Table Of ContentTHEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS
SOURCES FOR HIS UFE, WRITINGS
THOUGHT AND INFLUENCE
COMMENTARY VOLUME 3.1
SOURCES ON PHYSICS
PHILOSOPHIA ANTIQUA
A SERIES OF STUDIES
ON ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
FOUNDED BY J.H. WASZINK AND W.J. VERDENIUS
EDITED BY
]. IYIANSFELD, D.T. RUNIA
J.C.M. VAN WINDEN
VOLUME LXXIX
THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS
SOURCES FOR HIS UFE, WRITINGS
THOUGHT AND INFLUENCE
COMMENTARY VOLUME 3.1
SOURCES ON PHYSICS
R.W. SHARPLES
THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS
SOURCES FOR HIS LIFE, WRITINGS
THOUGHT AND INFLUENCE
COMMENTARY VOLUME 3.1
SOURCES ON PHYSICS
(Texts 137-223)
BY
R.W. SHARPLES
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS ON THE ARABIC MATERIAL
BY
DIMITRI GUTAS
BRILL
LEIDEN · BOSTON · KOLN
1998
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sharples, R. W.
Theophrastus of Eresus. Commentary, volume 3.1, sources on
physics (texts 137-223) : sources for his life, writings, thought,
and influence I by R.W. Sharples.
p cm.-(Philosophia antiqua, ISSN 0079-1687; v. 79)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 9004111301 (alk. paper)
I. Science, Ancient-Sources. 2. Theophrastus-Sources.
3. Authors, Greek-Biography-Sources. 4. Philosophers-Greece-
-Biography-Sources. I. Theophrastus II. Title. III. Series.
Ql24.95.S48 1998
509.2-dc21 98-12851
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Tbeophrastus of Eresus : sources for his life, writings, thought and
influence. - Leiden ; Boston ; Ki:iln : Brill
ISBN 90--04-09440-7
Commentary vol. 3. Sources on physics I by R.W. Sharples
I. (Texts 13 7 - 223) : with contributions on the Arabic material I
by Dimitri Gutas. - 1998
(Philosophia antiqua ; Vol. 79)
ISBN 90--04--1 I 130-1
ISSN 0079-1687
ISBN 90 04 11130 1
© Copyright 1998 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
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PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
CONTENTS:
Preface............................................................................................... vii
Abbreviations................................................................................... xu1
Introduction...................................................................................... xv
Physics (137-223)............................................................................. 1
Titles ofBooks (137).................................................................. 1
Writings on Physics (138-141) ............................................... 30
Principles of Natural Science (142-145) ................................ 35
Place (146-149) ........................................................................... 48
Time (150-151)........................................................................... 60
Motion and Change (152-157) ................................................ 65
Heavenly Region (158-168) .................................................... 85
Sublunary Region: Elements and Principles (169-183) ..... 113
The Eternity of the Universe (184-185) ................................. 130
Meteorology (186-194).............................................................. 144
Earthquakes and Volcanoes (195-196)................................... 163
Metals (197-205 and Appendix 3) ........................................... 167
Stones (206-209) ......................................................................... 176
Waters (210-221 and Appendix 4) .......................................... 190
Salt and Soda (222-223) ............................................................. 220
Afterword......................................................................................... 227
Bibliography.................................................................................... 231
Indices to the Texts.......................................................................... 243
Principal terms: Greek............................................................. 243
Principal terms: Latin.............................................................. 261
Principal terms: Arabic........................................................... 268
Titles of ancient works referred to in the texts..................... 269
Persons and places referred to in the texts............................ 270
Indices to the Commentary.......................................................... 277
Passages cited............................................................................ 277
Persons (ancient)...................................................................... 293
Subjects....................................................................................... 295
PREFACE
This volume contains commentary to the section concerned with
physics (texts 137-223) of the collection of texts relating to Theo
phrastus compiled and edited under the leadership of W.W.
Fortenbaugh and published in 1992 ( Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources
for his Life, Writings, Thought and Influence, edited and translated by
William W. Fortenbaugh, Pamela M. Huby, Robert W. Sharples
(Greek and Latin) and Dimitri Gutas (Arabic), together with five
others: 2 vols., Leiden, Brill, 1992). The collection of texts was
arranged by subject matter, rather than by the known or con
jectured relation of testimonia to particular Theophrastean works
( cf. the Introduction to the collection of texts, vol.1 pp. 7-8), and the
arrangement of topics was broadly that familiar from the ordering
of Aristotle's writings in Bekker's edition. The subject matter of the
present commentary might thus be loosely described as the
Theophrastean counterpart to the Bekker pages of Aristotle 184-390
(Physics, On Heaven, On Coming-to-Be and Passing Away and Meteoro
logy). Commentary by Han Baltussen on the texts relating to physi
cal doxography (224-245) will appear in a separate volume, 3.2,
along with that by Pamela Huby on texts on metaphysics, theology
and mathematics (246-264).
It should be emphasised at the outset that our collection of texts is
confined, with a very few exceptions, to those passages where
Theophrastus is actually named, and that it is explicitly concerned
with material that does not survive in Theophrastean works trans
mitted in MSS. We are concerned, in other words, with reports of
Theophrastus' views-sometimes quotations, but more often para
phrases-in other authors. It is not therefore the intention of this
commentary to deal with the surviving works, such as On Fire or On
Stones, as a whole,1 or to discuss every passage in a later author
where the influence of Theophrastus can be detected even though
he is not named. The task of the present volume, and of others in
the series, is the more restricted one of providing commentary on
the texts we have printed, though to do so while providing a
1 These texts (customarily labelled opuscula) will be edited and discussed
in a separate series of Project Theophrastus volumes.
Vlll PREFACE
sufficient glimpse of the whole picture at least to put them in
context.2
Our policy throughout the collection has been to take some
account of every reference to Theophrastus by name in any source
before the cut-off date of 1450 A.D. Many of the medieval refer
ences, including some discussed in the present volume, are of
extremely dubious value; but so are some of the ancient ones as
well. As an aid to the reader some reports have been flagged in
their headings in the Commentary as "dubious", "spurious" or
"inaccurate"; "inaccurate" when a report can be shown to be a
distortion or a free paraphrase of an extant work, "spurious" when
there is a misattribution to Theophrastus and the process by which
the misattribution came about can be reconstructed, and "dubious"
when misgivings are prompted by the nature of a source, the
content of a report, or some other reason. However, just as "inaccur
ate" covers the whole range from gross misunderstanding on the
one hand to a type of compression in summarising which is hard
ly reprehensible on the other, so "dubious" covers many degrees
of uncertainty; the reader should consult the detailed discussion of
the passage in each case. There are moreover many cases where,
while there is no particular reason to doubt the truth of what a
report says about Theophrastus, its historical value seems limited,
either because the information it gives is of a very general kind or
because Theophrastus is simply listed among a number of indi
viduals all said to hold standard Peripatetic doctrines. Such cases
have not been flagged in their headings, for in so far as what they
say about Theophrastus is true they are not potentially misleading.
For the question of the value of such reports the reader is referred to
the detailed discussion in each case.
Given the differences in the issues raised by particular texts, it
has not seemed desirable to impose a rigid structure on the discus
sion of each one. In every case, however, discussion of an indi
vidual text begins with an indication of the modern literature rele
vant to it. For a few longer texts a line-by-line style of commentary
has been adopted; in every case, the nature of the material has
2 The importance of seeing as a whole Theophrastus' work both in what
we call philosophy and in what we call natural science, and of taking account
both of secondary evidence and of the surviving opuscula, is stressed by Stein
metz (1964) 7-8, and exemplified by his following discussion. The general
principle is beyond dispute, even if there is room for disagreement about
particular conclusions.
