“…Aristotle gave his library to Theophrastus, to whom he also left the school; he was the first we know of to have collected books and he taught the kings of Egypt the arrangement of a library: and Theophrastus gave it to Neleus; and he carrying it away to Scepsis gave it to his descendants, laymen who kept the books shut up and not carefully stored; and when they saw the eagerness of the Attalid kings, who controlled their city, in seeking books for the equipping of the library of Pergamum, they hid them in the ground in some sort of trench; but then after a long time those in the family sold the books of Aristotle and Theophrastus, damaged by damp and moths, to Apellicon of Teos for much money; but Apellicon was a bibliophile rather than a philosopher; and therefore, desiring a correction of the eaten‐through parts, he transferred the writing into new copies, not restoring it well, and put out the books full of errors 5 .…”
“…Aristotle gave his library to Theophrastus, to whom he also left the school; he was the first we know of to have collected books and he taught the kings of Egypt the arrangement of a library: and Theophrastus gave it to Neleus; and he carrying it away to Scepsis gave it to his descendants, laymen who kept the books shut up and not carefully stored; and when they saw the eagerness of the Attalid kings, who controlled their city, in seeking books for the equipping of the library of Pergamum, they hid them in the ground in some sort of trench; but then after a long time those in the family sold the books of Aristotle and Theophrastus, damaged by damp and moths, to Apellicon of Teos for much money; but Apellicon was a bibliophile rather than a philosopher; and therefore, desiring a correction of the eaten‐through parts, he transferred the writing into new copies, not restoring it well, and put out the books full of errors 5 .…”
Cicero’s Timaeus legitimately stands as the first Latin exegesis of the Platonic dialogue. I shall deal with the interpretation of §§19–21, a passage that departs significantly from the Greek text in several respects. The aim of this paper is to explore the role Aristotelianism might have played in Cicero’s Timaeus. Among the points that support such an analysis is the mention of the Peripatetic Cratippus in the prologue. The interpretative scenario I suggest considers both Cratippus’ role and Antiochus’s philosophical system with its agreement between Platonism and Aristotelianism.
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