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T H E 



vinely) : his real name was Tyrtamus. (Quinetilian, x 

 1, 83; Cicero, Orator., 19.) After the death of Plato, 

 when Speusippus had placed himself at the head of the 

 Academy, Theophrastus, with a number of the formei 

 disciples of Plato, left the Academy. Plutarch has pre- 

 served a bare account of an event in the life of Theo- 

 phrastus, which must perhaps be assigned to the time 

 which he spent avva$ from Athens after his withdrawal 

 from the Academy. Plutarch says that he and Phidias 

 delivered their country twice from the oppression of tyrants. 

 After the battle of Chaeronea, Theophrastus returned to 

 Athens, from which he had been absent for many years ; 

 and as Aristotle had then just opened his school (the 

 Lyceum . Theophrastus ranged himself among the hearers 

 of his friend, and cultivated most zealously all the depart- 

 ments of philosophy and science of which Aristotle was 

 then the srreat master. When Aristctle himself withdrew, 

 Theophrastus became his successor in the Lyceum, and ac- 

 quired great reputation in his new sphere, not because he 

 created any new system of philosophy, but because he 

 combined the knowledge and profundity of Aristotle with 

 the fascinating eloquence of Plato. The number of his 

 pupils on one occasion is said to have amounted to two 

 thousand (Diogenes Laert., v. 37), who flocked around 

 him from all parts of Greece. This popularity, and the 

 influence which it gave him in the public affairs of Greece 

 through the practical character of his philosophy, roused 

 the indignation and envy of those who saw in him an ob- 

 stacle to their designs. The consequence was that Agno- 

 nides, who probably acted on behalf of many others, 

 brought against him a charge of impiety. Theophrastus 

 pleaded his own cause before the Areopagus with his usual 

 eloquence, and convinced that court of his innocence. 

 Hia accuser would have fallen a victim to his own calumny, 

 if Theophrastus had not generously interfered and saved 

 him. After this event he enjoyed undisturbed peace for 

 :il years, and he saw his school, which was visited by 

 tin- most eminent men of the age, daily increase. The 

 tranquillity which he enjoyed was however chiefly owing to 

 the influence of Demetrius Phalereus, who had himself been 

 a pupil of Theophrastus. After the fall of Demetrius the 

 persecutions besan afresh ; and, in 303 B.C., Sophocles, 

 i Amphielides, carried a law which forbade all phi- 

 losophers, under pain of death, to give any public instruc- 

 tion without permission of the state. (Diogenes Laert., 

 v. 38; Athenaeus, xiii.. p. 610; J. Pollux, ix. 5.) Theo- 

 phra.stus left Athens ; but in the following year, the law 

 bcins abolished, and the mover condemned to pay a fine 

 of live talents. Theophrastus and several other philosophers 

 returned to Athens, where he continued his labours without 

 any interruption until his death. The whole population 

 of Athens is said to have followed his body to the grave. 

 His will, in which he disposed of his literary and other 

 property, is preserved in Diogenes Laertius. His library 

 was very valuable, as it contained the works of Aristotle, 

 which this philosopher had bequeathed to Theophrastus. 

 Theophrastus bequeathed them, together with his other 

 literary property, to Neleus of Scepsis. 



Theophrastus, as already observed, did not develop a 

 new system of philosophy, but he confined himself to ex- 

 plaining that of his master Aristotle. With this view he 

 wrote numerous works on various branches of philosophy 

 and on natural history. His philosophical works may be 

 divided into works on philosophy, in the narrower sense of 

 the word, works on historical subjects, and works on certain 

 arts, such as oratory, poetry, and the like. It is to be la- 

 mented that most of his writings on these departments are 

 now lost, and more especially those on politics (IloXirura), 

 on legislators (irtpl vofioBtTuv), on laws, a work of which 

 Cicero made great use, and his works on orator)-, of which 

 Theophrastus himself was so distinguished a master. A list 

 of the lost books of Theophrastus is given in Fabricius 

 (Biblioth. Graera, iii., p. 445, Sec.). Andronicus of Rhodes, 

 a Peripatetic philosopher of the time of Lucullus, made a 

 list of all the works of Theophrastus, and arranged them 

 in systematic order. The following philosophical works of 

 Theophrastus are still extant: 



1. ' Charactercs,' or 7)61*01 xapaKTiiptf, consisting of 

 thirty, or, according to Schneider's arrangement, of thirty- 

 one chapters. In this work the author gives thirty cha- 

 racteristic descriptions of vices, or rather, of the manner 

 in which they show themselves in man. The descriptions 

 however are mere sketches, and form a gallery of bad or 



ridiculous characters. Many modern critics have main- 

 tained that the work in its present form is not to be re- 

 garded as a production of Theophrastus, but that it is 

 either an abridgement of a greater work of this philoso- 

 pher, or a collection of descriptions of vicious characters, 

 compiled either from the writings of Theophrastus, or 

 from those of others. Neither of these opinions is incom- 

 patible with the statement of Diogenes Laertius, Suidas, 

 and other late writers who mention r;0iKoi X a p0 Krijpe<,- 

 among the works of Theophrastus ; for the ' Characters ' 

 which we now possess may have been compiled and pub- 

 lished under the name of Theophrastus long before their 

 time. Either of these hypotheses would also account for 

 the fact that nearly all the definitions of the vices that 

 occur in the book contain some error, which, it must be 

 presumed, would not have been the case if the work 

 had been written by Theophrastus. Other critics, on 

 the contrary, have vindicated the ' Characteres ' as a 

 genuine work of Theophrastus, and have attributed all 

 its defects and inaccuracies to the bad MSS. upon which 

 the text is based. This opinion has received considerable 

 support from the discovery of a Munich codex, part of 

 which was published byFr. Thiersch in 1832, in the ' Acta 

 Philologorum Monacensium ' (vol. iii., fasc. 3). This MS. 

 contains the titles of all the thirty chapters, but the text 

 of only twenty-one. The first five chapters and the intro- 

 duction, which were edited by Thiersch, are considerably 

 shorter than the common text, the language is perfectly 

 pure, and there is very little doubt that this is the genuine 

 text of the work of Theophrastus, and that the common 

 one is only a paraphrase, made perhaps by Maximus 

 Planudes, who is known to have written a commentary on 

 the ' Characteres ' of Theophrastus. The editio princeps 

 of the ' Characteres ' is by Wilibald Pyrckheimer, Ni'irn- 

 berg, 1527, 8vo. This edition, which contains only fifteen 

 chapters, was reprinted with a Latin translation by A. Po- 

 litianus, Basle, 1531, 8vo., and 1541, fol. Chapters 10 to 

 23 were first added by Camotius, who published the works 

 of Theophrastus in the sixth volume of his edition of 

 Aristotle (Venice, 1551-52). These twenty-three chapters 

 were increased by five new ones from a Heidelberg MS. 

 in the excellent edition of Casaubon, of 1599 (reprinted in 

 1612 and 1617, 8vp.). The last two chapters were added 

 in the edition which appeared at Parma, 1786, 4to. A 

 still more perfect, and in fact the first complete edition, is 

 that of J. P. Siebenkees, which was edited by Goetz, Niirn- 

 berg, 1798, 8vo. In 1799 there appeared two new editions, 

 the one by Coraes (Paris, 8vo.), and the other by Schneider 

 (Jena, 8vo.). The last edition, which is very useful, is 

 that of Fr. Ast, Leipzig, 1816, 8vo. The ' Characteres ' 

 have been translated into French by Jean de la Bruyere 

 ;Paris, 1696, 12mo., often reprinted, and lastly edited by 

 Schweighaiiser, Paris, 1802), and by Levesque (Paris, 1782, 

 12mo.). The best German translations are those of C. 

 Rommel (Prenzlau, 1827, 12mo.), and of J. J. Hottinger 

 (Miinchen, 1821, 8vo.). The reare several English transla- 

 tion*: the latest is by F. Howell, London, 1824, 8vo. 

 That by Eustace Budgell, London, 1713, 8vo., is generally 

 called the best. There is also a translation into modern 

 reek by Larbaris, Vienna, 1815, 8vo. 



2. A fragment of a work on Metaphysics, which consists 

 of one book entire (Jtuv /itra ;-a 0tnrini airoairaafidTiov jj 

 /3ij3Xi'ov a). This book was not mentioned by Andronicus 

 of Rhodes in his catalogue of the works of Theophrastus, 

 jut it is ascribed to him by Nicolaus Damascenus. It is 

 printed in all the early editions of the works of Theophras- 

 :us in connection with those of Aristotle, as in those of 

 Venice (14fl7\ Basle (1541), Venice (1552), and in that of 

 Sylburg (Frankfort, 1587). The last edition is that of Ch. 

 A. Brandis, who annexed it to his edition of Aristotle's 



Metaphysics' (Berlin, 1823, 8vo.). 



3. A Dissertation vipi aiVerjcKwc, that is, on the Senses 

 and the Imagination. There is a paraphrastic commentary 

 on this work by Priscian, the Lydian, who lived in the 

 sixth century of our sera. It was first edited by Trin- 

 cavelli, Venice, 1536, fol., with Priscian's paraphrase, and 



Quaestiones ' by Alexander Aphrodisiensia. It is also 

 jrinted in the above-^nentioned colJections of the works of 

 I'heophrastus, and in that published by Schneider, Leipzig, 

 1818-21. 



The fragments of other philosophical works are too brief 

 and numerous to be noticed here. 



The 'History of Plants,' by Theophrastus, vtfi <j>vruv 



