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Aristotle's ΠΕΡΙ ΦΥΤΩΝ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

H. J. Drossaart Lulofs
H. J. Drossaart Lulofs
Affiliation:
Emmen (D), Holland
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Extract

As regards Aristotle's Περὶ φυτῶν ᾱβ mentioned in Diog. Laert.'s list (nr. 108), Alexander's Statement is decisive: … ἔστι περὶ φυτῶν Θεοφράστῳ πραγματεία γεγραμμένη ᾿Αριστοτέλους γὰροὐ φέρεται and though Simplicius and others occasionally refer to a πραγματεία περὶ φυτῶν there is no indication that they ever saw the book with their own eyes. Aristotle's treatise On Plants, therefore, seems to have disappearedat an early date, and since the quotations in Antigonus, Athenaeus and others are concerned with insignificant details, they cannot give any hint as to its contents.

It has often been asked whether there exists any relation between this lost treatise and the two books Περὶ φυτῶν which are incorporated into all editions of the Corpus Aristotelicum (pp. 814–830 Bk.), but the question has never received a definite answer. There are good reasons for this reticence, for though these books were identified more than a century ago as a work of Nicolaus of Damascus, the text is in such a deplorable condition that it seemed to resist every attempt at interpretation. However, since in 1841 E. H. F. Meyer published the Arabic-Latin translation made by Alfred of Sareshel (the exemplar of the clumsy Greek rendering whichwas already known), the material has considerably increased.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 1 , November 1957 , pp. 75 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1957

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References

1 Alex, . in De sensu, p. 86. 11.Google Scholar

2 The instances are collected by Heitz, , Fragm. Arist. (In Didot's Aristoteles iv, Paris 1858), pp. 162 ff.Google Scholar

3 Heitz, p. 164a.

4 Arist, . Fragm. ed. Rose2267–78.Google Scholar

5 Meyer, E. H. F., Nicolai Damasceni De plantis libri duo Aristoteli vulgo adscripti, Leipzig184.1.Google Scholar

6 Steinschneider, M., Die Hebräischen Uebers. d.M.A., etc., pp. 140–3.Google Scholar

7 Bouyges, M., S.J. Sur le de Plantis d' Aristote-Nicolas à propos d'un manuscrit arabe de Constantinople in: Meèlanges de l'Univ. St. Joseph, Beyrouth ix. 2 (1923), pp. 71–89.Google Scholar

8 Arberry, A. J., An early Arabic translation from the Greek, Cairo 1933–1934Google Scholar; ‘Badawi, A., Aristotelis De anima &c. (Islamica 16), Cahirae 1954.Google Scholar

9 Ed. Bakoš, J. in Patrol. Orient. xxiv fasc. 3, Paris 1933, pp. 320–5.Google Scholar See also Patr. Or. xxii fasc. 4, Paris 1930, p. 502. Other works by Bar Hebraeus which are as yet unpublished may contain more references.

10 Scaliger, J. C., In libros de Plantis Aratoteli inscriptos commentarii, Genev. Crispin. 1566Google Scholar; the book has often been reprinted.

11 Meyer's edition of L (see n. 5), based upon three MSS. only, is insufficient; his emendations are often misleading and his notes are somewhat sketchy, but his preface is interesting, especially because he hadprofited greatly by the expert advice of the Orientalist Gustav Flügel.

12 Gesch. d. Gr. Philos. ii. 24, p. 98, n. 1.

13 Hist. d. l. Litt. Gr. v. (Paris 1899), p. 401 f.

14 Hist. d. l. Litt. Gr. iv. (Paris 1895), p. 719. See for other judgments Bouyges loc. cit. (cf. n. 7), pp. 71 ff.

15 Lexicon Bibliographicum, ed. Flügel, G., Vol. v (London 1850), p. 162Google Scholar, nr. 10564.

16 See Meyer op. cit. p. xii.

17 MS.: Cambridge Syriac Gg. 2. 14.

18 This shallowness may have been the reason why even the industrious Simplicius does not mention his Compendium anywhere else.

19 Cf. Harder, R., Ocellus Lucanus, N.Ph.U. 1, Berlin 1926Google Scholar; text p. 15. 24–19.25. On pp. 97–111 Harder discusses its merits and its obvious shortcomings.

20 Unfortunately the relevant chapters in the Syriac Nicolaus are nearly lost, but the exiguous remnants correspond with the Ocellus fragment.

21 Several chapters of Metaph. Δ are scattered over Nicolaus Phys. and Metaph., and Averroes has censured him for this procedure. See Averroes, Tafsῑr mā ba'd aṭ-ṭabyat, ed. Bouyges, , pp. 476.3 ff.Google Scholar

22 The roughness of the translation is aggravated by numerous corruptions, esp. in transcribed Greek words.

23 I quote the sections according to my own numbering.

24 ἶνες S, knots AHL.

25 SH, et ventrem L, om. A.

26 medullam L, flesh AH.

27 …] inside the rind of their fruits under their skin (?) S, scilicet inter corticem et lignum L.

28 stems S (= καυλός), twigs AHL.

29 rotunditates AHL (= ἕλικες Meyer, p. 64).

30 S, bark AHL.

31 My conjecture: homoiomerous members is nonsense.

32 L, om. AH.

33 HL, flesh A.

34 B (p. 321) adds: stems, branches, twigs ∼ arms and legs; leaves, flowers, buds ∼ hairs and feathers; fruits ∼ the young of animals; rind ∼ membrane or eggskin.

35 LH, om. A.

36 and root A, no doubt a gloss. H adds: and it is no more divided into another division.

37 S: the fourth is the shell inside which <the seed> is, and the seed is the fifth inside those.

38 See, in general, Strömberg, R.Theophrastea, Studien z. Botanischen Begriffsbildung, Göteborg 1937, p. 28Google Scholar, etc. Kraak, W. K. in Mnemos. S. ii. x (1942), pp. 251–62.Google Scholar Theophrastus was usually very reticent in this matter. See Strömberg, p. 59, Kraak, p. 258 f.

39 In the available texts the account seems muddled. Perhaps 63 and 64 were interchanged.

40 See the instances collected by Wimmer, F., Phytologiae Aristotelicae Fragmenta, Vratislaviae 1838, p. 23 ff.Google Scholar

41 Empedocles was, as far as I know, the first to discover the principle of homology, cf. B62.

42 This hypothesis needed twenty centuries to be formulated again (Nehemia Grew in 1667).

43 Nearly all the scholia to Meteor, are derived from a Syriac version of Olympiodorus. I have not yet discovered the source of all the others, but a few quotations from Syriac authors in a curtailed form make it clear that the scholiast was Oriental, and that the notes were not translated from the Greek exemplar.

44 This may be seen from instances quoted from texts which are still extant. Parts of a kind of scrapbook, such as the Scholiast may have used, are preserved in the Paris MS. B.N. Syr. 346.

45 The initium of the Bk. om Pl. in Syriac is lost, so that neither title nor booknumber are available.

46 Nicolaus must have had remarkable resources, for he has also drawn attention to Theophrastus's Metaph. which was unknown even to Hermippus and Andronicus.

47 No doubt = ζῴον as opposed to man.