168 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



to repel the more indolent from him." 1 The wit of the satirist 

 and the flourishes of the rhetorician were thus translated into plain 

 prose ; and from this time forward the duplicity of Aristotle's doc- 

 trines may be considered as reckoned among the most indisputable 

 facts. 



Qualification Having now thoroughly satisfied ourselves that the narrative of 

 >f Strabo's Strabo requires much qualification, we may inquire whether there is 

 any part of it which is consistent 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 some books which 

 had belonged to Aristotle and Theophrastus, that Apellicon pur- 

 chased 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 was 

 the decay of the Peripatetic school 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 matter of opinion, on which he is no 

 authority whatever. The one half is reconcilable with the fact that 

 the principal acroamatic works of Aristotle were in the hands of his 

 successors and in the library at Alexandria, during the interval 

 between Neleus and Apellicon ; it is in accordance with the notice of 

 Athenaeus that Ptolemy bought the libraries of Aristotle and Theo- 

 phrastus; and with various other stories which, having a less ob- 

 vious bearing upon the question, we have omitted for the sake of 

 brevity in their proper place, but which will be found stated shortly 

 below in the note. 2 The other is inconsistent with these and many 

 other facts, and may be rejected without invalidating the reputation 

 of Strabo either for veracity or accuracy as regards matters which 

 came within his knowledge a reputation 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 re- 

 markable a story ? We can only guess an answer, but we will never- 

 theless make the attempt. 



Character of Athenseus, 3 quoting from the work of Posidonius the historian, a 

 ti e Teian contemporary of Pompey the Great, gives a sketch of the character of 

 Apellicon, which will, perhaps, throw a light upon this question. A 



1 Ad Auscult. Physic, fol. 2, 6, line 22. 



2 I. Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions it as a prevalent opinion that Demo- 

 sthenes 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 twelve Philippics, as they were 4 called) were delivered before that 

 work was written. (Ep. i. ad Ammseum.) II. Theophrastus corresponded with 

 Eudemus concerning certain errors in the copies of the fifth 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). 



3 Athenaeus, v. cap. liii. pp. 214, 215. 



