In a note he adds these observations:—"Aristobulus, no unworthy companion of Alexander in his expedition, bears testimony, according to Plutarch, that the whole military chest did not contain seventy talents of coin. For the preparation of so arduous an undertaking, however, the same person says, that two hundred talents ought to have been taken for mutual exchange. I remember also to have read in Eustathius's commentary on Homer, a very learned disquisition on the scarcity of money amongst the Macedonians, at the time of Alexander's expedition; but I cannot lay my hands upon the passage."
I must confess that I am not influenced by this annotation, nor does the whole of this controversy appear to me to have been properly conducted. For the greatest doubt prevails as to the number of talents which Alexander is said to have paid to Aristotle, to help him in his task; and the report only rests on the authority of a writer who lived centuries after the death of Alexander. To refute this is useless labour, both because its origin is obscure, and also because a sum of money set down in figures might be easily corrupted by transcribers. But the testimony of Aristobulus will give little or no assistance to the opinion of the learned, if we adopt that which is most probable, namely, that Philip, or his son Alexander, gave large sums of money to Aristotle, to enable him to pursue his studies in Natural History, while he lived in Macedon, and was employed in the education of Alexander. The question about the date when Aristotle arranged and published the materials and notes he had collected is quite distinct, and I do not think that it can be precisely ascertained at the present time. The conjecture I have hazarded (light enough, I must confess) does not say much in favour of the story of abundant treasures supplied by Philip, or Alexander, to our philosopher, for the composition of his Natural History. But these persons form a very poor estimate of the study and labour bestowed by Aristotle upon the History of Animals, who imagine that our philosopher had only access to such books as now remain, forgetting those of which time has robbed us.
Most of all we must regret his Ζωϊκὰ, which appears to have given a more accurate description of animals, and his ἀνατομικὰ, which further contained notices of their internal structure, and was illustrated by drawings to which he often refers in his Natural History, as well as in his works on the parts and the generation of animals. It will scarcely be possible to fix with any accuracy on the number of books he employed, after the great carelessness of librarians, and the many facilities for error in copyists, arising from the method of notation by letters. Antigonus Carystius, in his sixty-sixth chapter, increases the number of volumes given by Pliny, for he writes seventy; and if the titles of the books, as they are given by Diogenes Laertius and Athenæus, are compared with those published, the number of books relating to Animal History to which he may have had access are readily estimated, even should every book of every work be reckoned as a separate book, and the list compared with the number given by Pliny.
In the memory of our fathers and grandfathers (for, alas! at the present time few trouble themselves with the works of the ancients) there were many who blamed Aristotle for these works, both for his manner of treating the subjects and his narratives of the lives and habits of animals, and vexed them with questions and disputations.
These objections will be better answered, when we come to those passages of the History. It may, however, be of some general avail to put a stop to these objections, which were urged against his manner of teaching; and I hope to be able to point out some peculiar sources from which Aristotle appears to have derived the more difficult parts of his History, and those which were obnoxious to dispute.
Amongst other foolish and trifling questions with which some Grammarian, in the Deipnosophistæ of Athenæus, (viii. p. 352,) has endeavoured not only to impugn, but even destroy our philosopher's credibility, is the following:—"I do not much admire the diligence of Aristotle, though others praise him so highly. At what time, I should like to know, or from what Proteus or Nereus ascending from the deep, to give him information, did he learn what the fishes were doing there, and in what manner they slept and took their food; for he writes things of this kind, which are only 'the miracles of fools,' as the comic poet says."
I will not follow the rest of his argument, which relates to terrestrial and winged animals; for the aquatic, and especially the marine creatures, seem to offer the greatest opportunity for questioning the fidelity of his narrative. In the first place, then, we may observe, that of all mankind the Greeks were amongst the greatest eaters of fish, at least after the heroic and Homeric ages; for Homer is never found to mention fish at the suppers and festivals of his heroes. So that I should not wonder if the frequent and repeated industry and observation of fishermen, following their labours both in rivers and seas, to adorn the tables of their fellow citizens, supplied ample and varied information to learned men who were engaged in the investigation of natural objects. By the same means they might learn from hunters the haunts and dispositions of wild beasts, and those of domesticated animals from husbandmen. The whole life and labour of such men was devoted to the uses, advantages, and food of man; and their observations would be particularly directed to those animals which could assist in sharing the labours of mankind, or whose flesh or other parts were required for food or medicine. Their parturition and its proper time, the number of their young, the manner of bringing them up, their nutriment, the pastures and food of the parents, and the proper time for hunting them, were observed with the greatest accuracy. And if any diseases arising from the weather, their food, or their drink impended over them, and threatened their production or the life of the wild cattle, or if a peculiar or common enemy laid in wait for the life of one or all, it could not easily escape their observation; and from these circumstances we may manifestly derive the origin of those fables and narratives in which the opinions of animals are compared with the life and manner of human beings, such as the simple minds of hunters, fishers, and rustics could comprehend. In these books of natural history we find traces of many stories of this kind which it is unnecessary here to point out.
In the aquatic and marine orders of animals there is, besides these sources of information, the diligent investigation instituted by certain writers throughout the seas and rivers of Greece, at a time when every useful fish, and marine and river animals of this class, mollusca, shell fish, and worms formed part of their food. The time and manner of their coition, parturition, pregnancy, and life, the nature of their food, places and manner of taking fish, the times in which they were not accessible, the faults and diseases of aquatic animals, were minutely described. The twentieth chapter of the eighth book of our History is on this subject, where the food and diseases of aquatic animals are described, and particular notice is taken of their use as food, besides the observations on the manners of quadrupeds.
It is very evident that the life of one man would hardly suffice for the observation of all these facts even in a single class of animals; but, as I have said, there were writers before the time of Aristotle who provided for the tastes and tables of these fish-eating Greeks a most exquisite apparatus from the rivers and seas of Greece, especially in Sicily, which has been remarkable for its wealth ever since the reigns of Gelo and Hiero, and had surpassed the rest of Greece not only in its knowledge of nature, but in the art of poetry.
There is a passage in Plato's "Gorgias," (sect. 156, p. 246, ed. Heind.) where mention is made of "Mithæcus, the author of a work on Sicilian cookery, and Sarambus, the publican. One furnished the best of food, the other the best of wine." That the art of choosing and preparing food for the table was treated of in this book we may conclude from the use of the word ὀψοποιΐα, which the Greeks especially used to signify the kinds of fish used for food. A passage from this book on the manner of cooking the fish called tenia is quoted by Athenæus, who makes the title of this book ὀψαρτυτικὸν, vii. p. 282, and xii. p. 506.