324 ARISTOTELES. 2. That the fate which befol the literary rema'.ns of Aristotle and Theophrastus was prejudicial to individual writings, e. g. to the Metaphysics (see Glaser, die. Arist. Metaph. p. 8, &c.) : or 3. That through the discovery of Apcllicon several writings, as e.g. the Problems, and other hyporanematic works, as the Poetics, which we now possess, may have come to light for the first time. Meantime, after the first two successors of Aris- totle, the Peripatetic school gradually declined. The heads of the school, who followed Theophrastus and Straton, viz. Lycon, Ariston of Ceos, Critolaus, &x;., were of less importance, and seem to have oc- cupied themselves more in carrying out some sepa- rate dogmas, and commenting on the works of Aristotle. Attention was especially directed to a popular, rhetorical system of Ethics. The school declined in splendour and influence ; the more ab- struse writings of Aristotle were neglected, because their form was not sufficiently pleasing, and the esisy superficiality of the school was deterred by the difficulty of unfolding them. Thus the expres- sion of the master himself respecting his writings might have been repeated, "that they had been published and yet not published." Extracts and anthologies arose, and satisfied the superficial wants of the school, while the works of Aristotle himself were thrust into the back-ground. In Rome, before the time of Cicero, we find only slender traces of an acquaintance with the writings and philosophical system of Aristotle. They only came there with the library of Apellicon, which Sulla had carried off from Greece. Here Tyrannion, a learned freedman, and still more the philosopher and literary antiquary, Andronicus of Rhodes, twined great credit by the pains they bestowed on them. Indeed, the labours of Andronicus form an epoch in the history of the Aristotelian writings. [Andronicus, p. 176, b.] With Andronicus of Rhodes the age of commen- tators begins, who no longer, like the first Peripa- tetics, treated of separate branches of philosophy in works of their own, following the principles of their master, but united in regular commentaries explanations of the meaning with critical observa- tions on the text of individual passages. The po- pular and often prolix style of these commentaries probably arises from their having been originally lectures. Here must be mentioned, in the first century after Christ, Boethus, a scholar of Andro- nicus ; NicoLAUs Damascenus ; Alexander Aegaeus, Nero's instnictor: in the second century, AsPASius {Etii. Nic. ii. and iv.) ; Adrastus, the author of a work "ntpi Trjs rd^ews rwv 'ApiaToreAous ^i^Kiuv ; Galen us; Alexander of Aphrodisias in Caria. [See p. 112,] In the third and fourth conturies, the new-Platonists engaged zealously in the task of explaining Aristotle : among these we must mention Porpiiyrius, the author of the in- troduction to the Categories, and his pupil, Iam- BLicHUS; Dexippus; and Themistius. In the fifth century, Procl us; Ammonius; Damascius; David the Armenian. In the sixth century, A scle- pius, bishop of Tralles ; Olympiodorus, a pupil of Ammonius. Simplicius was one of the teachers of philosophy who, in the reign of Justinian, emi- grated to the emperor Cosroes of Persia. (Jourdain, Recherches critiques sur rage et Voriginedes Traduc- tions latines d Arist, Paris, 1819.) His comment- aries are of incalculable value for the history of the Ionian, Pythagorean, and Eleatic philosophy. lu- ARISTOTELES. deed, in every point of view, they are, together with those of Johannes Philoponus, the most distinguished of all the works of Greek commen- tators which have been preserved to us. Almost contemporaneously with them the Roman consular BoETHius, the last support of philosophical litera- ture in Italy (a. d. 524), translated some of the writings of Aristotle. The series of the rnore profound commentators ends with these writers ; and after a long interval, the works of Aristotle became a subject of study and explanation among the Arabians and in the West, while among the Greeks scarcely any one else is to be mentioned than Joh. Da.mascenus and Photius in the eighth and ninth centuries ; Michael Psellus, Michael Ephesius in the eleventh centur}' ; Geo. Pachymeres and Eu- STRATius in the twelfth; Leo Magentenus in the fourteenth ; and Georgius Gemistus Pletho and Georgius of Trapezus in the fifteenth. These borrow all that they have of any value from the older commentators. (Corap. Labbeus, Graecor. Aristotelis Commentator. Conspectus^ Par. 1758.) The older editions of these commentators were published in the most complete form at Gbttingen, in 30 vols. The best edition is by Chr. Aug. Brandis, Scholia in Arist. collegit, &c., Berl. 1836, 4to., in two volumes, of which as yet only the first has appeared. 2. JJistori/ of the tvritings of Aristotle in tlie East and among the sclioolmen of the West in tlie middle ages. — While the study of the writings and philo- sophy of Aristotle was promoted in the West by Boethius,* the emperor Justinian abolished the philosophical schools at Athens and in all the cities of his empire, where they had hitherto enjoyed the protection and support of the state. At that time also the two Peripatetics, Damascius and Simpli- cius, left Athens and emigrated to Persia, where they met with a kind reception at the court of Cosroes Nushirwan, and by means of translations diffused the knowledge of Greek literature. Soon afterwards the Arabians appeared as a conquering people, under the Ommaiades ; and though at first thej' had no taste for art and science, they were soon led to appreciate them under the Abbassides, who ascended the throne of the khalifs in the mid- dle of the eighth centur}^ The khalifs Al-Mansur, Harun-al-Raschid, Mamun, Motasem(753 — 842), favoured the Graeco- Christian sect of the Nesto- rians, who were intimately acciuainted with the Aristotelian philosophy ; invited Greek scholars to the court at Bagdad, and caused the philosophical works of Greek literature, as well as the medical and astronomical ones, to be rendered into Arabic, chiefly fi-om Greek originals, by translators ap- pointed expressly for the task. Through the last of the Ommaiades, Abd-alrah- man, who escaped to Spain on the downfall of his house in the East, this taste for Greek literature and philosophy was introduced into the West also. Schools and academies, like those at Bagdad, arose in the Spanish cities subject to the Arabs, which continued in constant connexion with the East. Abd-alrahraan III, (about A, D. 912) and Hakera established and supported schools and founded libraries ; and Cordova became for Europe what
- From the fifth century onwards the first Latin
translations of Aristotle begin with that by St. Augustin.
