MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
73 
of that period any allusion to the doctrines of the 
Peripatetic school, or the philosophical renown of its 
founder. The edition of Andronicus made them 
better known, as his example of studying and illus- 
trating them was soon followed by various other 
commentators. 
To enumerate the host of Greek, Latin, Jewish, 
Arabic, and Christian writers who imitated the 
Rhodian editor in giving expositions and criticisms 
on the different works of Aristotle, would be foreign 
to our purpose. Their very names would fill a vo- 
lume. From the era of Augustus to the invention 
of printing, the works of the Stagirite passed through 
the hands of more than 10,000 commentators; and 
after that period, several thousands more were added 
to the catalogue, amongst whom are to be classed 
not a few of the venerable fathers of the church, who 
borrowed from this armoury the intellectual weapons 
which rendered them invincible in their theological 
wars. The first generation of these expositors be- 
gan in the age of the Antoniues with the labours 
of Taurus the Berisiean, Adrastus, Alexander the 
Apbrodistean at Rome, Galen the celebrated physi- 
cian, Atticus the Platonist, and Ammonius Sacchus 
of Alexandria. Under the Roman emperors, they 
continued to flourish ; aud in the long list we find 
the once revered names of Aspasius, Syrianus, 
Olympiodorus, Plotinus, Porphyry, Themistius, Pro- 
clus, the second Ammonius, Damascius, Simplicius, 
Philoponus, and Johannes Damascenus. By the 
