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M.L. Chiesara, Aristocles of Messene , Testimonies and Fragments Edited with Translation and Commentary (Oxford Classical Monographs). Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000. xlii, 218 p. Pr. £ 40.
Fragments of Aristocles’ On Philosophy are preserved by Eusebius, tes- timonia on (presumably the introductory section of ) the treatise by Asclepius and Philoponus, and testimonia on the author in the Suda. It is good to have these sparsa collected and explained. C(hiesara) prints the fragments in an order di Verent from that of Eusebius and earlier collections (argued xxxi V.): rst the passage on Plato, then those on Aristotle, on Zeno the Stoic (all from book 7 of the OnPhilosophy ), on the Pyrrhonian sceptics (the longest, most important and presumably best-known piece), on Metrodorus and Protagoras, on Xenophanes and Parmenides, and nally on the Epicureans (all from book 8). Eusebian context is given in small print. Of Mras’ critical apparatus understandably only a tiny selection is left. But this selection contains errors one does not expect in a book “published under the supervision of a Committee of the Faculty of Literae Humaniores in the University of Oxford”. 1 ) Here are those I have noticed: 16 n. 12 read „ErmÛou; 20 n. 19 “dÐmhn Epict. Diss. 2.23.1” reports Mras’ “dÐhmen (vgl. z. B. Epict. diss. II 23,1 pw ’n ´dion nagnÐh )] doÛhmen Mullach”— note that the mistake is repeated in C.’s text; according to 30 n. 33 the reading p¡plasye in a Timon fragment is “also in Theodoret, Gr. aV. cur. 2.20, from Eusebius”— but Raeder in the Teubneriana reads p¡plhsye, and Mras correctly reports that one ms. of Eusebius and “ ein Teil der Hss. des Thdrt.” have pepl‹nhsye, “die übrigen [des Thdrt.] p¡plhsye”. Irregularities in the text: F 4 ~ P.E. 14.28.23 tÒ ôfyalmÒ read tÆ ôfyalmÆ, ‘both eyes’; F 6 ~ P.E. 14.20.9 C. has m®pote, e<Þ> where either m®potƒ e<Þ> or m®pote
©Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2003 Mnemosyne, Vol. LVI, Fasc. 4 Also available online – www.brill.nl DE NOVIS LIBRIS IUDICIA 493 but ‘cutting o V ’ (see below). F 4.27 C. 31.13 down “encountering”— better ‘reading’. On the whole however the translation is accurate and readable and the text all right, though the six words T 3.3 katŒ p¡nte trñ pouw oî w m¡llv l¡ gein (immediately followed by v†w fhsin ƒAristokl°w ) are verbatim so should have been put between quotation marks. The Introduction discusses the man, and the work. Mention of AÞnh- sÛdhmñw tiw provides a terminus post quem , but in my view does not entail that Aristocles “wrote not much later” (xviii), cf. Sen. Nat. 7.32.2 (which should have been cited 135). Attempts to date him “a little later” still, on the basis of a papyrus of the late 1st century CE (xix), and to con- nect him with Alexandria (xix V.) are speculative. That “the collection” of the placita philosophorum (another genre) found in Eusebius “had been initiated in the Academy” (xxxi n. 21) is an odd claim: does the author mean Plato (think e.g. of the Phaedo), or is this a slip for “in the Peripatos”? And the relation between Aristocles’ and Aristotle’s works entitled OnPhilosophy (C. xxxvii f. and 55 V. discusses possibilities) remains obscure, or so I believe. Arguing to the latter from the extant fragments of the former, and from what Asclepius and Philoponus tell us about its general purpose, is hazardous. The Commentary on the whole is well-informed as to the secondary literature that may be brought to bear on the fragments. The best sec- tion is that on F 4 (Pyrrhonism), containing inter alia an interest- ing explanation of Aristocles’ nine epistemic tropes which C. succeeds in abstracting from a brief and opaque text, and a rewarding com- parison with the versions in Philo, Sextus and Diogenes Laertius (115 V.). I limit myself to a few remarks, and to noting some errors. F 1.3 (cf. 64), lloidƒ potemñmenoi m¡ rh tinŒ perÜ taè ta di¡ trican , oß m¢n Þatrik®n ktl ., “others con ned themselves to speci c areas and spent all their time on them, some on medicine, etc.”: translate ‘others cut oV certain parts’ sc. from philosophy. This can be paralleled: Cic. Tusc. 1.64, philosophia. ..omnium mater artium etc., de Orat. 1.9-10, Cels. pr. 6- 8, esp. Hippocrates. ..a studio sapientiae disciplinam hanc [sc. medicine] sepa- ravit; Cic. Fin. 5-7 in relation to the philosophy of the Old Academy, not philosophy in general, so very close to Aristocles. Even as late as Dav. Proll. 21.12-3, ²filosofÛa m®thr tÇ n texnÇn kaܤ pisthmÇn ¤stin ktl., paralleled in the fragment of a commentary on Galen’s On Sects, PBerol inv. 11739A, lines B.13-4, ²filosofÛa ²pasÇn tÇn texn [Çn] m®thr.2) Arist. De phil. fr. 9 Ross is misquoted and translated accord- ingly (63). F 1.9 logik® (67): note the ‘character’ of Pl. Cra., Plt. and Prm. at D.L. 3.58. Sen. Ep. 33.4 has been misunderstood (76). Achilles does not depend on Aëtius (78 n. 5). The Renaissance forgery Herennius