The Aristotelian Corpus and the Rhodian Tradition

New Light From Posidonius on the Transmission of Aristotle's Works

Bibliographic Data

ID9308061
AuthorsIrene Pajón Leyra (0000-0003-1637-8940, University of Oxford, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume63
Issue2
Pages723-733
Publication date2013-11-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Classical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0009-8388 • E-ISSN: 1471-6844
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0009838813000207
OpenAlexW2119644624
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited13

The ancient sources tell a particular story about the destiny of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus after Theophrastus' death. According to information provided mainly by Strabo and Plutarch, the texts produced by the Peripatetic school were lost and unavailable during a period of more than two hundred years, from the time of Neleus, the heir of Theophrastus' library, until Sulla's victory in Athens, in 86 b.c. , at the end of his campaign against Mithridates. That was the point at which the private library of a famous bibliophile was confiscated: Apellicon of Teos, who at some time at the beginning of the first century b.c. had acquired the autograph papyri that contained the only copies of Aristotle's and his disciple's works. Sulla, so these sources maintain, recovered then for later generations the so-called ‘esoteric writings’ of Aristotle, and this prepared the ground for the general diffusion of Aristotelian thought, and for the work of Andronicus of Rhodes, whose name has gone down in history as the author of the editio princeps of the Aristotelian Corpus

Art · Autograph · Destiny (ISS module · Literature · Victory · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Classics · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Law · Philosophy

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