Ancient Lives of Aristotle I: The Life of Diogenes Laertius

Abstract

This article presents an annotated translation of Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Aristotle (Vita Laertiana). A second article will follow, offering annotated translations of three further biographies-the Vita Hesychii, the Vita Vulgata, and the Vita Latina. Taken together, these texts constitute the complete Greek biographical tradition of Aristotle, both direct and indirect, with the exception of the severely incomplete Vita Marciana and the fragmentary, largely derivative,Vita Lascaris. The translations of all four biographies form part of the new edition of Aristotle’s works edited by C. D. C. Reeve for Hackett Publishing and are presented here with minor changes and an expanded version of the original notes.

Keywords:
Aristotle; ancient biographies; Diogenes Laertius; Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Aristotle

Introduction

We know of several ancient Lives of Aristotle, that is, biographical reports whose elaboration or original materials can be traced back to antiquity.¹ These Lives are the following:

1. The biography of Aristotle included in Book V of Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius (3^rd century AD), which comprises a substantial account of Aristotle’s life, his will (the authenticity of which is now generally acknowledged), a picturesque compilation of sayings (most likely spurious), a catalogue of his writings, and a summary of his doctrines.

2. The Vita Hesychii, so called because its origin is attributed to the entry ᾽Αριστοτέλης in the dictionary compiled by the biographer and lexicographer Hesychius of Miletus (6^th century AD).² This short biographical note, which nonetheless also includes a catalogue of his writings, only partially coinciding with the one recorded by Diogenes, was reproduced (without the catalogue) by the Suda in entry 3929 and edited for the first time (with the catalogue) by Gilles Ménage in 1663, as an appendix to his edition of Diogenes Laertius (which is why it is also commonly known as the Vita Menagiana).

3. The Vita Marciana (named after the only available manuscript, Marcianus graecus 257, preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice), which is an extensive and colorful biography, with many details foreign to the previous two and a clear hagiographic intention. This Life was certainly written within Neoplatonic circles, somewhere from the third century AD onward, by someone driven by the desire to harmonize Aristotle with Plato and integrate him into the Platonic tradition.³ The original is heavily truncated and was conjecturally reconstructed by Düring on the basis of the first modern edition of the manuscript (Robbe, 1861).⁴

4. The Vita Vulgata, also of Neoplatonic origin and motivated by similar intentions, but probably a little later than the previous one (5^th or 6^th century AD), perhaps drawn up within the framework of the Alexandrian school.⁵

5. The Vita Lascaris (the name of the author who added it to a manuscript already containing the Vita Laertiana and the Vita Vulgata),⁶ which is a very short collection of paraphrased excerpts from the Vita Marciana.⁷

6. The Vita Latina, which seems to correspond to a 13^th century translation of the original (or originals) of the Vita Marciana and the Vita Vulgata, or from a Greek text borrowing from both.

7. Two short Syriac biographical notes of undetermined date, translated from Greek, of which the first (and longest) one is visibly based on the same archetype(s) as the Neoplatonic ones.⁸

8. Five Arabic Lives, all of which derived from the same source, namely the letter, lost in Greek, addressed by Ptolemy (most likely a Peripatetic of the imperial period) to a certain Gallus, containing the biography and testament of Aristotle and the catalogue of his writings. This source, which came down to the Arabs through a Syriac translation, is preserved as such in two different manuscripts - the Istanbul manuscript (Istanbul Ayasofya 4833) and the Qom manuscript (Qom Ayatullah al-Uzma Marasi Nagafi 12388) -, based on which the recent edition of the text was made (Rashed 2021). The other four biographical notes are drawn from the same source and are the following: the one included in Ibn al-Nadim’s Kitab al-Fihrist (10^th century AD), containing just a few fragments of the biography, plus the full testament; the one in Ibn al-Qifti’s Kitab Tarih al-hukama (12^th to 13^th century AD), which includes the fragments of the biography in al-Nadim, plus the will and the catalogue, with transliteration of the Greek titles; the one in Ibn Abi Usaibia’s Kitab Uyun al-anba (13^th century AD), which incorporates the full biography, including the will and the catalogue, but without a systematic transliteration of the Greek titles, of which only sparse traces remain; and, finally, the one in Abu al-Wafa al-Mubassir Ibn Fatik’s Muhtar al-hikam wamahasin al-kalim (11^th century AD), which adds to the biographical information from Ptolemy data gathered from another source, probably one derived from the Neoplatonic Greek or Syriac Lives, or their respective archetypes, given the obvious traces of Neoplatonic contamination and the parallels with these texts.⁹

The origin and genealogy of each of these ancient Lives, as well as their mutual relationships, have been much discussed. This discussion, which cannot yet be considered concluded, cannot be summarized here. However, as far as the Greek tradition specifically is concerned (points 1-6 of our initial list), a good summary can be found in Dorandi (2016).¹⁰

We present here the translation of four of these Lives, corresponding to the whole of the Greek tradition, both direct (Vitae Laertiana, Hesychii, and Vulgata) and indirect (Vita Latina), with the sole exception of the Vita Marciana and the Vita Lascaris (and, of course, the Greek original of Vita Syriaca I). The reason for excluding these two Lives is the mutilated and incomplete nature of the former and the fragmentary and redundant nature of the latter.

The text editions used are the following: for Diogenes Laertius, Dorandi (2013, p. 344-366); for Hesychius, Dorandi (2006); for the Vita Vulgata, Düring (1957, p. 131-136); and for the Vita Latina, Düring (1957, p. 151-158). We have reserved the footnotes essentially for clarifying names and other details mentioned in the texts, as well as to indicate cross-references between them, not, in general, to comment on the biographical facts that the respective authors attribute to Aristotle and discuss their degree of verisimilitude, which would make the apparatus much heavier. For all these aspects, it is useful to consult Natali (2013). For more complete data on the authors mentioned in the Lives and the notes, the best information available is generally still that found in the Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques.

Abbreviations

^{1. Ancient Lives:}
• DL   = Vita Laertiana
• VH   = Vita Hesychii
• VL   = Vita Latina
• VM   = Vita Marciana
• VV   = Vita Vulgata

^{2. Modern editions:}
• Düring   = Düring (1957).
• Gigon   = Gigon (1962).
• Rose²   = Rose (1870).
• Rose³   = Rose (1886).

Dorandi’s editions of the Lives of Diogenes Laertius and Hesychius are just referred to by the name of the editor.

When the page number is not indicated, we are referring to the apparatus or notes ad loc.

^{3. Other works:}
• DPA   = Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques.
• FHG   = Fragmenta historicorum graecorum.

Translation

Life of Aristotle according to Diogenes Laertius

[1]¹¹ Aristotle, son of Nicomachus and Phaestis, was from Stagira.¹² Nicomachus was descendant of Nicomachus, son of Machaon, son of Asclepius,¹³ as Hermippus says in his On Aristotle,¹⁴ and lived with Amyntas, king of the Macedonians,¹⁵ as his physician and friend. Aristotle was the most genuine disciple of Plato’s. He stammered,¹⁶ as Timotheus the Athenian says in the book On Lives;¹⁷ it is also said that he had thin legs and small eyes, and wore fancy clothes, rings, and short hair. He also had a son, Nicomachus, by Herpyllis, his concubine, as Timotheus says.¹⁸

[2] He left while Plato was still alive, so that the latter is said to have remarked: “Aristotle kicked us away as foals do to their mother.”¹⁹ Hermippus says, in his Lives, that when Aristotle was an Athenian envoy to Philip,²⁰ Xenocrates became the head of the Academy,²¹ and that when he returned and saw the school under the rule of a different person, he chose a walkway [peripaton] in the Lyceum²² to philosophize together with his disciples while walking up and down until it was time for the baths; wherefore he was called Peripatetic.²³ Others, however, say that this name was given to him because when Alexander²⁴ was walking about while recovering from a disease, he used to keep him company, discussing various matters.²⁵

[3] But, when the number of his disciples had increased, he too sat down, saying: “It is shameful to keep silence and let Xenocrates speak.”²⁶ And he trained his disciples in arguing for a given thesis, while at the same time also instructing them in rhetoric.²⁷ After that, however, he went to Hermias, the eunuch, who was tyrant of Atarneus.²⁸ Some say that Aristotle became his boyfriend, while others say that he made Aristotle his kinsman, giving him his daughter or niece in marriage, as Demetrius of Magnesia states in his book On Poets and Writers of the Same Name.²⁹ He also says that Hermias had been a slave of Eubulus, that he was a Bithynian by birth and that he killed his own master. Aristippus, in the first book of his On the Luxuriousness of the Ancients, tells that Aristotle fell deeply in love with a concubine of Hermias.³⁰ [4] After receiving permission from the latter, he married her, and rejoicing exceedingly sacrificed to the woman as the Athenians did to Demeter of Eleusis. He wrote a paean in honor of Hermias, which is transcribed below.

Afterward, he could be found in Macedonia, at Philip’s court, and received from him his son Alexander as a student. He asked Alexander to rebuild his native city, destroyed by Philip, which happened, and that he established laws for its citizens. In his school, he made it a rule, following Xenocrates, to appoint a director every ten days. When it seemed to him that he had been long enough with Alexander, he returned to Athens, after having recommended his relative Callisthenes of Olynthus to him.³¹ [5] But when Callisthenes spoke too freely to the king and disregarded his orders, Alexander is said to have reproached him, saying: “I feel you will have a short life, my child, speaking as you do.”³² And so it turned out. For, suspected of having participated in the conspiracy of Hermolaus against Alexander,³³ he was carried about in an iron cage, lice-ridden and filthy, and in the end was thrown to a lion, and so died.

As for Aristotle, after going to Athens and leading the school there for thirteen years, he fled to Chalcis³⁴ because Eurymedon the hierophant³⁵ (or Demophilus,³⁶ as Favorinus has it in the Miscellaneous History)³⁷ charged him with impiety for having made the hymn in praise of the aforementioned Hermias, [6] as well as the following inscription upon his statue at Delphi:

Impiously violating the sacred law of the gods,

The king of the bow-bearing Persians slew this man,

Not by openly defeating him with a spear in deadly combat,

But by resorting to the trust of a treacherous man. ³⁸

In Chalcis, Aristotle died after drinking aconite, as Eumelus says in the fifth book of his Histories, being seventy years old.³⁹ The same author says that he joined Plato when he was thirty, but this is incorrect. For he lived sixty-three years and joined Plato when he was seventeen years old.⁴⁰

The hymn to Hermias is as follows:

[7] Virtue, toilsome to mortals,

the most noble prey in life!

Near your silhouette, O virgin,

An enviable fate in Greece it is to die

And fierce unceasing torments to endure.

Such is the balsam you implant in the heart,

An immortal harvest, mightier than gold,

Than parents, than languid-eyed sleep.

For your sake, the sons of Zeus,

Heracles and the children of Leda,

Suffered much in their efforts

To pursue your power.

And longing for you, Achilles

And Ajax entered the house of Hades.

[8] For the sake of your beloved shape, the nursling

of Atarneus was also deprived of the sun’s rays.

Let us therefore sing his deeds

And the Muses, daughters of Mnemosyne,

Will make him more immortal,

Exalting the majesty of Zeus, protector of

Hospitality and the reward of steady friendship.

There is also a hymn of my own dedicated to him, which runs as follows:

Eurymedon was once on the verge of charging Aristotle

With impiety, when he was a minister of Deo’s mysteries,

But he, by drinking aconite, got away. Without the dust of the palaestra, ⁴¹

Therefore, he was able to triumph over unjust accusations.

[9] Favorinus, in his Miscellaneous History, says that Aristotle was the first to write a forensic speech on his own behalf due to that very charge, and that he declared that, at Athens, “Pear upon pear becomes ripe and fig upon fig”.⁴²

Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that Aristotle was born in the first year of the ninety-ninth Olympiad,⁴³ met Plato and spent twenty years with him, having joined him at the age of seventeen, and went to Mytilene in the archonship of Eubulus, in the fourth year of the one-hundred-and-eighth Olympiad.⁴⁴ When Plato died, in the first year of the same Olympiad,⁴⁵ in the archonship of Theophilus, he went to Hermias and stayed with him three years. [10] He went to Philip in the archonship of Pythodotus, in the second year of the one-hundred-and-ninth Olympiad,⁴⁶ by the time Alexander was in his fifteenth year of age. He returned to Athens in the second year of the one-hundred-and-eleventh Olympiad⁴⁷ and taught at the Lyceum for thirteen years. He then moved to Chalcis in the third year of the one-hundred-and-fourteenth Olympiad and died of disease at the age of about sixty-three years, at the same time as Demosthenes’ death in Calauria, in the archonship of Philocles.⁴⁸

It is said that, because of his recommending Callisthenes to Alexander, Aristotle incurred the king’s disfavor and that the king, to aggravate him, extolled Anaximenes⁴⁹ and sent gifts to Xenocrates.⁵⁰

[11] Theocritus of Chios also jeered at him in an epigram that reads as follows, as Ambryon says in his book On Theocritus:⁵¹

For Hermias, eunuch and slave of Eubulus,

The empty-minded Aristotle built an empty grave. ⁵²

And Timon also attacked him by saying:⁵³ “Not even the grievous thoughtlessness of Aristotle.”⁵⁴

So much for the life of the philosopher. We also stumbled by chance upon his will, which runs as follows:⁵⁵

May all be well; but, if anything should happen, Aristotle has made the following provisions. [12] Antipater is to be executor in all matters and in perpetuity. ⁵⁶ Until Nicanor arrives, ⁵⁷ Aristomenes, Timarchus, Hipparchus, Dioteles, and Theophrastus (if he is willing and if it is possible for him) ⁵⁸ are to look after the children, Herpyllis, and the property. ⁵⁹ When my daughter comes of age, she is to be given in marriage to Nicanor; but, if anything should happen to her (may it not, nor will) before she marries, or after she marries but has not yet had children, Nicanor is to have full authority, both as regards the boy and as regards everything else, to manage in a manner worthy both of himself and of us. Nicanor is to take care of the girl and the boy Nicomachus, in the manner he considers best for them, as if he were their father or brother. If anything should happen to Nicanor (may it not) either before taking the girl in marriage, or after he has taken her but before there are children, let whatever provisions he may have made be valid, ⁶⁰ [13] and if Theophrastus wishes to be with the girl, the provisions for Nicanor are to apply to him; if not, the executors, in consultation with Antipater, will manage the affairs of the girl and the boy as they see fit.

The executors and Nicanor - having myself and Herpyllis, who was devoted to me, in mind - are to take care of all other affairs related to her, and, if she wishes to take a husband, they are to see that she is given in a way not unworthy of us. In addition to what was given to her before, they are to give her a silver talent from the estate and three female slaves, whichever ones she wishes, as well as the maid she presently has and the slave Pyrrhaeus; [14] and, if she wishes to live in Chalcis, the guesthouse by the garden, if in Stagira, my father’s house. Whichever of these houses she chooses, the executors shall equip it with everything that seems right to them and sufficient to Herpyllis.

Nicanor is also to take care of the boy Myrmex, so that he is returned to his family in a way worthy of us, with those belongings of his which we received. ⁶¹ Ambracis is to be freed and, when my daughter is given in marriage, she is to be given five hundred drachmas and the maid she presently has. To Thale is to be given, besides the maid she presently has (the one who was purchased), one thousand drachmas and a maid. [15] And for Simon, besides the money already given to him for a slave, either another slave is to be bought, or additional money to be given. Tacho is to be freed when my daughter is given in marriage, as well as Philo, Olympius and his child. None of the slaves who served me is to be sold, but they are to continue to be employed; and, when they come of age, freedom is to be bestowed on those who deserve it.

The executors are to take care that the images ordered from Gryllion are set up after they are finished: that of Nicanor, that of Proxenus, which I had in mind to commission, and that of Nicanor’s mother; ⁶² that of Arimnestus, already completed, they are to set up as a memorial to him, since he died without children; ⁶³ [16] that of my mother, they are to consecrate to Demeter at Nemea or wherever seems best. Wherever they make my grave, there they are to collect and place the bones of Pythias, as she herself instructed. ⁶⁴ Upon Nicanor’s safe return, in fulfillment of the prayer I have offered on his behalf, they are to set up in Stagira stone statues, four cubits high, to Zeus and Athena the Saviors. ⁶⁵

Such are the provisions of Aristotle’s will. It is said too that a great number of his dishes were recovered; and Lyco is also reported to have said that he bathed in a tub of warm oil and would sell the oil.⁶⁶ Some also say that he applied a plaster of warm oil on his stomach and that, when he went to bed, a bronze sphere was put in his hand with a dish lying underneath it, so that, when the sphere fell onto the dish, he might be awaked by the sound.

[17] These excellent sayings are also attributed to him. Asked what good can come to liars, he replied: “That when they tell the truth they are not trusted”. Once blamed for pitying a despicable person, he answered back: “I pitied not the conduct, but the person”. He used to tell his friends and followers repeatedly, whenever and wherever he had the chance to spend time with them, that the eye takes the light from the surrounding air, while soul takes it from mathematics. Frequently and insistently, he asserted that although the Athenians had discovered wheat and laws, they made use of the wheat but not of the laws.

[18] He said of education that the roots are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. When asked what grows old fast, he replied, “Gratitude”. And when asked what hope is, he answered: “A dream of someone awake”. When Diogenes offered him a dried fig,⁶⁷ he understood that Diogenes had prepared a joke if he failed to accept it, so he took it and said that Diogenes had lost both the fig and the joke. Offered a dried fig a second time, he took it, raised it aloft, as one does with children, and gave it back, saying: “What a big boy Diogenes is”. He said that three things are needed for education: nature, study, practice. On hearing that someone had rebuked him, he said: “As long as I am absent, let him whip me too”. He said that beauty is a better recommendation than any letter of introduction. [19] However, others say that it was Diogenes who described it this way, and that Aristotle instead declared good looks to be a gift of god. Socrates considered it a brief tyranny, Plato a privilege of nature, Theophrastus a silent deceit, Theocritus a damaged piece of ivory, Carneades a kingdom without guards.⁶⁸

When asked how educated people differ from uneducated people, he replied: “As much as the living from the dead”. He said that education was an adornment in good circumstances and a refuge in bad ones. Of parents, he said that those who educated their children were more honorable than those who simply gave birth to them, since the latter offer life and the former a good life. To someone boasting that he came from a great city, Aristotle replied that “this is not what needs to be considered, but rather who is worthy of a great country”. [20] When asked what a friend is, he said: “One soul dwelling in two bodies”. Of human beings, he said that some spent their time as if they were going to live forever, while others spent it as if they were about to die. To someone inquiring why we spend so much time with beautiful people, he said: “That is the question of a blind person”. When asked what he had ever gained from philosophy, he said: “Doing without coercion what others do by fear of the laws”. When asked how students can make progress, he said: “By chasing those ahead and not waiting for those behind”. To a chatterer who, after pouring a flood of words over him, asked, “I did not chatter you to death, did I?”, he answered: “Zeus, no; I was not paying attention”. To someone who accused him of making a loan to an evil person (for the story also runs like this),⁶⁹ he said: “I did not make it to the man, but to mankind”. [21] When asked how we should behave toward our friends, he said: “As we would wish that they behave toward us”. Justice, he said, is a virtue of the soul that distributes according to merit. The best support for old age is education, he used to say. Favorinus, in the second book of his Memoirs, writes that he was constantly saying: “He who has friends has no friend”. But this can also be found in the seventh book of his Ethics.⁷⁰ Such, then, are the sayings attributed to him.

He wrote numerous books, which I saw fit to list below due to the excellence of the man in all matters.⁷¹

• [22] [1] On Justice, 4 books

• [2] On Poets, 3 books

• [3] On Philosophy, 3 books

• [4] On the Statesman, 2 books

• [5] On Rhetoric, or Grylus, 1 book

• [6] Nerinthus, 1 book

• [7] Sophist, 1 book

• [8] Menexenus, 1 book

• [9] On Love, 1 book

• [10] Symposium, 1 book

• [11] On Wealth, 1 book

• [12] Protrepticus, 1 book

• [13] On the Soul, 1 book

• [14] On Prayer, 1 book

• [15] On Good Birth, 1 book

• [16] On Pleasure, 1 book

• [17] Alexander, or On Behalf of Colonies, 1 book

• [18] On Kingship, 1 book

• [19] On Education, 1 book

• [20] On the Good, 3 books

• [21] Excerpts from Plato’s Laws, 3 books

• [22] Excerpts from the Republic, 2 books

• [23] Economics,⁷² 1 book

• [24] On Friendship, 1 book

• [25] On Being Affected or Having Been Affected, 1 book

• [26] On Sciences, 1 book

• [27] On Eristic Arguments,⁷³ 2 books

• [28] Resolutions of Eristic Arguments, 4 books

• [29] Sophistical Divisions, 4 books

• [30] On Contraries, 1 book

• [31] On Species and Genera, 1 book

• [32] On Distinctive Properties,⁷⁴ 1 book

• [23] [33] Notes on Epicheirematic Arguments,⁷⁵ 3 books

• [34] Propositions on Virtue, 2 books

• [35] Objections, 1 book

• [36] On Things Said in Many Ways or by Addition, 1 book

• [37] On Feelings, or On Anger,⁷⁶ 1 book

• [38] Ethics, 5 books

• [39] On Elements, 3 books

• [40] On Scientific Knowledge, 1 book

• [41] On the Principle, 1 book

• [42] Divisions, 17 books

• [43] Division,⁷⁷ 1 book

• [44] On Question and Answer,⁷⁸ 2 books

• [45-46] Propositions on Motion, 1 book⁷⁹

• [47] Eristic Propositions, 1 book

• [48] Syllogisms, 1 book

• [49] Prior Analytics, 9 books

• [50] Great Posterior Analytics, 2 books

• [51] On Problems, 1 book

• [52] Methodics, 8 books

• [53] On the Better, 1 book

• [54] On the Idea, 1 book

• [55a] Introductory Definitions to the Topics, 1 book

• [55b] Topics, 7 books⁸⁰

• [56] On Syllogisms, 2 books

• [57] Syllogistics and Definitions, 1 book

• [24] [58] On the Desirable and the Accidental, 1 book

• [59] Introduction to the Commonplaces,⁸¹ 1 book

• [60] On Topics Concerning Definitions, 2 books

• [61] Affections, 1 book

• [62] Division, 1 book

• [63] Mathematics, 1 book

• [64] Definitions, 13 books

• [65] On Epicheirematic Arguments, 2 books

• [66-67] Propositions on Pleasure, 1 book⁸²

• [68] On the Voluntary, 1 book

• [69] On the Noble, 1 book

• [70] Epicheirematic Theses, 25 books

• [71] Theses on Love, 4 books

• [72] Theses on Friendship, 2 books

• [73] Theses on the Soul, 1 book

• [74] Politics, 2 books

• [75] Lectures on Politics, like those of Theophrastus, 8 books

• [76] On Just Actions, 2 books

• [77] Collection of Arts, 2 books

• [78] Art of Rhetoric, 2 books

• [79] Art, 1 book

• [80] Art (another work), 2 books

• [81] Methodics, 1 book

• [82] Collection of the Art of Theodectes, 1 book

• [83] Treatise on the Art of Poetry, 2 books

• [84] Rhetorical Enthymemes,⁸³ 1 book

• [85] On Magnitude, 1 book

• [86] Divisions of Enthymemes, 1 book

• [87] On Style, 2 books

• [25] [88] On Advice, 1 book

• [89] Collection, 2 books

• [90] On Nature, 3 books

• [91] Physics, 1 book

• [92] On the Philosophy of Archytas,⁸⁴ 3 books

• [93] On the Philosophy of Speusippus and Xenocrates,⁸⁵ 1 book

• [94] Excerpts from the Timaeus and from the Writings of Archytas, 1 book

• [95] Against the Doctrines of Melissus,⁸⁶ 1 book

• [96] Against the Doctrines of Alcmaeon,⁸⁷ 1 book

• [97] Against the Pythagoreans,⁸⁸ 1 book

• [98] Against the Doctrines of Gorgias,⁸⁹ 1 book

• [99] Against the Doctrines of Xenophanes,⁹⁰ 1 book

• [100] Against the Doctrines of Zeno,⁹¹ 1 book

• [101] On the Pythagoreans, 1 book

• [102] On Animals, 9 books

• [103] Dissections, 7 books

• [104] Selection of Dissections, 1 book

• [105] On Compound Animals, 1 book

• [106] On Mythological Animals, 1 book

• [107] On Sterility, 1 book

• [108] On Plants, 2 books

• [109] Physiognomy, 1 book

• [110] Medical Matters, 2 books

• [111] On the Unit, 1 book

• [112] Signs of Storms, 1 book

• [26] [113] Astronomy, 1 book

• [114] Optics, 1 book

• [115] On Motion, 1 book

• [116] On Music, 1 book

• [117] Mnemonic, 1 book

• [118] Questions on Homer, 6 books

• [119] Poetical Matters , 1 book

• [120] Physical Matters (alphabetical ordered), 38 books

• [121] On Examined Problems, 2 books

• [122] General Problems,⁹² 2 books

• [123] Mechanics, 1 book

• [124] Problems from the Works of Democritus,⁹³ 2 books

• [125] On the Magnet, 1 book

• [126] Conjunctions of Stars, 1 book

• [127] Miscellaneous, 12 books

• [128] Inquiries (ordered by kind), 14 books

• [129] Claims, 1 book

• [130] Olympic Victors, book 1

• [131] Pythian Victors in Music, 1 book⁹⁴

• [132] Pythian, 1 book

• [133] Lists of Pythian Victors, 1 book

• [134] Victories at the Dionysia, 1 book

• [135] On Tragedies, 1 book

• [136] Didascalies, 1 book

• [137] Proverbs, 1 book

• [138] Rules for Communal Messes, 1 book

• [139] Laws, 4 books

• [140] Categories, 1 book

• [141] On Interpretation, 1 book

• [27] [142] Constitutions of 158 Cities (ordered by form: democratic, oligarchical, aristocratic, and tyrannical)

• [143] Letters to Philip about the Selymbrians⁹⁵

• [144] Letters to Alexander (4),

• [145] Letters to Antipater (9)

• [146] To Mentor (1)

• [147] To Ariston (1)

• [148] To Olympias (1)

• [149] To Hephaestion (1)

• [150] To Themistagoras (1)

• [151] To Philoxenus (1)

• [152] To Democritus (1)⁹⁶

• [153] An epic poem beginning: “Holy one, most revered of the gods, far-shooting…”

• [154] An elegy, beginning: “Daughter of a mother of beautiful offspring…”

All this adds up to 445,270 lines.

[28] These are the books he wrote. In them, he wishes to express the following.⁹⁷ The study of philosophy is divided into two branches: the practical and the theoretical.⁹⁸ To the practical branch belongs the study of ethics and that of politics, in which what concerns the city and the household is outlined. To the theoretical branch belongs the study of physics and that of logic, although logic is not regarded as an actual part of it, but as an instrument to ensure the accuracy of research. And he clearly laid down a twofold goal for it, namely plausibility and truth. He assigned two faculties to achieve each of them: dialectics and rhetoric to achieve plausibility; analytics and philosophy to achieve truth. He did not neglect anything that leads either to discovery, judgement, or use. [29] For discovery, he offered the Topics and the Methodics and many books of Propositions from which to draw plausible arguments⁹⁹ for solving problems. For judgement, he offered the Prior and Posterior Analytics (by the Prior Analytics, the premises are judged; by the Posterior, the inference is tested).¹⁰⁰ For use, he offered the works concerning debates, or those about questioning, eristics, sophistical refutations, syllogisms, and the like. He declared perception to be the criterion of truth regarding things actually presented, and understanding¹⁰¹ to be the criterion of ethical things, namely those concerning the city, the household, and the laws.

[30] He set out one end,¹⁰² the exercise of virtue in a complete life.¹⁰³ He also said that happiness is made up of three sorts of goods: those of the soul, which he calls the most authoritative; those of the body, which come second - health, strength, beauty, and the like; thirdly, external goods - wealth, good birth, reputation, and similar things.¹⁰⁴ And he said that virtue is not sufficient for happiness, for bodily and external goods are required, so that the wise man will be miserable if he find himself in hardship, poverty, and similar conditions.¹⁰⁵ Vice, however, is sufficient for unhappiness, even if it comes along with plenty of bodily and external goods. [31] He said that the virtues are not interdependent, for it is possible that someone who is prudent, or again just, to be undisciplined and incontinent.¹⁰⁶ He said that the wise man is not immune to passions, but someone who indulges them in moderation.¹⁰⁷

He defined friendship as equality of reciprocal goodwill¹⁰⁸ and included in it friendship between relatives, between lovers, and between hosts and guests.¹⁰⁹ He held that love does not aim at intercourse only but also at philosophy. And that the wise man would give himself to love, public affairs, marriage, and life at the court of kings. And that, there being three kinds of life, the theoretical, the practical, and the life of pleasures,¹¹⁰ he preferred the theoretical one.¹¹¹ He also held that the studies included in a general education¹¹² are useful for achieving virtue.

[32] In matters of natural philosophy, he became a most accomplished inquirer of causes, exceeding all others, to the point of providing the causes of even the tiniest phenomena. That is why he wrote no small number of notebooks on natural philosophy. He asserted that god is incorporeal,¹¹³ like Plato, that his providence goes as far as the heavenly bodies, that he is unmoved,¹¹⁴ and that the things on earth are regulated by affinity with those bodies;¹¹⁵ that, besides the four elements, there is a fifth, of which ethereal bodies are made up,¹¹⁶ and that it has a different kind of motion, for it is circular.¹¹⁷

He also held that the soul is incorporeal, being the first actuality of a natural organic body that potentially has life.¹¹⁸[33] By “actuality” he means that whose form is incorporeal. According to him, actuality is twofold: on the one hand, it is potential, as Hermes in the wax (if it is capable of receiving the proper imprints), or the statue in the bronze; on the other hand, the figure of Hermes or the statue brought to completion is called dispositional actuality. It is “of a natural body” because some bodies are manufactured, like those produced by artisans - for example, a tower or a ship, and some come about by nature, like plants and the bodies of animals. By “organic”, he means fully equipped for something, as the eye is for seeing, and the ear for hearing. “That potentially has life” in the sense of having it in itself.

[34] “Potentially” has two meanings: the dispositional and the actual. Actual, like when someone awake is said to have a soul; dispositional, like when the same is said of someone asleep. Therefore, so that the latter was also included, he added “potentially”.

He set forth many other things on many subjects, which would be too long to list. In all of them, he was most industrious and ingenious, as is manifest from the works listed above, which add up to almost 400, considering only those undisputedly by him, for many other works and sharp unwritten sayings are attributed to him.¹¹⁹

[35] There have been eight Aristotles. The first was the one above. The second was the Athenian statesman to whom graceful forensic speeches were attributed.¹²⁰ The third was someone who worked on the Iliad.¹²¹ The fourth was a rhetorician from Sicily who wrote a reply to the Panegyric of Isocrates.¹²² The fifth, nicknamed “the Myth”, was a disciple of Aeschines the Socratic.¹²³ The sixth, from Cyrene, wrote about poetics.¹²⁴ The seventh was a gymnastics master, whom Aristoxenus mentions in his Life of Plato.¹²⁵ The eighth was an obscure grammarian, to whom a textbook On Redundancy is attributed.¹²⁶

Many were the disciples of the Stagirite, the most distinct being Theophrastus, of whom we shall now speak.

Bibliography

• BETT, R. (2018). Sextus Empiricus. Against Those in the Disciplines Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• DORANDI, T. (2006). La Vita Hesychii d’Aristote. Studi Classici e Orientali 52, p. 87-106.
• DORANDI, T. (2013). Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• DORANDI, T. (2016). The Ancient Biographical Tradition on Aristotle. Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity Leiden/Boston, Brill, p. 277-298.
• DÜRING, I. (1957). Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition Göteborg, Institute of Classical Studies.
• EDMONDS, J.M. (1964). Elegy and Iambus, Being the Remains of All the Greek Elegiac and Iambic Poets from Callines to Crates, Excepting the Choliambic Writers, with the Anacreonta London, W. Heinemann.
• GIGON, O. (1962). Vita Aristotelis Marciana Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter.
• GOULET, R. (2018). Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques I-VII. Paris, CNRS Éditions.
• HENRY, P.; SCHWYZER, H.-R. (1951). Plotinus. Plotini opera, I. Paris, Desclée de Brouwer.
• JACOBY, F. (1841). Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, I-IV. Paris, Ambroise Firmin-Didot.
• MEIBOMIUS, M. (1692). Diogenis Laertii De vitis, dogmatibus et apophthegmatibus clarorum philosophorum libri X Amsterdam.
• MESQUITA, A.P. (2006). Vida de Aristóteles Lisboa, Sílabo.
• MESQUITA, A.P. (2019). La Vida de Aristóteles en el Libro V de Diógenes Laercio. Nunc est bacchandum Homenage a Alberto Bernabé Madrid, Escolar y Maio, p. 247-256.
• MORAUX, P. (1951). Les listes anciennes des ouvrages d’Aristote Louvain, Éditions Universitaires.
• NATALI, C. (2013). Aristotle: His Life and School Princeton, Princeton University Press.
• RASHED, M. (2021). Ptolémée « Al-Gharib » : Épître à Gallus sur la vie, le testament et les écrits d’Aristote Paris, Les Belles Lettres.
• ROBBE, L. (1861). Vita Aristotelis ex codice Marciano Graece nunc primum edita Leiden, Van Leeuwen.
• ROSE, V., (1854). De Aristotelis librorum ordine et auctoritate commentatio Berlin, De Gruyter.
• ROSE, V. (1870). Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta Aristotelis Opera V. Berlin, Bekker.
• ROSE, V. (1886). Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta Stuttgart, B.G. Teubner.

¹

The authors are grateful to the president of Hackett Publishing Company, Deborah Wilkes, for her unreserved authorization for this publication, and to the director of Archai, Gabriele Cornelli, for his interest in welcoming it into the pages of this journal. This work is financed by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the scope of the project for the Annotated Translation of the Complete Works of Aristotle (6^th Phase) (PTDC/FER-FIL/0305/2021). The general plan of this introduction and parts of its content are borrowed from Mesquita (2006, p. 89-91).

²

This attribution was first made by Rose (1854, p. 48-50).

³

Rashed (2021, p. CIII-CIV) suggests that its author could have been Porphyry himself.

⁴

Gigon’s later edition (1962), on the other hand, preserves all the extensive lacunae.

⁵

This biography was also formerly known as the Vita Ammoniana, because its authorship was attributed to Ammonius Hermiae, the founder of the Neoplatonic school of Alexandria.

⁶

The manuscript Matritensis 4676, written by the Byzantine humanist Constantin Lascaris in Milan in 1462, according to his own note in the text (see Düring, 1957, p. 122-124, 140-141).

⁷

Respectively: Lascaris 1 = Marciana 10; Lascaris 2 = Marciana 9 and 25; Lascaris 3 = Marciana 4.

⁸

The Greek original of Vita Syriaca I has since been discovered in the manuscript Parisinus graecus 2020 (see on this Rashed, 2021, p. XXXIII-XXXV), which allows us to better highlight the points of contact with this biographical tradition. Further, the incipit of this Vita states that it was written by Ammonius of Alexandria, a piece of information that modern scholarship has been reluctant to accept.

⁹

Rashed (2021, p. XXXVIII-LIII) puts Ptolemy’s original text and the versions by Usaibia and al-Mubassir side-by-side, which is very useful for highlighting the information borrowed from another source by the latter, as well as for deciphering its general tenor.

¹⁰

A modern reconstruction of Aristotle’s life based on this set, as well as other ancient and medieval testimonies, is available in Natali (2013).

¹¹

The numbers supplied in brackets correspond to the traditional divisions of Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Aristotle, which come from the so-called Meibomiana edition (Meibomius, 1692).

¹²

A city in the region of Chalcidice, in north-eastern Greece. At the time of Aristotle’s birth, it was an independent city-state.

¹³

Asclepius was the Greek god of medicine. What this genealogy simply means is that Aristotle came from a family traditionally dedicated to medicine, an Asclepiad family.

¹⁴

Hermippus of Smyrna was a Peripatetic grammarian of the 3^rd century BCE, based in Alexandria. He is credited with the earliest known biography of Aristotle, long since lost, which was one of the main sources, if not the main source, for Diogenes Laertius in this Life.

¹⁵

Amyntas III, king of Macedonia from 393/2 to 370/69 BCE. He was the father of Philip II and grandfather of Alexander the Great.

¹⁶

Τραυλὸς τὴν φωνήν, which can also mean that he spoke with a lisp. According to Düring (1957, p. 349), this feature was wrongly transferred from Aristotle Battus, the founder and first ruler of the Greek colony of Cyrene (cf. Herodotus IV 155).

¹⁷

Nothing is known about this author, who is only quoted by Diogenes Laertius, mostly when providing details of the philosophers’ personal appearance (cf. III 5, on Plato; IV 4, on Speusippus; and VII 1, on Zeno of Citium).

¹⁸

Following FHG I 211, Düring prints Timaeus instead of Timotheus, which, however, lacks textual basis. Timaeus of Tauromenium (4^th to 3^rd century BCE) was a Sicilian historian of Greece whom some ancient testimonies show to have been strongly hostile to Aristotle (see Natali, 2013, p. 32-33, 155). Based on the references made to Herpyllis by Aristotle in his will (see below DL, 12-14), Rashed (2021, p. CXXXVn205) maintained, in the wake of previous scholarship, that she could not have been Aristotle’s concubine, but was more likely a relative of his. This would, of course, call into question her being the mother of Nicomachus, unless at some point she had become the philosopher’s legitimate wife, as reported by an ancient testimony by Aristocles of Messina (cf. fr. 2.90-92 Heiland = fr. 12d During = Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 15.2.15).

¹⁹

The idea is of course that Aristotle left Plato’s school, the Academy, while Plato was still alive. That is why Plato would have used the plural. Regarding when Aristotle left the Academy, there are two opposing traditions in antiquity: the one represented here, according to which Aristotle left the school during Plato’s lifetime, and the one represented by the triad VM-VV-VL, according to which Aristotle only left it after Plato’s death. See on this Düring (1957, p. 256-257) and Natali (2013, p. 31-32). It should be noted that the immediate continuation of this section can be seen as contradicting the first tradition and moving closer to the second - a procedure very typical of Diogenes, who liked to accumulate contrasting and sometimes contradictory information.

²⁰

Philip II (382-336 BCE), king of Macedonia from 359 to 336 BCE. The ancient lives of Aristotle give him as being closely associated with the philosopher, from their early lives and until Philip’s death.

²¹

Xenocrates of Chalcedon (c. 396/5-314/3 BCE), a Platonic philosopher, was Aristotle’s companion at the Academy, of which he became the third scholarch, from 339/8 to his death.

²²

The Lyceum was a gymnasium, i.e. a large public space in Athens, used since the time of the Sophists and Socrates as a meeting place for philosophical exchanges.

²³

Περιπατητικόν, “peripatetic”, means walker. Diogenes relates the epithet attributed to Aristotle to his alleged habit of walking up and down with his disciples while they discussed philosophy (the verb he uses is ἀνακάμπτω, “to walk up and down”, which has the same meaning as the verb περιπατέω) rather than with the fact that he established his school on a walkway (περίπατον). This is at the root of a tradition that lasts to this day. For the opposite option, see VH 5.

²⁴

Alexander III (356-323 BCE), the Great, king of Macedonia from 336 to 323 BCE.

²⁵

“Walking about” = περιπατοῦντι, a flexion of the verb περιπατέω, which is also a cognate of περιπατητικόν, “peripatetic”.

²⁶

This is an exact quote from a verse in Euripides’ lost tragedy Philoctetes, exchanging “barbarians” for Xenocrates (cf. fr. 796 Nauck). Philodemus (De rhetorica II 50 Sudhaus, col. 36) puts the name of the famous rhetorician Isocrates (see below, n. 122) instead of Xenocrates, which the content of the statement makes more pertinent.

²⁷

The point that Diogenes seems to be trying to make here is that Aristotle was able to teach his students both dialectic and rhetoric - two disciplines that he famously considered to be mutual “counterparts” (Rh. I 1, 1354a1) and to whose creation or development he explicitly claimed precedence (cf. SE 34, 183b15-184b8, and Rh. I 1, 1354a1-1355a20).

²⁸

Hermias of Atarneu was a ruler of Assos and Atarneu, in Asia Minor, between 351 BCE, replacing Eubulus, a banker from Bithynia who eventually became tyrant of those two cities, and 341 BCE, when he was deposed, imprisoned and put to death by king Artaxerxes III of Persia. In his youth, he had been a member of the Platonic Academy, to which he always remained very close.

²⁹

Demetrius of Magnesia was a grammarian and doxographer from the late Hellenistic period (1^st century BCE), who developed the so-called method of homonyms, which consisted in treating authors with the same name together. He is most likely Diogenes’ source for the lists of authors with the same name that he usually puts at the end of the philosophers’ biographical notes (see below DL 35 for an example).

³⁰

It is not clear who is the author that Diogenes is referring to here. In the list of titles that he attributes to the philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene in DL II 84-85, there is none corresponding to the one mentioned in this passage (despite this fact, FHG II 79 attributes this work to him). In the same biography (DL II 83), three other authors by that name are mentioned: Aristippus’ grandson, who was also a philosopher of the Cyrenaic school; the author of a book about Arcadia; and a philosopher of the New Academy. It is not likely that any of them could have been the author of this work. We are probably dealing with a misappropriation of the name of Aristippus of Cyrene, due to his well-known hedonistic convictions (see DPA: I.374).

³¹

Callisthenes of Olynthus (c. 360-327 BCE), an important Greek historian, was the great-nephew of Aristotle by his sister Arimneste. The details of his life after his association with Alexander the Great are colorfully described in what follows.

³²

A quotation of Homer, Il. XVIII 95.

³³

Hermolaus of Macedon was a page to Alexander the Great who, in 327 BCE, was accused of plotting against the king and, as a result, executed with the other people allegedly involved in the conspiracy.

³⁴

An important city in Euboea and the ancestral homeplace of Aristotle’s mother, Pythia (cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ep. ad Ammaeum 5.3-4 = fr. 1d Düring).

³⁵

The hierophant was the chief priest of the Eleusinian mysteries. Nothing else is known about this Eurymedon apart from what is said here.

³⁶

Demophilus may have been a student of rhetoric under Isocrates, or else another priest of Eleusis, strongly hostile to Macedonia (see Natali, 2013, p. 167).

³⁷

Favorinus of Arelate (c. 80-160 AD) was a skeptical philosopher and orator from the time of the Second Sophistic. His works Miscellaneous History and Memoirs, of which only fragments remain today, were an important source for Diogenes.

³⁸

A reference to the capture of Hermias, treacherously obtained by Mentor of Rhodes (c. 380-333 BCE) in the service of Artaxerxes of Persia.

³⁹

According to Düring (1957, p. 345), both pieces of information, regarding the manner and age of death, were invented by Eumelus himself (an author difficult to identify), who transferred them from Socrates, “probably in order to glorify the head of his school”. Note that below, in 10.7, Diogenes says that Aristotle “died of disease at the age of about sixty-three years” (and this same age is given in the immediate continuation of the text).

⁴⁰

The source that allows Diogenes to make this correction is Apollodorus, as will be made clear below, in DL 9.

⁴¹

Diogenes Laertius plays with the words ἀκόνιτον, “aconite” (a poisonous tuberous root), and ἀκονιτί, “without dust”, that is, “without struggle”, “without putting up a fight”.

⁴²

Homer, Od. VII 120-121. The meaning of this quote becomes clearer in VV 20 and VL 44.

⁴³

384 BCE. Apollodorus of Athens (2^nd century BCE) was a Greek scholar to whom we owe a history book entitled Chronicles (now lost), in which most of the relevant dates were fixed by reference to the archons of Athens.

⁴⁴

345/4 BCE.

⁴⁵

348/7 BCE.

⁴⁶

343/2 BCE.

⁴⁷

335/4 BCE.

⁴⁸

322 BCE. Demosthenes, a great Athenian statesman and orator, was born and died in exactly the same years as Aristotle. Politically, he and Aristotle were in opposite sides: Demosthenes belonged to the anti-Macedonian party, of which he was one of the main leaders, while Aristotle was very close to the Macedonians.

⁴⁹

Anaximenes of Lampsacus (4^th century BCE) was a rhetorician and historian, who is said to have served as Alexander’s teacher and later accompanied him on his campaign to the East.

⁵⁰

Cf. DL IV 8.

⁵¹

Theocritus was a Greek poet of the 3^rd century BCE. Existing testimonies seem to show him harboring anti-Macedonian sentiments: see Edmonds (1931, II p. 72-75). About Ambryon, this passage from DL is our only ancient testimony.

⁵²

An empty grave because Hermias’ body was never recovered. The effect of the wordplay “empty-minded” / “empty grave” is even stronger in Greek due to the succession of the two expressions: σῆμα κενὸν κενόφρων τεῦξεν ᾽Αριστοτέλης.

⁵³

Timon of Phlius (c. 320-230 BCE), the most famous disciple of Pyrrho of Elis, is our earliest source on this philosopher and himself a powerful writer of satirical philosophical poems, among other works.

⁵⁴

Cf. Homer, Il. XV 16, XXII 457, XXIII 701.

⁵⁵

There are two known versions of Aristotle’s testament, the one given here and the one included in Ptolemy al-Garib’s Vita, which is only available in Arabic. According to Rashed (2021, p. CL-CLII; and against Düring, 1957 p. 61-62), both go back to the same archetype, with the former remaining more faithful to it than the latter.

⁵⁶

Antipater (c. 397-319 BCE) was a Macedonian general and a close collaborator of Philip II and Alexander III, whom he replaced as regent of Macedonia, respectively between 342 and 339 BCE and between 334 and 323 BCE - the latter period coinciding, therefore, with Aristotle’s second stay in Athens as well as with the plausible period of the writing of his will.

⁵⁷

According to Düring (1957 p. 61-65), Nicanor was Aristotle’s nephew, the son of Proxenus of Atarneus and the philosopher’s sister, Arimneste (someone who is only mentioned in other ancient Lives: see VH 2, VM 2, VL 2). What we know about Proxenus is what appears in the ancient Vitae Aristotelis. About Nicanor and his father, see Natali (2013, p. 11-17).

⁵⁸

Apart from Theophrastus of Eresos (c. 372-287 BCE), who was Aristotle’s main collaborator and his successor at the head of the Lyceum, the only known person is Hipparchus, who is mentioned frequently in Theophrastus’ will, namely as its executor and a member of the Peripatetic circle (see DL V 51-57; and cf. DPA III.752-753). It can be deduced that the other names are also of members of the school in Aristotle’s time.

⁵⁹

The sequence of the will clarifies that the children were a girl (whom other sources say was called Pythias, like her mother: among which, see VV 2, VL 3 and 47) and a boy (whose name the will itself discloses as being Nicomachus). On Herpyllis, see above n. 18.

⁶⁰

Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. I 258) informs us that the marriage between Nicanor and Aristotle’s daughter did take place. However, according to Düring (1957, p. 63), Nicanor “died a few years later than Aristotle”.

⁶¹

Natali (2013, p. 81) conjectures that Myrmex was a young student of Aristotle’s who had recently arrived at the Lyceum. The following names are clearly those of Aristotle’s servants.

⁶²

Proxenus was Nicanor’s father and, if Düring’s conjecture is right, Arimneste, Aristotle’s sister, was his mother (see above, n. 57).

⁶³

Arimnestus was Aristotle’s brother: see VH 2, VM 2, VL 2.

⁶⁴

Pythias was Aristotle’s (first?) wife: see VH 2 and 4, VL 3.

⁶⁵

The syntax of the last sentence of the will is harsh, which points to some corruption in the textual tradition.

⁶⁶

Probably Lyco of Tarentum (4^th century BCE), a Pythagorean philosopher.

⁶⁷

Diogenes of Sinope (late 5^th to 4^th century BCE), the leading figure of the Cynic school.

⁶⁸

Carneades of Cyrene (214-129 BCE), the founder of the skeptical New Academy.

⁶⁹

Probably an alternative version of the story given in DL 17.3-5 above.

⁷⁰

EE VII 12, 1245b20-21; cf. EN IX 10, 1171a15-17.

⁷¹

This is one of the three extant ancient catalogues of Aristotle’s works, the other two being that of Hesychius (see VH 10.23-219) and that of Ptolemy, which, as previously mentioned, is only available in Arabic (recently edited by Rashed, 2021). The best support for the interpretation of the first two catalogues is still Moraux (1951; but see also Düring, 1957). The ultimate source of each of the catalogues remains controversial. In what follows, we add an order number, in square brackets, before each new entry as it appears in Dorandi’s edition; double numbers (such as 45-46) or repeated numbers (such as 55a-55b) represent discrepancies between the manuscript tradition and this edition, as explained in the footnotes ad loc.

⁷²

Literally: On Household Management.

⁷³

For Aristotle, an eristic argument is generally speaking a fallacious argument. Eristics is therefore the discipline that deals with this type of argument, a discipline that Aristotle develops in the treatise we know today as Sophistical Refutations.

⁷⁴

Περὶ ἰδίων. Distinctive properties of a subject are, for Aristotle, those that are exclusive to that subject (cf. Top. I 5, 102a18-19).

⁷⁵

“Epicheiremata” (ἐπιχειρηματικά) is Aristotle’s technical name for dialectical arguments (cf. Top. VIII 11, 162a16).

⁷⁶

The manuscript lesson reads Περὶ παθῶν ὀργῆς, On the Feelings of Anger. Rose³, p. 4, added ἢ περὶ (“or on”) before ὀργῆς and the correction was adopted by subsequent editions, namely Dorandi’s. But see the equivalent title on Hesychius’ catalogue (number 30): Περί πάθους ὀργῆς, On the Feeling of Anger.

⁷⁷

The words in titles 42 and 43 are different. In 42, the word is διαίρεσις, which refers to the process of division, while in 43 the word is διαιρετικόν, which refers to each of the divisions resulting from that process. It is impossible to retain this subtlety in English.

⁷⁸

“On” (περί) was added by Rose³, p. 5.

⁷⁹

The manuscripts record two different titles, Περὶ κινήσεως α’ and Προτάσεις α’, respectively “On Motion, one book” and “Propositions, one book”. The combination of the two titles is a conjecture by Moraux (1951, p. 86), adopted both by Düring and Dorandi.

⁸⁰

This title was added by Jaeger (1912) as a correction to the previous title, which in the manuscripts reads thus: Ὅροι πρὸ τῶν τοπικῶν α’ β’ γ’ δ’ ε’ ϛ’ ζ’ (“Introductory Definitions to the Topics, 7 books”), a correction that has generally been adopted.

⁸¹

Or simply Pre-Topics (Τὰ πρὸ τῶν τόπων).

⁸²

Here too the manuscripts record two different titles, Περὶ ἡδονῆς (or ἡδονῶν) α’ and Προτάσεις α’, respectively “On Pleasure(s), one book” and “Propositions, one book”. The combination of the two titles was proposed by Moraux (1951 p. 93-94) and adopted by Düring and Dorandi. Moraux, however, added the next two titles as well, to make up the single work: Propositions on Pleasure, the Voluntary, and the Noble.

⁸³

“Enthymemes” (ἐνθυμήματα) are, for Aristotle, rhetorical deductions (cf. Rh. I 2, 1356a35-b1 and passim). This title can therefore be considered somewhat pleonastic.

⁸⁴

Archytas of Tarentum was a statesman, mathematician and philosopher of Pythagorean persuasion, contemporary and friend of Plato.

⁸⁵

Speusippus of Athens (c. 408-339/8 BCE) was Plato’s nephew and successor as scholarch of the Academy. On Xenocrates, see above, n. 21.

⁸⁶

Melissus of Samos was an Eleatic philosopher of the 5^th century BCE.

⁸⁷

Alcmaeon of Croton was a physician and philosopher of the 6^th to 5^th century BCE. His relationship with the Pythagoreanism remains controversial.

⁸⁸

The Pythagoreans were the members of an ancient philosophical school who traced the origin of their doctrines to the philosopher Pythagoras of Samos (6^th century BCE).

⁸⁹

Gorgias of Leontini (c.483-376 BCE) was a famous Sophist and rhetorician.

⁹⁰

Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570-478 BCE) was an early pre-Socratic philosopher, mainly renowned for his revolutionary theological ideas.

⁹¹

Zeno of Elea (c. 495-430 BCE) was a disciple of Parmenides of Elea and an Eleatic philosopher who developed a series of paradoxes to indirectly demonstrate his master’s theses on the unreality of multiplicity, space, time, and movement.

⁹²

This is a rather speculative translation for a difficult title, which consists of a single (vague) word: Ἐγκυκλίων.

⁹³

Democritus of Abdera (c. 460-370 BCE) was a pre-Socratic philosopher, who developed the atomic theory of the universe put forth by his master Leucippus of Miletus (5^th century BCE).

⁹⁴

This is the main manuscript lesson. However, Rose², p. 1465, splits this title into two, namely: Πυθιονῖκαι α’ (“Pythian Victors, 1 book”) and <Περὶ> μουσικῆς α’ (“On Music, 1 book”), which in fact correspond to two different works in Hesychius’ catalogue (numbers 123 and 124).

⁹⁵

The people from an ancient Thracian city called Selymbria.

⁹⁶

Apart from Philip, Alexander, and Antipater (on whom see nn. 20, 24, and 56 above), as well as probably Olympias (assuming that she is Alexander’s mother), it is not clear who the recipients of these letters were.

⁹⁷

There has been much discussion about the origin, nature, and accuracy of the doctrinal account that Diogenes offers next, a discussion which we cannot summarize here. However, it seems fair to say that, despite its more or less scholarly adoption of Stoic schemes and concepts, the account is, for the most part, accurate and free of contamination (see on this Mesquita (2019), p. 254-255). In what follows, we will point out some of the more notorious cases of correspondence with the extant Aristotelian treatises.

⁹⁸

See Metaph. II 1, 993b20-23, and EN X 7, 1177b1-4. In a more complete classification, Aristotle adds to this dyad, as a third division, productive (or poietic) knowledge: cf. Top. VI 6, 145a15-16; VIII 1, 157a10-11; Metaph. VI 1, 1025b25; VI 1, 1026b5; XI 7, 1064a16-19; EN VI 2, 1139a27-28; X 8, 1178b20-21.

⁹⁹

Ἐπιχείρηματα (“epicheiremata”) in the original.

¹⁰⁰

“Premises” translates λήμματα and “inference” translates συναγωγή. Diogenes is not using standard Aristotelian terminology here, although the two words do occur in Aristotle with this meaning. It goes without saying that the distinction that Diogenes draws here between the Prior and the Posterior Analytics hardly captures the difference between their respective contents.

¹⁰¹

Τὸν νοῦν.

¹⁰²

Τέλος.

¹⁰³

Cf. EN I 6, 1098a16-20, and EE II 1, 1219a38-39.

¹⁰⁴

Cf. EN I 8, 1098b12-15; EE II 1, 1218b32-34; Rh. I 5, 1360b19-30.

¹⁰⁵

Cf. EN I 8, 1099a31-b6; VII 13, 1153b14-21.

¹⁰⁶

Contra, see EN VI 13, 1144b30-1154a6.

¹⁰⁷

See, for example, EN III 8, 1116b23-1117a5, and X 8, 1178a9-22. A number of testimonies in Seneca’s De ira (I.9.2; I.17.1; III.3.1-5), which Rose considered to be remnants of Aristotle’s lost dialogue On the Statesman (fr. 80 Rose³; cf. Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes IV.19.43-20.46, Seneca, De ira I.7.1, and Philodemus, De ira 65.31-66.2 Wilke) are especially important in this regard, given that they are transmitted by a member of the Stoic school, who held the opposite position.

¹⁰⁸

Cf. EN VIII 2, 1155b33-34.

¹⁰⁹

Cf. Rh. II 4, 1381b34.

¹¹⁰

Cf. EN I 5, 1095b14-19.

¹¹¹

Cf. EN X 7-8.

¹¹²

Τὰ ἐγκύκλια μαθήματα.

¹¹³

Cf. Metaph. XII 6, 1071b19-22; 7, 1073a3-12; 8, 1050b6-1051a3; 10, 1051b28-30; see also: Int. 13, 23a23-26; Ph. III 1, 200b26-27; GC I 7, 324a24-b13.

¹¹⁴

Cf., among countless references: Ph. VIII 5, 256a4-258b9; Metaph. XII 6, 1071b3-11; 7, 1072a19-b13; 7, 1073a3-12.

¹¹⁵

Cf. Mete. I 2, 339a21-23.

¹¹⁶

Cf. Cael. I 2-3, 269a2-270b31; II 7, 289a13-35; Mete. I 2, 339a11-15; 3, 339b17-340a18; 340b4-341a13. Aristotle calls this element “aether” or, more commonly, “the primary body”.

¹¹⁷

Cf. Cael. I 2, 269a5-7, II 3, 285b7-12; II 8, 289b1-290b11; II 9, 291a6-28; Mete. I 2, 339a11-13; 339a22-27; I 3, 339b17-30. This is why Aristotle also regularly refers to the fifth element as “the body that moves in circle”.

¹¹⁸

Cf. De an. II 1, 412a19-b6.

¹¹⁹

The discrepancy with the number of titles actually listed above is striking, even assuming that Diogenes was counting the scrolls.

¹²⁰

Maybe the Athenian politician who was part of the body of 30 tyrants that ruled Athens by imposition from Sparta after the end of the Peloponnesian War (404/3 BCE).

¹²¹

Otherwise unknown.

¹²²

Little else is known about him. His dates are uncertain, but he must have lived between the 4th and 3^rd centuries BCE. Isocrates of Athens (436-338 BCE) was a professor of rhetoric and one of the ten Attic orators.

¹²³

It is not clear who this might be. Diogenes also refers to him in the biography of Aeschines (DL II 63). Aeschines of Athens (c. 425-350 BCE) was a disciple of Socrates and himself a writer of Socratic dialogues.

¹²⁴

Perhaps a member of the Cyrenaic school of the 4^th century BCE.

¹²⁵

Aristoxenus of Tarentum (4^th century BCE) was a disciple of Aristotle and a Peripatetic philosopher, as well as a biographer. He was the author of a monumental work that is practically lost today, except for the Elements of Harmony, which is partially extant and is our main source for knowledge of ancient Greek music and music theory.

¹²⁶

The last two people named Aristotle are otherwise unknown.

Data availability

Not applicable.

MESQUITA, A.; MOTA, B. (2026). Ancient Lives of Aristotle I: The Life of Diogenes Laertius. Archai 36, e03608pt1.

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Editors:

Gabriele Cornelli and Beatriz de Paoli

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  10 July 2026
• Date of issue
  2026

History

• Received
  15 Oct 2025
• Accepted
  15 Jan 2026