ARISTOTLE. 177 



XXV. Problems. (/T|Oo/3Xj//jara.) 



This is a collection of questions on various subjects, in thirty-eight 

 divisions, of which the first relates to medical, the fifteenth to mathe- 

 matical, the eighteenth to philological, the nineteenth to musical, tho 

 twenty-seventh and three following to ethical, and the rest mainly to 

 physical and physiological matters. Theophrastus 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 

 In his treatises, too, Trepl KOWV and Trepl t^pwrwy, 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 con- 

 sidered those works to be nothing more than a patchwork of Aris- 

 totle's ' Problems.' 



Besides the 7rpoy6Xr;/iara ty/cv/cXia, which we mentioned under 

 the last head, Diogenes mentions two books of TrpofiXrjpara eTrire- 

 deapeva ('Problems reviewed'), and two of 7rpo/3X///zara ex rwy 

 A^juofv-piVov ; and Plutarch and Athenseus, and other authors, quote 

 from his 7rpoft\rip,ara <f>v&LKa. That the work which has come down 

 to us is neither any one of these, nor the aggregate of them all, is 

 certain. Sylburg, in his preface, points out several instances in which 

 Aristotle himself speaks of questions discussed in them, which will 

 be looked for in vain in the present treatise. Neither do we find 

 some of the quotations made by Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, Apuleius, 

 and Alexander of Aphrodisias. On the other hand, some citations 

 which Gellius makes from the Trpo^X^para ty/cv/cXta, and one of 

 Macrobius from the TrpoGXrj^ara <ven*:a, 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 of the collections of Aristotle, and that 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 only a 

 few words ; there is a great difference of style observable in several 

 parts; in many of the more ancient manuscripts parts are omitted and 

 others differently arranged ; and as regards the philosophy, it is im- 

 possible 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 bookmakers 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 known of any of the Aristotelian writings at that 

 time. These circumstances render it necessary for the historian of 



1 Prob. xxxiii. 12 ; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxviii. 6. 



2 Aristophanes, the Alexandrian grammarian, epitomized or otherwise abridged 

 Aristotle's collection of Proverbs. 



[G. E. P.] N 



