Moreover, the school-library at the Lykeum acquired large development and importance. It not only included all the MS. compositions, published or unpublished, of Aristotle and Theophrastus, each of them a voluminous writer — but also a numerous collection (numerous for that day) of other works besides; since both of them were opulent and fond of collecting books. The value of the school-library is shown by what happened after the decease of Theophrastus, when Straton succeeded him in the school (B.C. 287). Theophrastus — thinking himself entitled to treat the library not as belonging to the school but as belonging to himself — bequeathed it at his death to Neleus, a favourite scholar, and a native of Skêpsis (in the Troad), by whom it was carried away to Asia, and permanently separated from the Aristotelian school at Athens. The manuscripts composing it remained in the possession of Neleus and his heirs for more than a century and a half, long hidden in a damp cellar, neglected, and sustaining great damage — until about the year 100 B.C., when they were purchased by a rich Athenian named Apellikon, and brought back to Athens. Sylla, after he had captured Athens (86 B.C.), took for himself the library of Apellikon, and transported it to Rome, where it became open to learned men (Tyrannion, Andronikus, and others), but under deplorable disadvantage — in consequence of the illegible state of the MSS. and the unskilful conjectures and restitutions which had been applied, in the new copies made since it passed into the hands of Apellikon.[10]
[10] The will of Theophrastus, as given in Diogenes (v. 52), mentions the bequest of all his books to Neleus. But it is in Strabo that we read the fullest account of this displacement of the Peripatetic school-library, and the consequences which ensued from it (xiii. 608, 609). Νηλεὺς, ἀνὴρ καὶ Ἀριστοτέλους ἠκροαμένος καὶ Θεοφράστου, διαδεδεγμένος δὲ τὴν βιβλιοθήκην τοῦ Θεοφράστου, ἐν ᾗ ἦν καὶ ἡ τοῦ Ἀριστοτέλους. ὁ γοῦν Ἀριστοτέλης τὴν ἑαυτοῦ Θεοφράστῳ παρέδωκεν, ᾧπερ καὶ τὴν σχολὴν ἀπέλιπε, πρῶτος, ὧν ἴσμεν, συναγαγὼν βίβλια, καὶ διδάξας τοὺς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ βασιλέας βιβλιοθήκης σύνταξιν.
The kings of Pergamus, a few years after the death of Theophrastus, acquired possession of the town and territory of Skêpsis; so that the heirs of Neleus became numbered among their subjects. These kings (from about the year B.C. 280 downwards) manifested great eagerness to collect a library at Pergamus, in competition with that of the Ptolemies at Alexandria. The heirs of Neleus were afraid that these kings would strip them of their Aristotelian MSS., either for nothing or for a small price. They therefore concealed the MSS. in a cellar, until they found an opportunity of selling them to a stranger out of the country. (Strabo, l. c.)
This narrative of Strabo is one of the most interesting pieces of information remaining to us about literary antiquity. He had himself received instruction from Tyrannion (xii. 548): he had gone through a course of Aristotelian philosophy (xvi. 757), and he had good means of knowing the facts from the Aristotelian critics, including his master Tyrannion. Plutarch (Vit. Syllæ, c. 26) and Athenæus (i. 3) allude to the same story. Athenæus says that Ptolemy Philadelphus purchased the MSS. from the heirs of Neleus, which cannot be correct.
Some critics have understood the narrative of Strabo, as if he had meant to affirm, that the works of Aristotle had never got into circulation until the time of Apellikon. It is against this supposition that Stahr contends (very successfully) in his work “Aristotelia”. But Strabo does not affirm so much as this. He does not say anything to contradict the supposition that there were copies of various books of Aristotle in circulation, during the lives of Aristotle and Theophrastus.
Inconvenience to the Peripatetic school from the loss of its library.
If we knew the truth, it might probably appear that the transfer of the Aristotelian library, from the Peripatetic school at Athens to the distant and obscure town of Skêpsis, was the result of some jealousy on the part of Theophrastus; that he wished to secure to Neleus the honourable and lucrative post of becoming his successor in the school, and conceived that he was furthering that object by bequeathing the library to Neleus. If he entertained any such wish, it was disappointed. The succession devolved upon another pupil of the school, Straton of Lampsakus. But Straton and his successors were forced to get on as well as they could without their library. The Peripatetic school at Athens suffered severely by the loss. Its professors possessed only a few of the manuscripts of Aristotle, and those too the commonest and best known. If a student came with a view to read any of the other Aristotelian works (as Crassus went to read the Gorgias of Plato), the Scholarch was unable to assist him: as far as Aristotle was concerned, they could only expand and adorn, in the way of lecture, a few of his familiar doctrines.[11] We hear that the character of the school was materially altered. Straton deserted the track of Aristotle, and threw himself into speculations of his own (seemingly able and ingenious), chiefly on physical topics.[12] The critical study, arrangement, and exposition of Aristotle was postponed until the first century before the Christian era — the Ciceronian age, immediately preceding Strabo.
[11] Strabo, xiii. 609. συνέβη δὲ τοῖς ἐκ τῶν περιπάτων τοῖς μὲν πάλαι, τοῖς μετὰ Θεόφραστον, οὐκ ἔχουσιν ὅλως τὰ βίβλια πλὴν ὀλίγων, καὶ μάλιστα τῶν ἐξωτερικῶν, μηδὲν ἔχειν φιλοσοφεῖν πραγματικῶς, ἀλλὰ θέσεις ληκυθίζειν.
[12] The change in the Peripatetic school, after the death of Theophrastus, is pointed out by Cicero, Fin. v. 5, 18. Compare Academ. Poster. i. 9.
Advantage to the Platonic school from having preserved its MSS.