Theophrastus

Reappraising the Sources

Johannes M. van Ophuijsen, Marlein van Raalte

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781560003281
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000159882
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

Theophrastus was Aristotle's pupil and second head of the Peripatetic School. Apart from two botanical works, a collection of character sketches, and several scientific opuscula, his works survive only through quotations and reports in secondary sources. Recently these quotations and reports have been collected and published, thereby making the thought of Theophrastus accessible to a wide audience. The present volume contains seventeen responses to this material.

There are chapters dealing with Theophrastus' views on logic, physics, biology, ethics, politics, rhetoric, and music, as well as the life of Theophrastus. Together these writings throw considerable light on fundamental questions concerning the development and importance of the Peripatos in the early Hellenistic period. The authors consider whether Theophrastus was a systematic thinker who imposed coherence and consistency on a growing body of knowledge, or a problem-oriented thinker who foreshadowed the dissolution of Peripatetic thought into various loosely connected disciplines. Of special interest are those essays which deal with Theophrastus' intellectual position in relation to the lively philosophic scene occupied by such contemporaries as Zeno, the founder of the Stoa, and Epicurus, the founder of the Garden, as well as Xenocrates and Polemon hi the Academy, and Theophrastus' fellow Peripatetics, Eudemus and Strato.

The contributors to the volume are Suzanne Amigues, Antonio Battegazzore, Tiziano Dorandi, Woldemar Gorier, John Glucker, Hans Gottschalk, Frans de Haas, Andre Laks, Anthony Long, Jorgen Mejer, Mario Mignucci, Trevor Saunders, Dirk Schenkeveld, David Sedley, Robert Sharpies, C. M. J. Sicking and Richard Sorabji. The Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities series is a forum for seminal thinking in the field of philosophy, and this volume is no exception. Theophrastus is a landmark achievement in intellectual thought. Philosophers, historians, and classicists will all find this work to be enlightening.

1
A Life in Fragments: The Vita Theophrasti

Jørgen Mejer

I. The New Collection of Sources

A new collection of Theophrastean materials was long overdue. The old Wimmer edition of 1854-62¹ contained a mere 190 fragments— including some of the shorter treatises.² Wimmer’s collection offers only two texts from Latin sources and no Arabic texts, nor does it offer any testimonia about Theophrastus’ life. The new collection³ contains texts divided into 741 numbers, of which 67 regard Theophrastus’ life and work; some of the numbered items even provide different versions that are supposed to derive from the same original.⁴ This number does not include Opuscula transmitted from antiquity by continuous manuscript tradition. On the other hand, the new collection includes a number of texts otherwise not available in modern editions, in particular the Arabic sources. The discrepancy between the number of fragments in Wimmer and that of the texts in Sources is also due to the fact that Wimmer’s ambition apparently was to collect only what he considered genuine fragments or close to verbatim reports. The new collection has given up the distinction between fragments verbis expressis and testimonies; the numbered fragments in Sources include texts, whether direct quotations, paraphrases, or reports, that give information about the thought of Theophrastus and the content of his writings.⁵

¹ F. Wimmer, Theophrasti Eresii opera gone suupersuunt omnia, Vols. 1 and 2 (Leipzig 1854), Vol. 3 (Leipzig 1862; repr. Frankfurt a. M. 1964); repr. with Latin translation, Paris 1866 (with later reissues).

² Deperditorum scriptorum excerpta et fragmenta, (1866) 321-462.

³ Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought and Influence, ed. William W. Fortenbaugh, Pamela M. Huby, Robert W. Sharples (Greek and Latin) and Dimitri Gutas (Arabic), 2 Vols. (Leiden 1992). (Hereafter: “Sources.”)

⁴ E.g. Physics, Doxography on Nature: 227Α Simplicius, In Phys. 1.2; 227Β Diogenes Laertius 8.55; 227C Alex. Aphr. In Met. 1.3. In addition, the Appendices (Vol. I, 460-65; Vol. II, 600-17) offer material in which Theophrastus is not mentioned explicitly, but which has been attributed to Theophrastus with some plausibilty.

The new collection has both a critical apparatus and an apparatus testimoniorum. The text is up to date,⁶ and in some cases it has been improved by new readings. The introduction offers a lucid account of the principles according to which sources have been edited. The index fontium is very useful and complete. It is regrettable that we have to wait for (full) indices verborum et nominum until all eleven volumes have been published.

As we now have this comprehensive collection of sources, we can begin to reconsider the significance of Theophrastus’ work. We also have a translation accompanying all these texts. Some may think that it is just another sign of the decline of classical studies that the original texts are not allowed to stand alone,⁷ but it will be realized that a translation also provides an interpretation of the text, and may account for the choice of a particular MS reading or punctuation. On the other hand, the editors’ practice of translating their own English texts into Latin and placing these Neo-Latin contributions on the left-hand pages among the original Greek, Latin and Arabic texts (apparently for reasons of symmetry) seems to be questionable. A very useful feature of this collection is the discussion of the titles of Theophrastus’ works at the beginning of each section; this gives the reader all the available evidence for each title and for the assignment of fragments to the work in question, with cross-references to the relevant fragments (e.g. 137 FHS&G: List of titles referring to works on Physics). And even if we cannot always identify the particular Theophrastean passages it is certainly a good idea to give the reader a list of the books of the Elder Pliny’s Naturalis Historia in which Pliny claims that he has used Theophrastus as a source (138 FHS&G). On the whole, the way the new collection brings together the full evidence for Theophrastus’ work and shows its significance is impressive.

⁵ Cf. H. B. Gottschalk, “Prolegomena to an Edition of Theophrastus’ Fragments,” Aristoteles, Werk and Wirkung: Paul Moraux gewidmet, ed. J. Wiesner, Vol. 1, 543-56 (Berlin 1985). This paper is important not just for editing Theophrastus, but for any collection of fragments, of philosophical fragments in particular. Sources seems to adhere to Gottschalk’s principles, except that the editors do not adopt his proposal to use signs to indicate the degree of proximity of alternative versions to the copy-text in the apparatus testimoniorum (553), and that it does give translations, in spite of Gottschalk’s objections (556).

⁶ In some cases a new edition of a text was published too late to be used in Sources (e.g. Gaiser’s and Dorandi’s editions of Philodemus, or Keaney’s of Harpocration); this can be easily made up for in the forthcoming commentary.

⁷ Though also Wimmer added a Latin translation when he reissued his collection (above, n. 1).

Furthermore, the nine volumes of commentary promised by the editors⁸ will give us a major tool in dealing with and understanding the individual fragments. These volumes will also throw light on Theophrastus’ contributions to philosophy and to science in general, and give a survey of modern scholarship on the various topics that Theophrastus dealt with.

“Do the new fragments add up to a new whole?” is a relevant question, for the increase of the number of texts available does not necessarily imply an increase of our knowledge of Theophrastus and his scholarship—although the numerous texts presented in Sources make us immediately more aware of Theophrastus’ influence on later authors and make the perception of him through the ages more obvious. It is doubtful, for instance, that we learn more about Theophrastus’ scholarship by reading Heliodorus’ poem of uncertain date (139 FHS&G); nevertheless it testifies to the esteem in which Theophrastus was held in late antiquity,⁹ and the cross-references to other fragments offered in the apparatus show that the words which are put into Theophrastus’ mouth in the poem are not totally random—indicating that even authors outside the philosophical schools in late antiquity must have had some knowledge of Theophrastus.

⁸ The first volume of the commentaries (Commentary Vol. 5) has already appeared: R. W. Sharples, Sources on Biology (Human Physiology, Living Creatures, Botany: Texts 328-435) (Leiden 1995).

⁹ The editors, following the latest edition of the text by Goldschmidt (1923), date Heliodorus to the 8th century AD (Index, II.664). His poem On the Mystic Art of the Philosopher—meaning alchemy—is dedicated to an Emperor Theodosius, either II (408-50), cf. Schmid–Stälin 2.1067 n. 2, or III (715-17), as the present editors assume. Cf. also H. Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantinischen Zeit 1 (München 1978) [HdAW 12.5.2] 280.

The extent to which the new collection does add up to a new whole may be illustrated by a comparison of the section on Theophrastus’ physics in the old and the new editions. In Wimmer we find Theophrastus’ Metaphysics (Fr. 12) followed by 43 fragments dealing with physics and doxography. In some cases a fragment is explicitly ascribed to a particular work by Theophrastus, in other cases no such reference is given. Wimmer clearly structures his collection so that it reflects his own idea about Theophrastus’ thinking: Frr. 13 and 14 (= 301B, 252Β FHS&G) deal with the role of sensation and the notion of God, while Fr. 15 dealing with the principles of contraries is taken from Theophrastus’ Topics (= 127Α FHS&G); Fr. 16 (= 176 FHS&G) dealing with the creation of things derives from the third book of the Physics “or On Heaven.” Then follow Frr. 17-19 (= 144Β, 143, 153C FHS&G) from Physics 1 on principles and movement, three fragments from book 2 and 3 of On Movement (20 = 153Β FHS&G), also about movement, three fragments on place (Frr. 21-23 = 146, 149, 153Α FHS&G; Wimmer Fr. 22b is only referred to in the apparatus to 147 FHS&G which offers a better version of the same statement, but not found in Wimmer), while four more fragments from On Movement (Frr. 24-26b = 152, 156Β, 156Α, 155C FHS&G) deal with various aspects of the concept of motion. Fr. 27 (= 301Α FHS&G) deals with sense-criteria, Frr. 28-30 (= 241Α, 241Β, 184 FHS&G) with the creation of the world; Frr. 31-55 contain various doxographica, some dealing with topics already mentioned, some taken from books already referred to.

Turning now to the new collection, the different ordering of fragments, as indicated by the equations above, announces a major difference. This section, called “Physics,” has the following subdivisions (subsequent to introductory matters): Principles of Natural Science, Place, Time, Motion and Change, Heavenly Region, Sublunary Region: Elements and Principles, The Eternity of the Universe—then the more specific sublunar topics (Meteorology, Earthquakes and Volcanoes, Metals, Stones, Waters, Salt and Soda) and finally Doxography on Nature (corresponding to Wimmer 31-55, cf. below). Though the editors, as Wimmer did, rightly have decided against an ordering strictly according to known titles,¹⁰ the information given at the beginning of the section gives a clear synopsis of the extent to which the content of individual works can be reconstructed, and they generally give the fragments of each work in the order indicated by the book numbers as referred to by the sources. The new collection seems at first sight to offer the same number of fragments as Wimmer, but in fact the 43 numbers dealing with physics in general offer 56 different texts, several of which are absent from Wimmer.

Now, if we look just at the first fragments concerning physics, those on the general principles (142-45 FHG&S) and on place (146-49 FHG&S), it becomes even more evident that the texts which have been added as well as the extended context which Sources offer,¹¹ demonstrate how Theophrastus in his Physics engaged in a discussion with Aristotle, filling out gaps in the Aristotelian presentation and stating his own views on a number of points. The new collection confirms the remark by Wehrli: “Anderseits bringt die aporetische Darstellungsform wiederholt Zweifel an den spekulativen Elementen der Vorlagen zum Ausdruck, was der empirischen Gesamttendenz von [Theophrasts] Naturlehre entspricht.”¹² I am convinced that Sources will confirm that Theophrastus, in this as in other areas, is a philosopher well worth dragging out of Aristotle’s shadow, and that this new collection of fragments in fact will force us to do so.

A much more complicated question is raised by the new arrangement of the fragments in the section called “Doxographica physica” (224-45 FHS&G)...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Contributors
• 1. A Life in Fragments: The Vita Theophrasti
• 2. Qualche aspetto della vita di Teofrasto e il Liceo dopo Aristotele
• 3. Theophrastus’ Logic
• 4. Theophrastus’ Rhetorical Works: One Rhetorical Fragment the Less, One Logical Fragment the More
• 5. Theophrastus in the Tradition of Greek Casuistry
• 6. Theophrastus on the Nature of Music (716 FHS&G)
• 7. Le début d’une physique: Ordre, extension et nature des fragments 142-144 Α/Β de Théophraste
• 8. Philoponus on Theophrastus on Composition in Nature
• 9. Problèmes de composition et de classification dans l’Historia plantarum de Théophraste
• 10. Is Theophrastus a Significant Philosopher?
• 11. L’originalità della posizione teofrastea nel contesto del pensiero animalistico aristotelico e della fisiognomica zoo-etica try Peripato, Stoa e lori critici
• 12. Theophrastus as Philosopher and Aristotelian
• 13. Theophrastus and the Peripatos
• 14. Theophrastus, the Academy, and the Athenian Philosophical Atmosphere
• 15. Theophrastus, the Academy, Antiochus and Cicero: A Response (to John Glucker) and an Appendix
• 16. Theophrastus and Epicurean Physics
• 17. Theophrastus and the Stoa
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Index of Subjects