omission of a word (e.g. lines 884, 885 ap. Hipp. 165, 1. 84 ap. 246) is too common to be attributed wholly to the carelessness of copyists, nor would the rest of the text of Hippolytos justify this supposition. Lines 83-35 are quoted twice (p. 246 and p. 813), and the last line differs in the two cases; such a change as from réyye to σπὀνδε (p. 518) is not one that a copyist would be very likely to make. On the other hand, it is hardly conceivable that the errors in ll. 110 f. ap. p: 247, 222 f. ap. p. 251, 888 f. ap. p. 254 existed in any text that Hippolytos copied. The only possible explanation for this phenomenon is that sometimes Hippolytos quoted from memory, paying no attention either to metre or to phraseology, and sometimes (as in his quotations from Herakleitos gene- rally) from either the original or a source that was very close to the original. Since so many of the Empedoklean passages are not cited by any other writer, we may suppose that Hippolytos drew them from the original.
§ 12. Of the quotations in Diogenes Laertios from Hera- kleitos, Bywater says (p.x): ‘Laertium . . . libro pervetusto usum esse nemo jam adfirmaverit.’ We do find four sentences of some length from Herakleitos, the genuineness of which is not questioned (Fr. 16, 17, 112, 114); it'is noticeable that these fragments, together with the allusions to Fr. 38 and 119, all refer to particular men, and so possessed a special interest for the biographical writers, who were Diogenes’ main source. Three other fragments of more than two words are given by Diogenes (71, 100, and 103), and these are not found in any other Greek writer. The remaining fragments consist of only one or two words (22, 48, 62, 69, 80, 113), or are now regarded as spurious (181, 182), There is no reason to think that the fragments of Herakleitos contained in this work are not copied with reasonable accuracy ; on the other hand, we may assume from what we know of Diogenes’ method of work that they were not drawn directly from the writings of Herakleitos.
Diogenes quotes Xenophanes xiv. 1-2, and Empedokles ]. 6, in a series of passages on skepticism, Xen. xviil. in a series on Pythagoreanism; Fr. xxiv., the only one not found elsewhere, relates to the life of Xenophanes. From Parmenides
og ey neg es ee -- θα --''' '
Appendix 279
are quoted lines 28-30 and 54-56. The last passage does not really illustrate the point for which it is quoted (the senses inexact), and our text of Diogenes contains two blunders from some copyist. Portions of the proemium of Empedokles’ main work on philosophy ( 1, 24-82, ap. viii. 60 and 59) are mentioned in connection with the name of Satyros. It is pretty clear (ap. viii. 62) that a ‘ Herakleitos ’ is the source from which lines 852-863 are taken; if so, the statement vill. 54 that thisis the beginning of the καθάρµατα comes from the same writer. Lines 884-885 are quoted much in the form in which they appear in Athenaeos, though with one copyist’s error; from the same work of Empedokles we have also lines 855, 415, 417 in passages where Diogenes had just mentioned Timaeos. The familiar lines 85 and 67-68 are found here— line 35 in a very confused form. In general these lines from poetic writers show numerous small errors, which may be due to the state of our manuscripts. Both the fragments from Herakleitos and those in poetic form are of great value, though we are in the dark as to their immediate source.
§ 18. The works of neo-Platonic writers frequently mention the earlier philosophers, but yield few fragments of value. Plotinos refers to ten fragments of Herakleitos. Four of these (80, 82, 88, 85) have the form of quotations, and in two instances the name of Herakleitos is mentioned; they are, however, very short, and give no clue to their source. Sometimes Plotinos plays on words that were evidently known as Herakleitean, eg. Fr. (47?), 54, 69, 80; or again an Herakleitean idea is stated in his own words, Fr. 82, 88, 99, 180. The manner in which these quotations and allusions are made shows that the phrases were very familiar, either in earlier writers or possibly in some collection of sayings. Line 81 b of Parmenides is quoted with no name; line 40b is quoted with the author’s name, and is followed by an account of the context which shows that it was drawn from a passage of some length. From Empedokles we find only two phrases, taken from lines 881 and 882, that are worked into the text of Plotinos.
Porphyry quotes from Herakleitos only familiar phrases, and these in the briefest form (74 ap. de anir. nym. ΧΙ. and
280 τηε First Philosophers of Greece
72 ap. de antr. nym. x.). The phrases were so familiar that it was only necessary to suggest the idea (e:g. 56 ap. de antr. nym. xxix.) without mentioning the name of the philosopher. Parmenides is not so well known; Greeks and Egyptians, we read, say that he mentioned the two gates in his Physika (de antr.nym.xxiii.). Only the καθάρµατα of Empedokles is quoted, but here Porphyry knows the subjects treated in the work (de abst. II. xxi.), and sometimes the full context of the passage he quotes (e.g. de antr. nym. viii.). In the case of lines 416-420 we are not sure that Porphyry was right in applying the verses to Parmenides; still, the quotations would seem to be taken directly from the καθάρµατα and copied with fair accuracy.
Iamblichos draws a few quotations from his predecessors in the neo-Platonic school (Empedokles, lines 415-420 from Porphyry; and Herakleitos, Fr. 69, 82, 88 from Plotinos, if Stobaeos is correct in attributing this group of fragments to Iamblichos). Most of the allusions to fragments of Hera- kleitos, however, cannot be traced to this source. The com- bination of Herakleitos 29 and 95, which Hippolytos had attributed to Pythagoras, Iamblichos also attributes iv the same thinker; his language, however, differs in detail from that used by Hippolytos. Two words of Herakleitos 114 (which had been cited by the Stoics and by Diogenes) are given,. with the additional statement that Herakleitos gave laws to the Ephesians. Bywater’s number 128 is an allusion probably including a single word from Herakleitos, as does 129 also. Two words each from Fr. 11 and 12 (both found in Plutarch) are worked into the text of Iamblichos—in the former instance with the name of Herakleitos. Finally 105, which also appears in Plutarch, is given here in more accurate form. These references to Herakleitos, like those of the earlier neo-Platonists, are all made to fragments assumed to be familiar because they had been quoted often by earlier writers.
The writings of his predecessors in this same school are frequently mentioned by Proklos, but his quotations from pre- Sokratic thinkers seem not to be derived from them. In the commentary on Parmenides several scattered lines are quoted
Appendix 281
from the works of the original Parmenides. The quotations are very brief; they include in all only parts of six or seven lines, and sometimes these are cited more than once. It is therefore quite unlikely that Proklos drew them directly from the poem of Parmenides. In his commentary on the Timaeos Proklos uses the form of quotation from Herakleitos six times (alluding to Fr. 16, 82, 44, 68, 79, 80), but only 82 and 44 can be called quotations, while even these are very brief. On p. 106 Ἡ we find part of what Diogenes gives in connection with Fragment 80, but no part of 80 itself; 79 was cited by the early Christian writers, and Proklos interpreted it in the same manner that they had done; 68 also had been paraphrased in the source from which Proklos drew it. So far as Herakleitos is concerned, we see how far from their origin the tradition of the fragments had gone, but we get no new light on their original form.
A few lines of Parmenides we know only from Proklos. Verses 29-90 had been given by Diogenes and Clement, but some of the verses 88-40 are new. In these instances, as 18 usually the case with the quotations in Proklos, the text of the quotations is in a condition almost hopeless. Jiideed, at p- 160 p a line and a half of Parmenides are filled out with half a line from Empedokles under the name of the former writer. From Empedokles only single lines (once two lines together) are given, and they aid but little in the reconstruc- tion of the text. Proklos, like Plutarch, is very careful to cite the name of his authorities; but the text of the quota- tions is so carelessly reproduced that they are of little value.
§ 14. The commentators on Aristotle early began to illus- trate his statements about earlier thinkers by passages copied from their works. Alexander of Aphrodisias and Joh. Philoponos seldom add fragments not contained in the works of Aristotle himself; but Simplicius copies long extracts, so that, except for Herakleitos, his commentaries are the most important source for our knowledge of the writings of the pre-Sokratic philosophers. There can be no doubt that most of these quotations—at least in his commentary on the Physics of Aristotle—were drawn from the original works, The most careful scrutiny of the passages from Zeno, Melissos,
282 the First Philosophers οε Greece
and Anaxagoras fails to reveal any reason for questioning their character as genuine quotations, except in the case of some of the fragments of Melissos. Pabst (and independently Burnet) has shown that the so-called Fragments 1-5 of Melissos, though given in the form of quotations, are in reality an epitome covering more briefly the same ground that is covered by the following fragments, and adding almost nothing to our knowledge of Melissos. It is wholly unlikely that Simplicius made this epitome him- self, for that would be at variance with his ordinary method of work, and with his custom later in dealing with Melissos. So we are driven to assume either that he drew them from some epitome of Melissos to which he had access, or, what seems to me more probable, that he copied them from an earlier commentator, whose habit it was to condense his quotations rather than to copy them at full length. If now. we examine the quotations in Simplicius’ commentary on the de caelo (Melissos Fr. 17 and numerous lines from Parmenides and Empedokles), it is noticeable that a considerable number’ of them occur also in the scholia to Aristotle. It is possible that as they appear in our.scholia they all come from Simplicius. One long quotation (Melissos Fr. 17) is, however, taken by Eusebios from Aristokles, a much earlier commen- tator on Aristotle. This fact of course confirms the belief that earlier commentators on Aristotle accessible to Simplicius already contained quotations from the philosophers in question ;! and the presence in our scholia of so many fragments quoted by Simplicius on the de caelo would at least suggest an inves- tigation of the question whether our scholia drew them from an earlier source than Simplicius—in other words, whether Simplicius did not in all probability take them from the commentaries of his predecessors. So when we find Par- menides line 78 ap. Simplicius, Physica 29, 18 in the form that Plato had quoted it,? when we find line 60 ap. 120, 23 quoted from an indirect source (cf. p. 145, 4, where it is quoted in context), we may conclude that Simplicius took
' Diels, Doxographi Graeci, Ρ. 112, shows that Simplicius used the work of Alexander of Aphrodisias.
2 Cf. the correct form Simp. Phys. 159, 15; it is not unlikely that Kines 52, 53 ap. 135, 21, and 122 ap. 39, 18 were also taken from Plato.
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those quotations from Parmenides at second hand, and not improbably from earlier commentators on Aristotle. The quotations from Herakleitos are all of them in a late form, and show that Simplicius was not familiar with any work under the name of Herakleitos.! Nor did Simplicius know Xenophanes at first hand. The two quotations from his poem occur in the discussion of a passage from Theophrastos, and are probably taken from him. The quotations show, how- ever, that Simplicius knew at first hand the works of Zeno, *Melissos, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, and Empedokles, and it remains to examine the numerous quotations from the last two thinkers in order to form some idea as to the probable accuracy of Simplicius’ method of quotation.