ARISTOTLE. 169 



man of vast wealth and restless disposition, and an adopted citizen of 

 Athens, he appears to have alternately 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 large property. Moreover 

 he surreptitiously obtained possession of the ancient original decrees 

 of the Assembly, which were preserved in the temple of the Mother 

 of the Gods, and from the other cities too he got hold of whatever 

 was ancient and curious." This theft obliged him to save his life by His passion 

 flying the country : in the troublous times, however, which soon fur cunositie 

 after succeeded, he contrived to procure his recall by joining the party 

 of the demagogue Athenion. This individual had induced his country- 

 men to take a part in the confederacy which Mithridates had organized 

 against the power of Rome. In an evil hour Apellicon quitted book- 

 collecting for military service. He took the command of an expedi- 

 tion against Delos, which was occupied by Orbiits the Roman praetor ; 

 but displayed such utter ignorance of the commonest duties of a com- 

 mander that his enemy soon found an opportunity of attacking him 

 unawares, destroyed or captured the whole of his troops, and burnt 

 all the machines which he had constructed for storming the city. 

 The unfortunate dilettante escaped 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. 1 It seems almost certain from 

 this account of Apellicon, that it was the possession not of the works 

 but of the autographs of them which was the attraction to him. Can what the 

 we then conceive that it was the original autographs of Aristotle and 5 Aristotle* 

 Theophrastus which he purchased from the representatives of Neleus's were which 

 family ? Autographs of what w T orks ? Not of the exoteric : for these 

 were so generally known that he would have had no difficulty in 

 filling up the gaps which the damp and worms had caused in his 

 copy. Nor of the systematic treatises ; for if the original manuscript 

 of these had existed, Andronicus would have had no difficulty in 

 determining what was by 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 of future works, common-place books, 

 some of a miscellaneous nature, some devoted to particular matters, 

 containing, it may be, extracts from other writers, references to their 

 opinions, germs of thoughts hereafter to be worked out, lines of 

 argument merely indicated; it is very conceivable that these docu- 

 ments, so long as a healthy and lively philosophical spirit existed in 

 the Peripatetic school, would receive very little attention. If they 

 1 Stahr, Aristotelia, ii. p. 119. 



