GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



sophers. 



Indirect 

 information 

 in ancient 

 writers on 

 the subject. 





notices, which contain much that is obviously false and even contra- 

 dictory, and from which a systematic account, in which tolerable 

 Early his- confidence maybe placed, can only be deduced by a careful and critical 

 Aristotle and investigation. It is not, however, to the indifference of his contempo- 

 other phiio- raries, or 'to that of their immediate successors, that the paucity of 

 details relating to Aristotle's life is due. Ptolemy Philadelphus, the 

 second of the Macedonian dynasty in Egypt, not only bestowed a 

 great deal of study upon the writings of the great philosopher, but 

 also is said to have written a biography of him. 1 About the same 

 time Hermippus of Smyrna, one of the Alexandrine school of learned 

 men, whose research and accuracy are highly praised by Josephus, 9 

 composed a work extending to considerable length, ' On the Lives of 

 Distinguished Philosophers and Orators.' in which Aristotle appears 

 to have occupied a considerable space. 8 Another author, whose date 

 there is no direct means of ascertaining, but who probably is to be 

 placed somewhere about the end of the third century before the 

 Christian era, 4 Timotheus of Athens, is also to be added to the number 

 of his early biographers. But independently of such works as these, 

 antiquity abounded in others which contained information on this 

 subject in a less direct form. Aristoxenus of Tarentum, who, during 

 a part of his life, was himself 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.' 6 And 

 yet more valuable materials than were furnished by the two last- 

 mentioned works, of which at least the former appears to have been 

 composed in the vulgar spirit that delights in finding something to 

 degrade to its own level all that is above it, 7 probably were contained 

 in the treatises of Demetrius the Magnesian, and Apollodorus the 

 Athenian. The first of these was a contemporary of Cicero and his 



1 David the Armenian, in a commentary on the Categories, cited by Brandis, in 

 the Rheinisches Museum, vol. i. p. 250, and since published from two Vatican 

 MSS., says, Tuv 'Agiffro<rifax,ay ffvyy^etftftKruv <xo\Xuv ovruv %<X/wv TOY agtfaov, us 

 (bnfft HToXifteitos o ^iXotitXtyos , a.vtx.y^a,^v KUTUV vroinffaftivos x,a,t <rov fiiov KVTOV xa,t 

 TJJV Sicifaffw. x. r. A., (p. 22, ed. Bekker) an important passage, showing who the 

 Ptolemy was that is elsewhere cited in connexion with Aristotle's works. 



2 Contr. Apion. lib. i. dv^ -XTI/H <ra<rav <Wo/av Isn^sX^f. 



3 Athenaeus (xiii. p. 589, XT. p. 696) cites him, li TU f^uru *& 'Agie-roriXovs. 



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 autho- 

 rity for anything 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 Ilsg) BW 



5 Ap. Athen. Deipnosoph. p. 354. 

 c Diog. Laert. ii. 23, v. 3. 



7 See the stories which he related in it of Protagoras, also mentioned by 

 Athenaeus, loc. cit. 



