, ava\VTiKoi vcrrepa.)
Of the former of these treatises the true and ancient
title was Trepl GvXXoyiviuLov and that of the latter Trepl
aVo^e^ews-. Diogenes Laertius, (Tit. 23) speaks of
eight books of the Former Analytics, or as one MS.
has it, ten, and of two of the Latter. And Petiti
conceived that the work which is referred to in the
1 Jonsius De Histories Philosophies Scriptoribus p. 4. " Auctor
libri de Categoriis, quicumque Platonicorum vel Pythagoreorum is
demum fuerit."
2 Ad Matth. Ev. xiv. 4
144 LOGICAL WRITINGS.
Nicomachean Ethics ,' has not come down to us.
The old commentators found forty books on this sub-
ject, professedly by Aristotle, and determined on
the genuineness of these only, rejecting all the rest,
Their subject is that which in modern times is es-
pecially termed Logic, but would be more properly
called Dialectics, that is, an examination of the possible
forms in which an assertion may be made and a con-
clusion established.
Theophrastus, Eudemus and Phanias, scholars of
Aristotle, wrote treatises on the same subjects as these
three of their master, and called them by the same
name, a circumstance which probably had some connec-
tion with the number of "Analytics" ascribed to him.
IV. Topics. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. (TOTTIKCI.)
An analysis of the different heads from which de-
monstrative arguments may be brought. It was con-
sidered by the ancient commentators as the easiest of
all Aristotle's systematic writings. The Romans how-
ever, as Cicero tells us in the preface to his work of
the same name, found it so difficult as to be repelled
by it, although he himself praises it no less for its
language than for its scientific merits. His own work
is an epitome of it made by himself from memory
during a sea voyage from Velia to Rhegium 2 .
V. On sophistical proofs, i. n.
An analysis of the possible forms of fallacy in de-
monstration. This work has a natural connection with
the Topics, as Aristotle himself remarks in the begin-
ning of the last chapter of the second book.
1 VI. 3. p. 1139. col. 2. tin. 27- Bekk.
* Epp. Fam. VII. 19-
PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL WRITINGS. 145
The preceding works taken together complete Aris-
totle's Logical writings, and with the introduction of Por-
phyry to the Categories have gone generally in modern
times by the name of the Organum, from the circum-
stance of Aristotle having called Logic opyavov opydvwv.
The philosopher gave this name to the art because of
all others it is the most purely instrumental, that is,
the most entirely a means to something else, and the
least an end to be desired for its own sake. The term
however, was in subsequent ages misapplied to mean
that it was the best of all instruments for the dis-
covery of truth, as opposed to the observation of facts,
and the art was correspondently abused.
VI. Physical Lectures, i. n. in. iv. v. vi. vn-
VIII. \(j)vcriKr) a/CjOoao'is).
It is a very questionable matter whether this treatise
was published by the author as one organic whole. The
last three books probably formed a treatise by themselves
under the name Trepl Kii^'crews 3 , and the five first another,
under that of 0v<n/ca. Again, of these the first one is
quite independent of the rest, and is devoted to the
discussion of primal principles (a^ou) 4 , to which every
thing in nature may be resolved. This book is ex-
tremely valuable for the history of philosophy before
the time of Aristotle. He discusses in it the theories
of Melissus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and
others. The second is taken up with an examination
3 Simpl. ad Phys. Auscult. f. 21 6. Diogenes however gives a
work TT6p\ (aircrew? in two books. This is not conclusive against the
opinion quoted in the text. See below, the notice respecting the
Rhetoric, pag. 159-
4 Perhaps it is to this book that the title irep} apxw> * n Diogenes's
Catalogue, refers.
10
146 PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL WRITINGS.
of the ideas of Nature, Necessity, and Chance ; and
the next three with the properties of Body, or rather
with the analysis of those notions of the understanding
which are involved in the idea of Body. Of this work
abstracts and syllabuses (/ce^aXaTa /cal a-wfyeis) were
very early made by the Peripatetic school 1 , and these
by keeping their attention fixed upon the connection of
a system of dogmas, perhaps contributed much to divert
them from the observation of nature, and to keep up
that perpetually-recurring confusion between laws of
the Understanding and laws of the external World
which characterizes the whole of the ancient physical
speculations.
VII. On the Heavens, i. n. m. iv. (Trepl ovpa-
vov).
Alexander of Aphrodisias considered that the proper
name for this work was Trepl Koa^ov 9 as only the first two
books 'are really on the subject of the heavenly bodies
and their circular motion. The two last treat on the
four elements and the properties of gravity and light-
ness, and afford much information relative to the
systems of Empedocles and Democritus.
VIII. On Generation and Decay, i. n. (^repl 76-
KOL
This work treats on those properties of bodies which
in our times would be consideredfto be the proper sub-
jects of physiological and of chemical science. Many
other notions, however, of a metaphysical nature, are
mixed up with these, and it is only for its illustration
of the history of philosophy that this work, like the
1 Simplicius, (Introd. ad. Phys. Ausc. vi. and vii.)
PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL WRITINGS. 147
rest of the physical treatises, is of any value to the
modern student.)
IX. Meteorology. I. II. III. IV.
The first of these hooks was by some in the time
of the old commentators held not to be genuine; and
Ammonius and others considered that the fourth should
immediately follow the second of the last treatise, with
which the subjects on which it treats, the changes ef-
fected in bodies by heat and cold, moisture and dry-
ness, &c., are certainly more nearly connected.
X. To Alexander, on the World,
The titles of this tract in the various MSS. differ
much from one another. In one it is called Trepl /cou-
fjLoypa(j)6ias', in another Trepi KOCT/ULOV KOI eTcpwv ctvayKaiwv',
in a third cruvo\j/is <piXocro(pias Trepl /cocrjuof ; in Stobseus
e7ri<7ToX>7 Trepl TOV 7rai>To9, which Fabricius holds to be
the true title. He considers the work to be genuine,
contrary to the opinion of Scaliger, Salmasius, Casau-
bon, Voss, and Buhle. Fabricius's opinion has been
taken up by Weisse, but the spuriousness of the piece
is glaring. Stahr 2 has, as we think, satisfactorily shown
that it is in all probability a composition of very late
date, based upon Apuleius's work De Mundo. He
remarks that it is not mentioned by any writer before
Apuleius: for that the passage of Demetrius (De Elocut.
243) does not really contain any allusion to it. On
the other hand, Simplicius expressly states that Aris-
totle wrote no one treatise on this subject ; and that
this very circumstance was the inducement for Nicolaus,
one of the later Peripatetics, to do so.
2 Aristoteles bei den Roemern. p. 165. et scq.
102
148 PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL WRITINGS.
XI. On the Soul. I. II. III. (-Tre/cn
In the first of these books are discussed the opinions
of preceding philosophers upon this subject; in the se-
cond, the Soul in its sensible relations; in the third,
in its rational ones. A celebrated dialogue of Aris-
totle's, to which we have before referred, bore this
same title; and such as consider that the exoteric
works were all in the form of dialogues, imagine that
in the Nicomachean Ethics 1 he alludes to it. There
are parts, however, of the third book of this treatise
which seem apt for his purpose in that place, and al-
though the work serves to make up that system of
Aristotle's to which the preceding physical treatises as
well as the following belong, it is sufficiently independ-
ent of them to allow of its being perfectly understood
without their perusal; a character which in our opinion
is the only essential one of an exoteric writing.
XII. Eight tracts on physical subjects, namely,
(a.) On Perception and Objects of Perception.
(jrepl aia-0q<T(t)$ Kctt aidOrjTwv.)
(b.) On Memory and Recollection, (-n-epl
(c.) On Sleep and Waking. (wept VTTVOV Kal eyprj-
(d.) On Dreams, (wep
(e.) On the Prophetic Vision in Sleep, (ire pi
KCtO' VTTVOV
.} On Length and Shortness of Life,
KOL
(g.) On Youth and Age, Life and Death,
Kal yrjpws Kat Trepl ^ooijs /cat QUVCLTOV.)
(h.) On Respiration, (-n-epl a
1 Pag. 1102. col. a. lin. 27-
PHYSICAL WRITINGS. 149
XIII. Oil Breath. (Trepi TOV
This treatise, of which the subject is the same as
that of the last mentioned, except that there is more
reference in it to the lower animals, has been con-
sidered by many not to be by Aristotle. Sylbourg
considers the style to point to Alexander of Aphrodi-
sias as its author. Meursius thought it probably to
be by Theophrastus, and Patritius by Strato, principally
because such a book is mentioned by Diogenes among
the writings of these. Fabricius considers it to be
Aristotle's, because Aristotle himself, in his treatise
On the Movement of Animals, appears to allude to it,
and Galen quotes it as his. But neither of these two
passages are quite conclusive.
XIV. Accounts of Animals, i ......... x. (irepl ra
This work is variously entitled in the manuscripts,
(^TTCpl <^Jft)t/ i<JTO|Of'a, TWV TTCpl ^COWV \(TTOpia. Pliny 2 , where
he speaks of Aristotle's magnificent work On Animals*
in fifty books, appears to include together with this
all the treatises on natural history which follow it,
(and indeed are naturally connected with it,) as well
as some on comparative anatomy, now lost. The same
may be said of Cicero's notice of them 3 . This work
was illustrated by diagrams of the several parts of
animals, which together with the necessary explanations
perhaps formed a treatise by themselves. He alludes
to them in several passages by the names of r\ kv dva-
To/JiCLLS cia. f ypa(pr)' ai avaTOju.ai' ai avaTo^al ciayeypaiu.fJLevai.
Schneider, who has published an edition of this work,
2 Nat. Hist. viii. 17.
3 DC Fin. v. 4.
150 PHYSICAL WRITINGS.
most learnedly illustrated as regards the snbject, not
perceiving in it any traces of the injury which Aris-
totle's works, according to Straho's account, received,
was induced to consider it as one of the exoteric pub-
lications. But, in fact, the whole of the works on
natural history are as closely connected with one an-
other as the several parts of the Organum, and it
would be difficult to assign any reason why the one
class should be regarded as exoteric and the other not
so. Of the probable gradual growth of these works
we have spoken above.
XV. On the Parts of Animals, i. n. in. iv.
XVI. On the Movement of Animals,
A curious tract investigating the influences which
operate db extra upon animals. This treatise, together
with the one following, and that On Breath, are often
put together with the eight tracts before mentioned,
(No. XII.) and make up in the aggregate what are called
the Parva Nat ur alia.
XVII. On the Locomotion of Animals,
peias
XVIII. On the Engendering of Animals, i. n
III. IV. (wept ^u>
XIX. On Colours,
This has been considered by some critics to be the
work of Theophrastus. Plutarch speaks of a treatise
by Aristotle of the same name in two books.
PHYSICAL WRITINGS. 151
XX. From the Book on Sounds, (e/c rov
Apparently this tract is only a fragment; although
Porphyry, who has preserved it in his commentary on
the Harmonicon of Ptolemy, says that he has given
the whole work.
XXI. Physiognomica.
Of this tract the last chapter of the Former Ana-
lytics is a sort of compendium. Buhle considers it
spurious. It is not mentioned hy any of the old com-
mentators, but is by Stobseus and by Diogenes Laertius
in his catalogue.
XXII. On Plants, (irepl
Aristotle wrote two books on plants, but not these
which we have. They are a translation into Greek
from the Latin ; and even this version was considerably
removed from a Greek original, having been made by
some Gaul from an Arabian version, which again was
only derived from a more ancient Latin translation.
The original of all these, according to Sealiger's view,
was only a cento of scraps taken partly from Aristotle,
and partly from the first book of Theophrastus's History
of Plants. Aristotle's work was already lost in the time
of Alexander of Aphrodisias.
XXIII. On Wonderful Stories, (irepl
This book, in spite of its title, is nothing more than
a collection of strange accounts, nor does it appear to
have formed a part of a larger work of at all a different
description. The latter part is obviously spurious, and
with respect to the remainder various opinions have been
152 MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS.
held. Dodwell conceives Theophrastus to have been
the author, Scaliger Aristotle. Buhle considers the
whole to he a patchwork of extracts from the works
of the latter. Our opinion is, that the germ of the
work is to be looked for in one of those note-books or
vTro/uLvrifjLara which were appropriated to collections, and
from which supplies were occasionally drawn for more
systematic writings : and that this was, in its trans-
mission down to our times, added to by several hands,
and some of these most unskilful ones. See our notice
of the Problems below (No. XXV).
XXIV. Mechanics.
The first part of this work touches upon the prin-
ciples of mechanics, and is followed by a number of
questions which are resolved by a reference to them.
This latter division is probably only a part of the
TrpoftX^fjiaTa eyKVK\ia or questions on the whole cycle
of science, which we find mentioned as a work of
Aristotle's in two books by Diogenes Laertius, and
which is quoted by Aulus Gellius.
XXV. Problems. (TrpoftX^ara).
This is a collection of questions on various subjects
in thirty-eight divisions, of which the first relates to
medical, the fifteenth to mathematical, the eighteenth
to philological, the nineteenth to musical, the twenty-
seventh and three following to ethical, and the rest
mainly to physical and physiological matters. Theo-
phrastus is also said to have compiled a collection of
problems, and Pliny quotes him as the authority for a
circumstance which we find mentioned in this work 1 .
\
1 Prob. xxxiii. 12. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxviii. 6.
MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS. 153
In his treatises, too, trepi KOTTWV and Trepl tipdrcw, there
are several coincidences with the Problems of Aristotle ;
and hence some have held him really to be the author
of these, while others have considered those works to
he nothing more than a patchwork of Aristotle's Pro-
blems.
Besides the TrpoftX^aTa e^KVKXia which we men-
tioned in the last article, Diogenes mentions two books
of TrpofiXijiuLaTa eTnreflea/xeVa, (problems farther C0W-
Sldered), and two of TrpoflXrjimaTa e/c TWV ArjfjLOKpiTov.
Moreover Plutarch and Athenaeus, and other authors,
quote from the TrpofiXijimaTa (pucruca. That the work
which has come down to us is neither any one of these,
nor the aggregate of them all, is certain. Sylbourg in
his preface points out several instances in which Aris-
totle himself speaks of questions discussed in them,
which will be looked for in vain in the present treatise.
Neither do we find most of the quotations made by
Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, Apuleius, and Alexander of
Aphrodisias. On the other hand, some citations which
Gellius produces from the TrpoftX^fjLara eynvicXia, and one
which Macrobius does from the TTjOo/BX^Vara Availed are
found. So are two citations by Cicero, and one by
Galen, quoting generally from the Problems. These
circumstances indicate that the work has been very
much changed since it came from Aristotle's hands ;
and the most plausible hypothesis seems to be that the
nucleus of the work is a selection 2 from the collections
of Aristotle and Theophrastus, added to it in its course
down to us. There are many repetitions to be found
in it, some even three times over with the change of
2 Perhaps by some Alexandrine scholar. Aristophanes the cele-
brated grammarian epitomized some of Aristotle's works on Natural
History (flicrnr/rx cited by Schneider. Pref. ad H. A. p. xviii.)
154 MATHEMATICAL WRITINGS.
only a few words ; there is a great difference of style
observable in several parts ; in many of the more ancient
manuscripts some passages are omitted and others dif-
ferently arranged ; and as regards the philosophy, it
is impossible to suppose that a part could proceed either
from Aristotle or Theophrastus, or from any philosopher
of an undegenerate age. A great deal is no doubt
due to the book-makers under the Roman empire: it
was a work particularly well suited to the manufacture
of such Miscellanies as the taste of that time delighted
in, and, with the exception of the works on natural
history, appears to have been by far the most generally
popular of any of the Aristotelian writings. These
circumstances render it necessary for the historian of
philosophy to be extremely cautious how he infers the
opinions of Aristotle upon any subject from it.
XXVI. On Indivisible Lines, (irepl CLTO/ULWV
This tract is said by Simplicius to have been by
some of the ancient commentators ascribed to Theo-
phrastus.
XXVII. The Quarters and Names of the Winds.
Oe&eis Kal TrpocrrjyopiaL).
A fragment from Aristotle's work Trepl o-rj/uLeicov ^1^-
mentioned by Diogenes in his catalogue. It is
found in some manuscripts of Theophrastus's works, but
Salmasius considers it to be by Aristotle.
XXVIII. On Xenophanes, on Zeno, on Gorgias.
(TTCpl EevotyavovSj irepl Z,r)V(*)vos, Trepl Topyiov).
This fragment, according to Brandis, is the only
one of all the works which have come down to us under
THE METAPHYSICS. 155
the name of Aristotle's, which presents the least indica-
tion of that treatment which the manuscripts are said to
have met with at the hands of Apellicon. This too
and the Mechanics are the only works which Patritius
allowed to he genuine. It is singular that one of the
manuscripts ascribes it to Theophrastus. Another gives
as a title /card ras- ^o^a? TWV <pi\oao(f)u)v.
XXIX. The Metaphysics, i. n xiv. (rd
JUL6TO. TO. <f)VCTLKa).
This collection of treatises is said to have been
called by Andronicus by this name, because when he
endeavoured to group the works of Aristotle together
systematically, these remained after he had completed
his physical cycle, and he had no better resource than
to put them together after it. Harris 1 gives a different
account of the name, which he grounds on a passage
in a manuscript work of Philoponus. Men, he con-
ceives, were led to the study of the highest causes, by
an ascent from the contemplation of the lower or phy-
sical. Hence the first philosophy (Prima Philosophia)
which treats of them, was, from being subsequent in
time to these physical enquiries, called Metaphysical.
Brandis 2 relates from a manuscript commentary of As-
clepius, (a writer of no great value,) that Aristotle had
during his lifetime committed the several treatises,
the aggregate of which goes by this name, to his scho-
lar Eudemus, who considered that they were not in a
fit state for publication; but that after his death sub-
sequent Peripatetics (oi /meTayevevrepoi) endeavoured to
work them up into a whole, supplying what was defi-
1 Additional note to the second of The Three Treatises, pp.
.364, 5.
- Rhein. Mus. i. p. 242, note If).
156
ARRANGEMENT OF THE METAPHYSICS.
cient from other works of their founder. Whatever
may be the truth of this story, it is unquestionable
that the arrangement of the several books is purely
arbitrary, and several variations have been proposed,
among others one by Petiti, which we annex with the
addition of those works named by Diogenes Laertius
in his catalogue, which he conceived to be identical
with the several parts of this work. In the Greek
manuscripts, the first book is denoted by the letter (A),
the second, not by the letter (B), but by (a), the
third by (B), the fourth by (F), and so regularly on
to the fourteenth.
Greek
MSS.
Du Val's
arrange-
ment.
Petiti's
arrange-
ment.
Works cited by Diogenes Laertius
corresponding to the several parts of
the Metaphysics.
1
1
5
irepi djD^wi/, a.
2
2
3
irepi 7ri(TTr]/J.(ai' ) a.
3
3
6
Treot doycoi/, /3'.
4
4
4
71 e^Ol eTTtCTTf/^COl/, /3'.
5
5
1
Trept TWJ/ TrocravaK Xeyo/jievuv.
6
7
6
7
1}
Trept el^cov KOI ycvu) i/, a.
8
8
9
7T6|[)t UA^? 1 .
9
9
10
Tre/ot evepyeias 1 .
10
10
2
tj K\oyr] Ttav evavrnav.
11
13
14
Trent 7n<Trti /j.r]s .
12
14
13
7rep\ (f)t\o<ro(})ia<;, a.
13
11
11
trcpt (bi\o<Tod)ict<?, (3
14
12
12
TTcpi (bi\o(ro(bi(x.S) y .
The thirteenth and fourteenth books are not found
in the old Latin version, or that of Argyropylus. The
second book (a of the Greek MSS.) was considered by
some of the ancient commentators to be the work of
Pasicrates the Rhodian, brother of Eudemus. Alex-
ander of Aphrodisias says that it is by Aristotle, but
1 These are not mentioned by Diogenes.
ETHICAL WRITINGS. 157
is mutilated. Others have held that it is a sort of
scholium, and that its proper place is as a preface to
the second book of the Physical Lectures. And the
circumstance of its being denoted by so singular a
mark in the manuscripts would incline us to believe
that some opinion of this sort was widely received.
XXX. Nicomachean Ethics, i. n. in....x. (*}0t/cd
Nt/couaveta.)
CD
This is one of the most perspicuous, as well as
most valuable of the works of Aristotle which has come
down to us. Although in a scientific form, there is a
reference throughout to practical utility, and Aristotle
himself seems to avow that he has sacrificed some of
the rigidness of his method to this consideration. It
is, however, unequalled to this day as a treatise on
Morals. On the subject of the name different accounts
are given. Most of the ancient commentators assert
that it was so called by Aristotle because inscribed
to his son Nicomachus. Cicero appears, as we have
seen, to consider the son the author. Petiti endeavours
to show that the treatise was written at a time when
Nicomachus was not born. It was probably, like the
Rhetoric, worked at by the author after having been
published, and this will account for some of those
passages which he considers to be interpolations by
the son.
XXXI. The Great Ethics. I. II. (v&m /meyaXa.)
XXXII. The Eudemian Ethics, i. n. in. iv. v.
VI. VII. (iOiK
This work was in ancient times attributed to Theo-
phrastus or Eudemus. The third and three following
158 ETHICAL WRITINGS.
books agree considerably both in subject and style
with the fifth, sixth, and seventh of the Nicomachean
Ethics. Some of this agreement may be artificial and
arise from the transcribers interpolating the one work
from the other. But it seems highly probable that
both this treatise and the Great Ethics are a work
made up from the notes of Aristotle's scholars. They,
particularly the last named, which, contrary to what
its name would lead us to expect, is by far the shortest,
seem to stand in very much the same relation to the
Nicomachean, as the little book Anweisung zur Men-
schen-und-Weltkenntniss (which was published by a
scholar of Kant's from notes of a course of lectures
delivered by him) does to the work Anthropologie in
pragmatischer Hinsicht, which the philosopher himself
published.
XXXIII. On Virtues and Vices, (irepl dperwv /ecu
KCLKICOV.
A spurious fragment preserved by Stobams. The
author is by some scholars supposed to be Andronicus
of Rhodes ; but others think it should rather be attri-
buted to a platonising eclectic of later times.
XXXIV. Politics. I.. ..VIII. (TroXiTura.)
Of this work we have given our opinion in an
earlier part of this Essay.
XXXV. Economics, (rnxovofwcd.)
Of Aristotle's work bearing this name Diogenes
Laertius only mentions one book ; and of these it seems
quite evident that both are not by the same author.
Erasmus held the first to be Aristotle's but to be only a
fragment, but Niebuhr considers that lately discovered
authorities incontestably prove it to be by Theophrastus.
RHETORICAL WRITINGS. 159
If the second book is Aristotle's, it is probably a
collection made by him when collecting materials for
his historical and philosophical writings on government.
It is chiefly a string of instances of oppression exer-
cised by one people upon another, or by tyrants upon
their subjects.
XXXVI. The Art of Rhetoric, i. n. in. (
Besides these books which contain his exposition of
the art, Aristotle wrote one other which contained a
history of it and of its professors from the earliest times
to his own. Of this Cicero speaks in the highest terms,
but it is unfortunately lost. The division into three
books is ingeniously conjectured by Stahr 1 to be due to
Andronicus of Rhodes. Some of the MSS. collated by
Bekker mark this division as peculiar to the manuscripts
of the Latin arrangement. The Greek one terminated
the first book with the end of the ninth chapter, and
made our second book the third. Jonsius conjectures
that the treatise mentioned by Diogenes in his cata-
logue under the title Trepl av^fiovXias, is the sixth and
seventh chapters of the first book of this work. That
this treatise is a different one from that which Aristotle is
said to have made over to his scholar Theodectes 2 ap-
pears from a passage 3 in which he quotes that production.
Hence it would seem that independently of the Rhetoric
to Alexander, the author of which is uncertain, Aristotle
published three distinct works on this subject, which
certainly accords with what Cicero says 4 , that the Peri-
1 Aristoteles bei den Roemern, p. 30.
2 See above, p. 135, note 4>, and compare Cicero, Brut. 64,.
:J P. 1410, col. 2, line 2 ed. Bekker.
4 De Oratore,\. 10.
160 RHETORICAL WRITINGS.
patetics boasted "that Aristotle and Theophrastus not
only wrote better, but wrote much more on the subject
of oratory than all the professed masters of the science."
But it seems to us more probable that the work
which he cites was one by Theodectes, his own scholar,
and that Valerius Maximus mistook for an act of envy
what was more probably meant and taken for a flatter-
ing encouragement. The first sketch of the Rhetoric
was, as is remarked by Niebuhr, published long before
it was worked up into the form we have it in now,
and in this interval Theodectes, of whom Cicero speaks
as a writer on the subject, probably published his book.
It will be observed that Aristotle does not cite the trea-
tise as his own ; but this was overlooked by Valerius, or
the authority whom he followed, and the tale we have
mentioned above was coined to illustrate the passage.
It may also be remarked that the double publication of
the Rhetoric will serve to account for the growth of that
story which Dionysius of Halicarnassus takes so much
pains to refute. No one could have hazarded such a
fiction with all the quotations from Demosthenes under
his very eyes. It must have originated with some one
who used a copy of the early edition ; while Dionysius
in his refutation used the later.
XXXVII. The Rhetoric to Alexander.
This treatise is not mentioned by Diogenes Laertius
in his catalogue of Aristotle's works ; and the dedicatory
preface at the beginning is a solitary instance, if it be
a writing of Aristotle's, of such a style. Quintilian 1
appears to quote it as the production of Anaximenes of
1 Compare Quintilian, lust. Oral. iii. 4. 9- with Rhetoric, p.
1421. col. b. lin. 8.
POETICAL CRITICISM. 161
Lampsacus, a contemporary of the Stagirite. Neither
the style nor the treatment of the subject accords with
the character of the last work, and perhaps what most
contributed to procure its ascription to Aristotle is the
circumstance that the writer claims the authorship of
the re-^yai TW 9eo$e/cr>7 ypcKpei&ai, which, according to
the story of Valerius Maximus spoken of in the last
Article, could only belong to Alexander's preceptor.
Notwithstanding this, Victorius and Buhle have attri-
buted the work to Callisthenes. We should be inclined
to consider it the performance of a sophist of a very
late date, and should regard the allusion to Theodectes
rather as a confirmation of the opinion.
XXXVIII. On the Poetic Art. (irep\ TTO^^.)
On the subject of this work we have spoken (p. 139)-
It has been considered by others a fragment of the
two books On Poets, which Macrobius quotes 2 , but it
hardly seems possible to consider it in this light. If it
is derived in any way from a published work, it must
have been by a process of epitomizing and selecting, and
that not very skilfully.
* Saturnal, v. 18. " Ipsa Aristotelis verba ponam ex libro quern
" de Poetis subscripsit secundo": The quotation which follows ap-
pears to be taken from a work of a very different character to the
fragment which we have.
11
APPENDIX.
THE NATURE OF THE POLITICAL TREATISE.
THE Political Treatise of Aristotle is so important
for the elucidation of Greek history and Greek philo-
sophy, that it seems desirable to give some of the
reasons which have led us to form the opinion we have
expressed in the text (p. 140), at greater length than
would be allowed by the limits of an ordinary note ; and
the principal of them are accordingly here subjoined. At
the same time, however satisfactory we may deem them,
we cannot expect that they will appear at once equally
conclusive to those who have been accustomed always
to regard the work in a different light, and we would
request such persons, after perusing the following note,
to study the treatise itself, and then decide whether
the form of its composition is, or is not, incompatible
with any other view than the one we have taken
of it.
I. In the third Book, the author, on the occasion of
mentioning certain states where an executive power,
almost supreme, was entrusted to one individual,
although the rest of the institutions partook more or
less of a democratic character, gives Epidamnus as an
existing instance 1 . In the fifth Book, he has occasion
again to refer to this functionary, but he speaks of his
1 p. 1287- col. a. lin. 7-
NOT WRITTEN CONTINUOUSLY. 163
office as one which no longer existed*. A revolution,
gradual but complete, had in the interval been effected
at Epidamnus. The constitution had acquired a com-
pletely popular character, and the office of Supreme
Administrator had together with the other oligarchal
features of the government, been swept away. That
such blemishes as this would not have been left standing
in a work published by the author himself, few persons
will be inclined to question. Still it may be argued
that although not published by him, it may yet have
been in course of preparation for publication in its
present form, and that its last finish, in which such in-
congruities would have been removed, may have been
prevented by his death. But this argument may be
shown to be inadmissible. In this same fifth Book
there is a passage 3 obviously written while the expe-
dition and death of Dion the Syracusan, (which latter
happened soon after the dethronement of Dionysius
the tyrant by his agency,) was a subject of common
talk and considered as an event of the day. "One
cause of despotical governments being overthrown is,"
says Aristotle, " dissension among those parties in whose
hands they are, as in the instance of Gelon's relations,
and at the present time (KOI vvv) in that of Dionysius' s."
Dion's death, which he mentions presently afterwards,
took place in the first half of the year 353, B. c. Now
Aristotle was at this time little more than thirty years
of age, and was at Athens pursuing his studies under
Plato. (See above, p. 11.) We cannot therefore sup-
pose that the Politics is a work, the elaboration of which
was cut short by the author's death, without at the same
time supposing that this expression was by him suffered
2 p. 1301. col. b. lin. 2fi.
8 p. 1312. col. b. lin. 10.
112
164
EVIDENCE OF
to stand for a period of more than thirty years, of which
every succeeding one would render its impropriety more
glaring.
II. In a passage of the first Book 1 , in the course
of an analysis of the different elements which enter
into the Social Relation, the question is started whether
the acquisition of external objects of desire, necessarily
and in the nature of things is a part of the office of the
master of a household. For the purpose of elucidating
his views on this subject, the Author digresses into a
general discussion of the question of Production (>)
KTYITIKYI). Some kinds of this he considers as pointed
out by Nature herself to Man ; the exercise of them
is necessary to the supply of his natural wants in the
Social State, and consequently, (this Social State itself
being grounded in Nature,) the industrial tendency
which prompts him to such exercise is to be regarded
as analogous to those ordinary instincts which direct
the animal creation to the particular regions that furnish
the food required by their peculiar organization. But
Production has a natural limit, and this limit is short
of the extent to which the powers of Man are capable
of carrying it. Its natural limit is the satisfaction
of the natural wants of the Community, under the
highest possible form of civilization. So soon as this
limit is passed, Production changes its character. Its
employment (epyov) then becomes the accumulation of
means without reference to an end ; and it assumes the
character, according to the views of the ancients, of a
spurious, unnatural, and sordid pursuit. To this species
of Production, Aristotle proposes to appropriate the name
1 p. 1256. col. a. lin. 4.
SUPPLEMENTARY PARTS. 165
of Acquisition (rj ^prj/uLariffriK^). The same arguments
which prove that the former kind was, in the nature
of things, part of the duty of the head of the Family,
would show that this latter is not; and such is the
conclusion to which Aristotle comes, and which he
formally states (p. 1258. col. a. lin. 18).
But when we look to the place where this discussion
commences, we see plainly that in the first draught
of the text it could not have existed. Originally perhaps
the passage (p. 1256. col. a. lin. 15) ran thus : ei yap
TOV xprjuaTKTTiKOv Oecopijaai woOev yjpr\i*.aTa. K.GLI /CTJ/CTIS
>J yjprw.aTiaTiK.ri TJ9 oiKOVo/niKris ftepos av i^.~\ But
as this conclusion could not be assented to without a
limitation, the writer subjoined the words which follow
in the MSS. r] $e KTijais TroXXa Trepiei\ri<pe fj.eprj Kal o
0)(TT TTpWTOV Tf yeWpyiKIJ TTOTCpOV M^/OOS Tl TtJS
, tj crepov TI yevos, Kai KaOoXov r] irepl Tr)v
Tpo(jjv 7n/me\ia KOI KTYICTIS, as a memorandum for him-
self of the form which the discussion necessary for
explaining the nature of such limitations must take.
Subsequently he expanded this germ into the essay
(as we may almost call it) which extends from the words
aXXd MV c'iSij ye TroXXa Tpo<pij$ (p. 1256. col. a. lin. 19)
down to the formal restatement, with all its proper
qualification, of the position contained in the words be-
tween brackets. Finally we may conjecture that some
person into whose hands the MS. fell, sollicitous not
to lose a line that had come from the pen of the great
author, strung the original question, the memoranda,
and the explanatory excursus together in a continuous
series, and thus produced the strange confusion which
we find in our manuscripts, where the grammatical
construction and the scientific arrangement are equally
violated.
'
166 EVIDENCE OF
That some such solution of the difficulties which
meet us in this passage is likely to be the true one,
is confirmed by the words which occur shortly after: 1
(pvcrews yap SGTIV epyov Tpo(>rjit TW ycvvrjOevTi Trape^eiv'
TravTi yap ef oil yiverai Tpo<prj TO XCITT OJULGVOV eo~Tiv.
Now these words are nothing more than the sub-
stance of what is said more fully in an early part of
the explanatory note: 2 r\ fj.ev ovv Totdvrrj KTtjais VTT avrrjs
rijs 0uc76W9 SiSo/ULevrj Tracnv, wcnrep Kara TYJV irpw-
yevecriv evOvs, ourco Kai TeXeitoOeicriv, KO.I yap Kara
e <*px*is yevefftv TO. pev crvveKTiKTei TWV ^owv TO-
' i \ ^ ? t Ti>^/ <
cravTrjv TpoCprjv <os ucavriv eivai /ULe^pis ov av cvvrjTai avTO
avrip irop'^eiv TO yevvrjOev, olov oo~a O-KO)\TJKOTOK? rj yoro-
ocra $e QCOTOKCI, -roTs yevojmevois e^et Tpo<prjv ev av-
i TWOS, TY\V Tov Ka\ovfjivov ya\aKTo$ (pvo~iv.
Yet that the former passage is not a condensation of
the latter, put in for the purpose of reminding a reader,
is manifest on the inspection of the context. As it
stands, it is completely superfluous, and apparently un-
accountable, except on the supposition that at the time
it was written the long explanatory note did not exist-
Ill. In the third Book is proposed for discussion
the question whether government by a Monarch on
whom there is no constitutional check, or by a Code
of Laws absolutely rigid and unchangeable, is the al-
ternative to be preferred, on the hypothesis that in
the one case the laws, and in the other the autocrat,
shall be the best conceivable. The heads of the argu-
ments on both sides are given. But strangely enough,
we find in this place, that immediately after the sub-
ject has been to all appearance concluded, it recom-
1 p. 1258. col. a. lin. 35.
2 p. 1256. col. b. lin. 7.
INTERLEAVING. 167
mences afresh. Here in fact are two long paragraphs,
of which the one is obviously intended to be a recast-
ing of the other, standing side by side, the original
one closely following its more digested and orderly ar-
ranged substitute. Their identity is quite manifest on
the most cursory perusal, after the attention of the
reader has once been directed to the circumstance. 3
It is worth remarking that the passage where the ma-
gistracy at Epidamnus, to which we before adverted,
is spoken of as existing, occurs in what we consider
the prior in time of these two rival paragraphs.
IV. Towards the end of the third book (p. 1288.
col. a. lin. 37) Aristotle mentions having discussed an-
other subject which may be regarded as the connecting
link between his Moral and his Political philosophy,
namely, whether the qualities which go to make up
the perfection of a man, as a man, are the same in
kind and degree as those which constitute his perfec-
tion as a citizen ; or, in the phraseology of the Greek
philosophy, whether the virtue of a man is identical
with the virtue of a citizen. This, he says, he has
settled in his first Book (ei> TOIS irpwTo^ Xoyois). But
the subject is really handled not in the first, but the
third Book 4 . Now we can scarcely conceive that Aris-
totle himself could cite his own work so inaccurately,
and we might be inclined perhaps to consider that the
expression TT/OWTOI Xo7oi referred to a former treatise
and not a former part of this one. But we are pre-
vented from doing this by the recurrence of the same
8 The two paragraphs are p. 1285. col b. lin. 19 p. 1286. ult.
and p. 1287- col. a. lin. 1. col. b. lin. 36.
Namely from p. 1276. col. b. lin. Ifi. to 1277- col. b. lin. 17.
168 DIFFERENT DIVISION OF BOOKS.
phrase in another passage 1 where it is impossible to
avoid referring it to the first book of the Politics.
We are therefore inclined to conjecture that at the
time this reference was made, the first Book did not
terminate where it now does, but was continued on
into what is now the third, that the present second
Book, (which is perfectly insulated from all the rest of
the treatise, and consists entirely of a review of certain
constitutions existing in the time of Aristotle, together
with a discussion of the political writings of Plato,
Phaleas of Chalcedon, Hippodamus of Miletus, and
others,) was wanting, and that the then second Book
commenced with the words eTre/ Sc raDra Suopurrat.
(p. 1278. col. b. lin. 6 9 .)
V. Other passages might be produced which ap-
pear to indicate the accumulation of materials, or the
growth of thoughts, in a manner which we could not
expect to find either in a published work, or one in
course of preparation for publication.
Thus the examination of what rights constitute
citizenship, a question entered upon by him in the
beginning of the third Book, has every appearance of
being a collection of notes put down by him while he
was in the course of coming to his opinions. His first
definition of citizenship is ' participation in judicial and
1 p. 1278. col. b. lin. 18.
2 It could not have commenced further on in the work than
this, for it is only a few lines further on (col. b. lin. 18.) that he
quotes "the Jirst book." Yet in another passage (p. 1295. col. a.
lin. 4.) he quotes as in the first book a discussion which does not
occur till more than six pages further, i. e. in p. 1284. col. b.
lin. S5. seqq. Hence a still greater confusion seems necessary to
be supposed. We must believe the same expression vrp&Toi \oyot
to refer to one division in one place, to another in another!
GRADUAL GROWTH OF NOTES. 169
official functions' (ncrc-^eiv Kpicrecas /cat apxfjs, p. 1275.
col. a. lin. 23). Then he goes on to say that this
definition is more applicable to democracies than to
any other form of government, and after exemplifying
the truth of this observation by the cases of Lacedaemon
and Carthage, proposes to alter it and substitute for it
the position ' that a citizen is one who has a right to
a share in functions either deliberative or judicial' (<
c^ova ia Kowwveiv ap\W ftovXfVTtKtjs fj KpirtKrjs, col. b.
lin. 21). Then follow two notes of which the second
grows as it were out of the first, and continues to the
end of the chapter (p. 1276. col. b. lin. 15). In the
former he distinguishes between the legal and the
natural definition of citizenship, and in the second
remarks upon certain political writers of the time,
who had raised a question connected with the definition
of citizenship, namely, what constituted the identity
of a state. After this he again resumes the thread of
the discussion. But these notes are not like the one
we mentioned above: they are very short, but they
refer to a great many points, and even the opinions
which are remarked on are rather implied as known
than distinctly stated.
In the fourth Book (p. 1290. col. b. lin. 21) he
attempts an analysis of States considered as masses of
individuals. But the passage is in disorder and the
enumeration incomplete. The fifth class he speaks of
is the military one. The mention of this class suggests
a critique upon the Republic of Plato, in reference to
a similar analysis which is introduced there. On re-
verting to his own division, he proceeds not with a
sixth t but a seventh class.
Some way further on (p. 1297. col. b. lin. 35) he
begins the subject again, as it were from a new point
170 REFERENCES TO
of view. He proceeds to attempt a classification of
states, by analyzing government into its component
functions, and exhausting the number of ways in which
the various judicial, executive, and deliberative duties
of the state may be performed. But the division is
incomplete, and to all appearance designedly so. See
for instance p. 1300. col. a. lin. 23. seqq., where it ap-
pears plain that the author did not wish to enumerate
all the different modes by which the functionaries might
be appointed, but only the more important ones,- those
perhaps on which he had certain remarks to make.
Still a complete enumeration is so apparently necessary,
that the passage seems to have been tampered with by
some person who desiderated it 1 .
The confusion in one or two of these passages some
may be inclined to attribute merely to ordinary causes,
such as the ignorance or carelessness of transcribers, or
the damaged condition of the manuscripts which they
copied. We are not disposed to accept this solution
of the difficulties which meet us so constantly in the
work ; although it is extremely difficult to say what
degree of disarrangement may not be due to this cause.
Such an hypothesis however can hardly be entertained
in such cases as the following.
VI. In a passage in the third Book the manuscripts
1 Thus the passage Ka\ TO Tivas CK TTCIVTIOV rtt9
Tavai TCI? Be K\tip(a jj a'/x0o?i/, ras /JLCV K\tjpu) TCCS Se alpeo-ei, o
(p. 1300. col. a. lin. 38 40), appears to have been introduced by him
because after the cases where all were the appointing body to offices,
he thought those ought to come where a particular class appointed,
not observing that those cases of this kind which were of practical
importance had been already noticed in the preceding clause TO Be
Htj TrdvTd*;, &c. The same cause is the origin of the interpolations
i; K TIVWV (lin. 35), and TO %e rti/ct? e aVa'i/TUJi/. (col. b. lin. 4).
AN OMITTED DISCUSSION. 171
all run as follows 2 I el yap dSvvarov e d Tret I/TOW Giro
OVTWV elvai TroAti/, eel $ cmnrrov TO KaO' avrov epyov ev
TOUTO o CLTT dperfjs* 7rei $ dSvvarov o/uoiOW elvai
rofs TroX/ras, OVK av eiv] fjiia apery irdXirov KCLI
dvfyos dyaOov. It appears impossible by an alteration
of a kind and degree which the principles of conjectural
criticism would sanction, to produce any tolerable sense
of this passage. The question on which Aristotle is
engaged is the one we alluded to before (p. 167.) whether
the perfection of civism (apery iro\irov dyaOou) is
identical with the perfection of humanity (apery dv$po$
dyaOov). "This question may," he says, after resolving
it in one way, " be settled with the same result by
another course of investigation, viz., by determining
what is the idea of the perfection of a state 3 ." Now a
2 p. 1276. col. b. lin. 37 40. One manuscript alone has o/xoiw?
for O/XOiOl/5.
3 aAAa KOI KCCT' d\\ov Tpoirov COTTI SicnropovvTas eVeA0e?i/ TOV O.VTOV
\oyov Tre/oi T;5 dpicTTtj^ i jro\tTeia<s. (col. b. lin. 36). It is scarcely
necessary to remark that supposing the work a finished one, the
meaning we have given in the text to this passage would not be
defensible. But that it really is the only true one, and that the last
four words are merely a memorandum to indicate what the a\\o?
TpoTros is, is quite obvious by the course of the argument. There
are not wanting many other instances of expressions equally slovenly.
Thus p. 1301. col. b. lin. 39> ^'o KOI /jid\i<rTa Buo ylvovTat TroXireTai,
SfjfjLos KCU o\iyap%ia' evyeveia yap KCU dperij ev oXtyois, Tavra Se ev
rrXeioffiv, where the object to which raura refers is to be gathered
from a passage a long way back (p. 1301. col. a. lin. 30) and is
really freebirth, and such like qualifications, attaching equally to
the richest and the poorest. Just before too: dpoXoyovvTe*; Be TO
aTrXto? eivai B/KCKOI/, TO KaV dgiav $ict(j)epovTai, the principle alluded
to by the words TO aVXco? is TOO? iVou? t'o-wi/, KC TOUC CBW<r<Wt dviatav
dgiovvQai. (see col. a. lin. 25 35). See also p. 1278. col. a. lin. 10,
ov$e \vdepov fjiovov, a\X bcroi TUV epytav el<r\v d(f)eifjt.et'ot TCOI/ avay-
ttaitav' Tdiv d' aj/ayKaiwi/ ol fjiev ev\ \6iTovpyovvTe<; TO. TotavTct cov\oi f
ol Be KOIVO\ ftdvavffoi KOI 0^re?. The passage too, which has given
172 PROBABLE SUBJECT
perfect state requires that the employment of the mem-
bers of it should be different, but that each one should
perform his duty in the best imaginable manner. That
mental and bodily state of the individual which is the
best adapted to produce this result in the highest con-
ceivable degree, is in the language of Greek metaphysics
called his virtue or perfection (apery}. If now the
duty to be performed be different, the virtue (or talent)
which is requisite to produce the performance will be
different. But such is the case in the perfection of a
state : there must be a division of labour, handicrafts-
men as well as philosophers, tillers of the soil as well
as politicians. It is therefore inconsistent that all the
citizens should be of the highest order of mind (O-TTOV-
Saioi), or indeed of the same order whatever it may be
(O/ULOIOI). Now on looking back to the passage in question,
we shall see, that if we suppose a note to have been in-
terposed between the two clauses of it, developing the
line of argument which we have sketched out, the second
clause will be in exactly the terms which on reverting to
the thread of the discussion would be required, and the
substitution of the more general phrase o/moiovs for
ffwovSalovs will appear peculiarly appropriate.
And that such a discussion was introduced here,
is not a mere hypothesis to account for the phenomena
which the text in this passage presents, but is ren-
dered extremely likely by some references made by
the author in other parts of the work apparently to it.
so much trouble to critics, TTO\XOU? yap etyvXerevo-e fvovs KCU
peToiKovs (p. 1275. col. b. lin. 3?), is probably not corrupt, but only
a careless expression, and meaning that Clisthenes put many
foreigners into the tribes (thus making them complete citizens),
and gave to many slaves the rights of metics; the word firo'iycre
being left to be gathered from the sense of the former part of the
phrase.
OF SUCH SEPARATE DISCUSSION.
In p. 1289. col. b. lin. 40, he has the following observ-
ation ert TT/OOS rat? /cara TT\OVTOV cia(popais etrrtp rj /uei/
/caret yevos fj $e /car' a^err/i/, KCLV ei TI or) TOIOVTOV erepov
eiprjTai Tro'Xea)? eti/ai /uepo? ei> rots Trepi rrjv aptcn-o-
KpctTtav' e/cet yap $t(Xo/ue0a e/c ntfar&i' nepwv avayKaicw
eWt TraVa TroXt?. Now the only passage remaining in
the manuscripts to which this description will at all
apply, is one which does not precede but follow the
reference in question, namely the paragraph beginning
with the words on jmei/ ovv TroXtretat TrXeiovs (p. 1290.
coL b. lin. 21.) ] The allusion must therefore be to a
passage now no longer remaining. And where we
are to look for this, will we think be irrefragably de-
termined by another observation (p. 1293. col. b.
lin. 30.) which shows that the discussion described by
the phrase ra Trepl rrjv dpKTTOKpariav, was really an
examination into the best form of government, the
ideal perfection of a state, in which, and in which
alone, (according to Aristotle's views) the perfection of
humanity and of civism are identical for any portion
of the community whatever 2 . Here then we have a
confirmation of our conjecture as to the deficiency which
we remarked in the original passage. But that this
deficiency should have been occasioned by the errors of
transcribers is perfectly impossible. The essay intended
to fill up the gap must have existed in a separate
form, or it could not have entirely disappeared. Yet
1 And even here a reference is made to an earlier treatment
of the question OTI /uei/ ovv iroXiTelat 7rX/ou?, KOI $i tjv aiTiav, *pr]Tai.
irep\ /? $ttj\0o fj.fv
tv TO?? irptoTOts Aoyots. Trjv yap f* Ttav apurTuv ctTrAftK KOT'
dpcrijv iroXiTfiav, KOI fjiij Jrpo'i VTrodea-iv TWO. djaduv ai/fy>oi/, novrjv
c'tKtiiov irpovayopcveiv dpurroKpa-riav. ev ^ovy yap aTrXwc o aurov
dvtjp Kai iroAiTij? dyado': fffTtv ot Se ev Ta?? oAA.ai? dyadot
Ttji/ jToXiTe'tav elffi rrjv avrtav,
174 SEPARATE DISCUSSION OF TYRANNY.
it could not have been a separate work, or it would
not have been quoted as an organic part of this one,
as we see is the case.
VII. The instance of an obvious deficiency which
we have just given, although perhaps one of the most
striking cases of this kind, is not the only one. In
the enumeration of the different archetypal forms of Go-
vernment, he expresses his intention to treat of Despotic
Monarchy (or Tyranny,} the last in order ; " for of all,"
says he, "it has the least claim to be considered a
"Polity, and polities are the subject with which our
"investigation is concerned." Then follow the words
Si rfv fjiv ovv airiav rexa/crm TOV Tpoirov TOVTOV, e'ipriTai
(p. 1293. col. b. lin. 30.) Now certainly we might
refer this observation to the reason which has just
been assigned, but if this be its right application, how
very superfluous and unnecessarily formal it is. A
couple of pages further on, the number of different
modifications which the despotic form of government
assumes are enumerated, (p. 1295. col. a. lin. 1 24.)
and the author winds up the paragraph by saying
"These are the different species of Despotic Monarchy,
" so many and no more from the causes which have been
" mentioned 1 " But the reader will look in vain for this
professed mention of the causes; and, putting this
circumstance together with the formal statement before-
mentioned, we have little scruple in conjecturing that
the latter really followed a separate discussion of the
nature of Despotic Government, which also contained rea-
sons why the forms it assumed should be so many
and no more.
TCIVTO. KO. Tocravta ia TO? e
TACIT ALLUSIONS TO OTHERS. 175
VIII. There is another class of cases, in which
the author obviously alludes to the writings of contem-
poraries, but the allusions are so little explicit and
at the same time it is so obvious that they are allu-
sions that it seems impossible to avoid one of two
inferences, either that the passages in which they occur
are little else than memoranda for the writer himself,
or that the work is a collection of notes for lectures,
and that a formal oral statement of the opinions re-
ferred to had antecedently been given. The latter view
has been entertained with respect to most of Aristotle's
writings 2 , but in our opinion it is inconsistent with
the comparatively full developement of some parts of
this work, with the incompleteness of the whole as a
system, and above all, with the contemporaneous ex-
istence of such phenomena as those of which we have
above given an example (p. 167) where an original pa-
ragraph stood side by side with its intended successor.
The following may serve as instances of the allusions
we speak of, although an inspection of the whole course
of the argument in the context is necessary to appre-
ciate their force.
In the early part of the third Book 3 , Aristotle ob-
serves that in the question of what constitutes citizen-
ship, exiles and persons disqualified for some particular
reason may in a certain sense be termed citizens, "but,''
he adds, "a citizen, simply and unconditionally, is by
2 Thus the expression in the Nicomachean Ethics (p. 1147.
col. 2. lin. 8.) ov Xoyov Be? irapd TUJV (pvcnoXoyujv dx.o\ieiv has been con-
sidered such as would naturally be used by a lecturer addressing
his class.
3 p. 1275. Col. a. lin. 20. KCU TTp\ ruv aVi^wi/ KCU <j)vyd(av
ret Toiavra KCU Siairoe?!/ KOI \veiv' iroX'tTr^ 8' aVXw? ovSevi Tiav aA-
KCU
176 DIVISION OF GOVERNMENTS.
" none of the other definitions more completely described,
"than by the one * that he is a participator in judicial
"'and official functions' 1 '. Now these "other defini-
tions" are not explicitly given, either as those of the
author, or of any other person, but what some of them
at least were are hinted by some phrases in the few
sentences immediately preceding. One was apparently
that fixed residence in the particular spot (rw oi/ce?i/
KOV) was the essence of citizenship; another that the
right of suing and being sued at law constituted it.
(TWV ciKaitov imere^eiv ovrws WCTTC KOI SIKTIV vireyeiv Kat
In the fourth Book 1 he speaks of certain political
writers, and says that their usual mode of considering
the various modifications of Government, was to sup-
pose two types, pure Oligarchy and pure Democracy,
and to regard the other forms as compounds, in various
proportions, of these. Similarly they held that there
were two archetypal species in musical composition, the
Dorian and the Phrygian, of which the rest were but
compounds. "But," says he, "the better and the truer
" mode of division is that which we adopted, to lay
" down the properly constituted forms of Government
" as being two or one in number, and regard the rest
" as lapses from this type." Now, if we recur to Aris-
totle's own division, we find that he really lays down
neither one nor two properly constituted archetypal forms
of Government, but three; namely, Monarchy ', Aristo-
cracy and Polity. These three differ from one another
in the circumstance that the supreme authority in them
is respectively in the hands of one individual, a minority
1 p. 1290. col. a. lin. 24. d\ij6ea-T(pov 3e KCU (3e\Ttov eo? *7/Af?<? SieV
fj
PARALLEL DIVISION BY OTHERS. 177
and a majority, while they agree with one another,
and are regarded as uncorrupted and legitimate forms
(6p6al TToXireiai} in that the recognized end of govern-
ment is, equally in all of them, the advantage not of
the governors hut of the whole. Tyranny, Oligarchy,
and Democracy, in which the interest not of the whole,
hut severally of the One, the Few, and the Majority,
is the recognized end, are considered hy him as lapses
or deviations respectively from the three types 3 . Now
there is nothing in the interval between this formal
division and the passage with which we are at pre-
sent concerned to prepare us for a resolution of the
tripartite distribution into the alleged bipartite one ;
although certainly it may be argued that Monarchy is
only a particular case of Aristocracy and may be here so
considered. This view of the subject however does not
accord with Aristotle's manner of treating the question
of Monarchy in the latter part of the third Book 3 .
Should we not rather be justified in supposing that as
the writers of whom he is speaking neglected the con-
sideration of the Monarchical form, so Aristotle in
comparing his own division with theirs, threw out of
consideration that part of it to which theirs furnished
no parallel, and thus that the two properly constituted
types to which he alludes are the Aristocracy and
Polity of his former division 4 . If this opinion be a
2 p. 1279. col. a. lin. 1. col. b. lin. 10. The term 7rapeK/3aWi?
(lapses) was apparently first used by Aristotle in this technical
sense, as appears from his promise to explain it. (p. 1275. col. b.
lin. 2.)
8 p. 1284. col. a. lin. 3. seqq.
4 The one properly constituted type which he speaks of, is in
our opinion the dpiff^n iroXiTeia (the ideally best form) that was
discussed in the excursus which we have above (p. 172) attempted
to show, must have been intended for insertion in p. 1276. col. b.
lin. 39-
12
178 ALLUSION TO POPULAR ERRORS.
sound one ; if the author really did thus tacitly mo-
dify his statements with a reference to the treatment
of the same suhject hy others, we cannot but regard
the work as neither published nor intended for publi-
cation 1 .
In another passage in the same book 2 , we find a
reference apparently to a popular error in some political
writings of the day, arising from unconscious associa-
tions with the etymology of the words apiaToKparia and
evvo/uLia. " It is thought," says Aristotle, " a matter
" of impossibility that a state in the hands of the
" Best should not be well-governed (T^V apicrroKparov-
*' nevriv TroXff M*) evvoju.e'ia-Oai) ; if not, it must be in the
" hands of the worthless (TrovrjpoKpaTovjmevrjv). But good
" government (evvojuLia) does not mean that there should
" be good laws without obedience being paid to them.
" Hence we must understand one kind of good govern-
" ment consisting in obedience to the existing laws,
" and another consisting in the goodness of the laws
" that are adhered to, seeing that obedience may be
" rendered to laws even though they be bad. And
" this point again (i. e. the goodness of laws) ad-
" mits of a twofold distinction, for the laws obeyed
" may either be the best applicable to those who are to
" obey them, or unconditionally the best." There is
nothing in the context calling for this division of
subjects included in the term Ewo/uua; and it would
seem only intended as an indication of the clue to
1 An allusion to the controverted division seems to be con-
tained in the words StoVi Be TrAetou? TWV elpr^eviav. (p. 1290. col. b.
lin. 22.) They certainly cannot apply to the chapter immediately
preceding them.
1 p. 1294. col. a. lin. 19.
AN OBSCURE PASSAGE EXPLAINED. 179
some fallacious opinions which the writer had in his
eye 3 .
The same political writers are perhaps those alluded
to in the early part of the sixth Book ; but the expres-
sion is general in its form. Aristotle proposes to dis-
cuss the modifications of government which arise in
cases where a combination is formed of heterogeneous
elements, such as courts of law regulated on the prin-
ciples of aristocracy with election to offices on those
of oligarchy, or an oligarchal executive council and
oligarchal courts of law with an aristocratical mode of
selecting magistrates 4 . These are cases, he says, which
ought to be considered, and in the current theories were
not so 5 .
We will terminate this long and somewhat wearisome
discussion by directing the attention of the reader to one
other passage, which although certainly corrupt, and,
besides, very slovenly expressed, may perhaps be tolerably
explained on the principle which has been stated. Vio-
lent revolutions, by which the whole constitution of the
3 It may be said that this paragraph is an instance of those dis-
cussions of possible objections which we have remarked on above
(p. 64), and that the fallacy which is detected is too shallow to have
been used any where but in the public disputations we there spoke
of. Considering how very apt the ancients were to confuse notions
with objects, (a confusion of which many instances might be given
both from Plato and Aristotle), we are not inclined to this opinion.
Parallel sophisms might be produced from writings of the present
day which are not without their enthusiastic admirers. The par-
ticular instance however may be easily spared from our argu-
ment.
4 In this part of the work, personal merit or peculiar race are
considered as aristocratic principles, and a high pecuniary qualifica-
tion as the oligarchal one.
5 ovfr e<TKfjifjitvoi ft clo\ vvvt. p. 1317- col. a. lin. 4.
180 IDENTITY OF THE STATE
government was changed, were of almost daily occurrence
in the petty states of Greece. They were generally
alternate oscillations between an oppressive and grinding
oligarchy and an unbridled and as oppressive democracy,
and the hatred which the contending parties reciprocally
entertained for each other was something scarcely conceiv-
able by modern readers, notwithstanding the experience
of the last century has illustrated the reigns of terror
at Argos and Corcyra by the parallel instance of Paris 1 .
Now under these circumstances nothing was more natural
than for the triumphant party to refuse to take upon
themselves the pecuniary obligations which had been
contracted by their predecessors. But injustice cannot
bear the naked sight of itself and instinctively seeks for
a veil of reason, however flimsy and transparent.
Wherever their common interests unite a large body
of men in one course of policy, writers will arise to
justify it by a plausible theory. Such was the case in
Greece. The philosophical principle on which the de-
fence of such acts was based, was that the identity of
the state, the subject of these obligations, did not go
back further than the revolution which changed the
character of the constitution. Before that point, it
was not the state, but the Few, or the Tyrant, who con-
tracted obligations; why should the state discharge these,
more than one individual burden himself with the debts
of his neighbour ? Naturally, the particular case which
oftenest occurred, was that in which Democracy succeeded
Oligarchy, and accordingly this is the case which would
1 Even the horrible massacres which took place in these states
during the triumph of the popular faction are perhaps less revolting
than the formal oath which Aristotle represents as being taken by
the oligarchs in some others: KO.\ TW ^tjfjita KCLKOVOVS e^o/^ot KO.\ /3ov\v<rta
o TI a\> e^w KCIKOV. Politic, v. p. 1 310. col. a. lin. 9-
THE SAME FOR ALL FORMS. 181
be peculiarly insisted upon in the theories constructed
to justify such policy. Hence when Aristotle, re-
ferring to these theories without formally explaining
their views, wishes to assert the general principle that
the question of what constitutes identity in a state
is entirely separate from the question of the justifica-
tion of this or that form of government, he does it
by a loosely-worded remark specifically referring to
these. " If then there are any cases," says he, " of
democracies under these circumstances, the acts of this
form of government are to be considered acts of the
state, in exactly the same sense as the acts of the oli-
garchy, or the tyranny, are 2 ."
2 p. 1276. col. a. lin. 13, e'ltrep ovv KOI ^rj/jiOKparovvrai rii/e? Kara
TOV TpOTTOV TOVTOI', O/UL0itt TtJS 7TO\OK (fictTedlf ClVCtl [VaUTf/^] TCI?
dets KO\ Tdt? CK T ^ 9 o\iya-ia<: KCU T
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