Catalogues and Wills: A Groundwork Note on the Peripatetic Transmission Texts — Relations Established, Readings Withheld (v0.3)
Description
A groundwork note establishing relations among the texts that carry the custody, enumeration, and route of the Aristotelian and Theophrastan books: the four Peripatetic wills preserved by Diogenes Laertius (Aristotle, Theophrastus, Strato, Lycon), the two catalogues he attaches to the lives of Aristotle and Theophrastus with their stichometric totals (445,270 and 232,808 lines), Strabo XIII.1.54, Plutarch Sulla 26, Diogenes V.38, and Epistle VI. The receiving texts are treated as texts; the operations are counts, positions, co-occurrences, and verbatim clauses; readings are withheld and the underdetermined areas are listed as questions. Established: the three books-clauses partition three ways (all to Neleus / all except our own / read and unpublished); the will of Aristotle names no book, library, school, or successor; Theophrastus's will assigns the books to one person and the premises to a commons under a prohibition on alienation, in adjacent clauses; the Theophrastan catalogue's initials run the alphabet twice before an unordered tail, contain nine internal doublets, share twelve titles letter-for-letter with Aristotle's list, and carry the entry Ὑπομνημάτων Ἀριστοτελικῶν ἢ Θεοφραστείων — alternative attribution in the catalogue's own wording; Strabo narrates the custody with παρέδωκεν three times and asserts a first link (Aristotle to Theophrastus) that the will does not contain; Plutarch names Andronicus's act as ἀναγράψαι τοὺς νῦν φερομένους πίνακας. The extant corpora are counted (Plato 561,330; Aristotle 981,399; Theophrastus 170,763 Greek words as digitized) and set against the catalogued totals as two acts, not as a measure of loss. Corrections after review (garden; images versus bones; apparatus stripped from the cut; Ahiqar and the alphabetic runs held to the observable) are recorded in v0.3. Companion to EA-CORPORA-12 (#1580), which seats the texts, and to The Stone for a List.
Wiki Article
Concepts Defined
Full Text
Catalogues and Wills: A Groundwork Note on the Peripatetic Transmission Texts — Relations Established, Readings Withheld (v0.3)
Catalogues and Wills
A groundwork note on the Peripatetic transmission texts — relations established, readings withheld
Lee Sharks · v0.3 · 2026-09-06 · corrections after review (garden; images vs bones; apparatus stripped; Ahiqar and the alphabetic runs held to the observable; witness status stated); seatings added: Plutarch Sulla 26, D.L. V.38, Ep. VI head; Athenaeus pending
Scope. This note establishes relations among the texts that carry the custody, enumeration, and route of the Aristotelian and Theophrastan books: the four Peripatetic wills preserved by Diogenes Laertius, the two catalogues he attaches to the lives of Aristotle and Theophrastus with their stichometric totals, and Strabo's account of the library's route. The receiving texts (Diogenes, Strabo, Plutarch) are treated as texts: what they say, where, in what words, and against what other text. The wills are testamentary texts preserved by Diogenes — descriptions of material arrangements (an image, a library, a garden), which are distinct from independently surviving contemporary objects; where the note says "the will places" it means the text places. Nothing here interprets; the operations are counts, positions, co-occurrences, and verbatim clauses, so that later work in areas the record leaves underdetermined begins from what the pages contain and not from what has been assumed of them. Every Greek quotation below is from a seated digital edition (Perseus canonical-greekLit, perseus-grc2; fetched 2026-09-06); print collation against Dorandi (Diogenes) and Radt (Strabo) is pending.
1. Texts seated
1. Diogenes Laertius V.11–16 — the will of Aristotle. Opening formula Ἔσται μὲν εὖ· ἐὰν δέ τι συμβαίνῃ, τάδε διέθετο Ἀριστοτέλης. 466 words as cut.
2. Diogenes Laertius V.22–27 — the catalogue of Aristotle's works, introduced Συνέγραψε δὲ πάμπλειστα βιβλία, ἅπερ ἀκόλουθον ἡγησάμην ὑπογράψαι, closed by the total: μυριάδες στίχων τέτταρες καὶ τετταράκοντα πρὸς τοῖς πεντακισχιλίοις καὶ διακοσίοις ἑβδομήκοντα — 445,270 lines.
3. Diogenes Laertius V.42–50 — the catalogue of Theophrastus's works, closed by the total Ἃ γίνονται στίχων Μ′ κ′ γ′ Β ω′ η′ — 232,808 lines.
4. Diogenes Laertius V.51–57 — the will of Theophrastus. Opening formula Ἔσται μὲν εὖ· ἐὰν δέ τι συμβῇ, τάδε διατίθεμαι. 576 words as cut.
5. Diogenes Laertius V.61–64 — the will of Strato. Opening Τάδε διατίθεμαι, ἐάν τι πάσχω. 271 words.
6. Diogenes Laertius V.69–74 — the will of Lycon. Opening Τάδε διατίθεμαι. 555 words.
7. Strabo XIII.1.54 — the route of the books, ἐκ δὲ τῆς Σκήψεως … περὶ μὲν οὖν τούτων ἀπόχρη.
8. Plutarch, Sulla 26 (canonical-greekLit tlg0007.tlg033, perseus-grc2): ἐξεῖλεν ἑαυτῷ τὴν Ἀπελλικῶνος τοῦ Τηΐου βιβλιοθήκην, ἐν ᾗ τὰ πλεῖστα τῶν Ἀριστοτέλους καὶ Θεοφράστου βιβλίων ἦν, οὔπω τότε σαφῶς γνωριζόμενα τοῖς πολλοῖς, λέγεται δὲ κομισθείσης αὐτῆς εἰς Ῥώμην Τυραννίωνα τὸν γραμματικὸν ἐνσκευάσασθαι τὰ πολλά, καὶ παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ τὸν Ῥόδιον Ἀνδρόνικον εὐπορήσαντα τῶν ἀντιγράφων εἰς μέσον θεῖναι καὶ ἀναγράψαι τοὺς νῦν φερομένους πίνακας. … διὰ τὸ τὸν Νηλέως τοῦ Σκηψίου κλῆρον, ᾧ τὰ βιβλία κατέλιπε Θεόφραστος, εἰς ἀφιλοτίμους καὶ ἰδιώτας ἀνθρώπους περιγενέσθαι. Relations: Andronicus is named here and not in Strabo; his act is stated as drawing up the πίνακες now in circulation — the catalogues; the two names are again one lot (τῶν Ἀριστοτέλους καὶ Θεοφράστου βιβλίων); Theophrastus's bequest to Neleus is restated (κατέλιπε).
9. Diogenes V.38 (the life of Theophrastus): τοῦτον Τύρταμον λεγόμενον Θεόφραστον διὰ τὸ τῆς φράσεως θεσπέσιον Ἀριστοτέλης μετωνόμασεν. The renaming is stated with μετωνόμασεν and the reason τῆς φράσεως θεσπέσιον; Diogenes's text gives no intermediate name. Two lines on: λέγεται δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῦ τε καὶ Καλλισθένους τὸ ὅμοιον εἰπεῖν Ἀριστοτέλην, ὅπερ Πλάτωνα [of Xenocrates and Aristotle] — Theophrastus paired with Callisthenes in Aristotle's mouth, as Aristotle was paired with Xenocrates in Plato's.
10. Epistle VI (Perseus canonical-greekLit tlg0059.tlg036): Πλάτων Ἑρμείᾳ καὶ Ἐράστῳ καὶ Κορίσκῳ εὖ πράττειν … Ἐράστῳ δὲ καὶ Κορίσκῳ, πρὸς τῇ τῶν εἰδῶν σοφίᾳ τῇ καλῇ ταύτῃ … The two names Strabo calls Σωκρατικοί of Scepsis are the letter's addressees, credited there with τῶν εἰδῶν σοφία.
11. Pending: Athenaeus I 3a–b (the Ptolemy variant; the Perseus grc2 edition is absent from the repository); Aelian VH XIV 1 (the revocation of the Delphic honours); the Delphic decree itself from FD III 1, 400 / Syll.³ 275 (see the companion reading note).
The four wills are seated in full as the appendix of EA-CORPORA-12 (#1580) and on the Diogenes Laertius seat (inline apparatus of the digital edition removed after review; Lycon's extract cut before Diogenes's closing assessment); the catalogue parses and the Strabo passage are in the working files.
2. The wills: relations
2.1 The books clause, will by will (verbatim)
| testator | the clause on books | the clause on the school |
|---|---|---|
| Aristotle | none. The stem βιβλί- does not occur in the will (0 occurrences). | none as a disposition of philosophical premises or of succession. A garden is mentioned once, as the location of Herpyllis's lodging at Chalcis (τὸν ξενῶνα τὸν πρὸς τῷ κήπῳ); no school, περίπατος, or successor is named. |
| Theophrastus | τὰ δὲ βιβλία πάντα Νηλεῖ. | τὸν δὲ κῆπον καὶ τὸν περίπατον καὶ τὰς οἰκίας τὰς πρὸς τῷ κήπῳ πάσας δίδωμι τῶν γεγραμμένων φίλων ἀεὶ τοῖς βουλομένοις συσχολάζειν καὶ συμφιλοσοφεῖν ἐν αὐταῖς … μήτ᾽ ἐξαλλοτριοῦσι μήτ᾽ ἐξιδιαζομένου μηδενός, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἂν ἱερὸν κοινῇ κεκτημένοις. |
| Strato | καταλείπω δ᾽ αὐτῷ καὶ τὰ βιβλία πάντα, πλὴν ὧν αὐτοὶ γεγράφαμεν. | καταλείπω δὲ τὴν μὲν διατριβὴν Λύκωνι, ἐπειδὴ τῶν ἄλλων οἱ μέν εἰσι πρεσβύτεροι, οἱ δὲ ἄσχολοι. |
| Lycon | τἀμὰ βιβλία τὰ ἀνεγνωσμένα [to Chares] · τὰ δ᾽ ἀνέκδοτα Καλλίνῳ ὅπως ἐπιμελῶς αὐτὰ ἐκδῷ. | (the περίπατος to a named group; see the will) |
Relations that follow from the table without interpretation:
1. The word for books occurs once in each of the three later wills and not at all in the first.
2. In Theophrastus's will the books go to one person (Νηλεῖ, singular dative) and the premises to a plurality (τῶν γεγραμμένων φίλων … τοῖς βουλομένοις), held κοινῇ, with the explicit prohibition of alienation or private appropriation (μήτ᾽ ἐξαλλοτριοῦσι μήτ᾽ ἐξιδιαζομένου μηδενός). The two clauses are adjacent (τὰ δὲ βιβλία πάντα Νηλεῖ. τὸν δὲ κῆπον …). The books are not placed under the commons rule.
3. The recipient of the books, Neleus, is one of the ten named κοινωνοῦντες of the premises (Ἵππαρχος, Νηλεύς, Στράτων, Καλλῖνος, Δημότιμος, Δημάρατος, Καλλισθένης, Μελάντης, Παγκρέων, Νίκιππος). Strato, who became scholarch, is in the same list. The will does not name a scholarch.
4. Strato's will separates two classes of books: τὰ βιβλία πάντα and ὧν αὐτοὶ γεγράφαμεν, and bequeaths only the first. The disposition of the second is not stated in the will.
5. Lycon's will separates two classes by a different criterion: τὰ ἀνεγνωσμένα and τὰ ἀνέκδοτα, and attaches to the second an instruction to publish (ὅπως ἐπιμελῶς αὐτὰ ἐκδῷ).
6. The three books-clauses therefore use three different partitions: all / all-except-own / read-and-unpublished.
2.2 Persons across the wills
Name-stems shared between wills (computed on the seated Greek; same-name identity is not asserted):
- Aristotle ∩ Theophrastus: Ἀριστοτέλης (as testator; as εἰκών in the shrine; as grandson Ἀριστοτέλει τῷ Μητροδώρου καὶ Πυθιάδος υἱῷ), Νικόμαχος, Πυθιάς, Στάγειρα, Χαλκίς.
- Theophrastus ∩ Strato: Στράτων (κοινωνός in the one; testator in the other).
- Theophrastus ∩ Lycon: Καλλῖνος (recipient of the Stagira estate in the one; publisher of the ἀνέκδοτα in the other).
- Strato ∩ Lycon: Λύκων (recipient of the διατριβή in the one; testator in the other), Διόφαντος.
- Aristotle ∩ Strato, Aristotle ∩ Lycon: none.
Two further co-occurrences inside Aristotle's will: Θεόφραστος is named twice — among the ἐπιμεληταί (ἐπιμελεῖσθαι Ἀριστομένην, Τίμαρχον, Ἵππαρχον, Διοτέλην, Θεόφραστον, ἐὰν βούληται καὶ ἐνδέχηται αὐτῷ) and as the alternative to Nicanor for the daughter (ἐὰν δὲ βούληται Θεόφραστος εἶναι μετὰ τῆς παιδός, καθάπερ πρὸς Νικάνορα). Ἵππαρχος is named in Aristotle's will (caretaker) and in Theophrastus's (first of the κοινωνοῦντες and executor of the will's provisions).
2.3 What Aristotle's will contains instead
Guardianship (Ἀντίπατρον ἐπίτροπον … πάντων καὶ διὰ παντός); the daughter's marriage to Nicanor; Herpyllis's provision, including the guest-house by the garden at Chalcis; manumissions; images (εἰκόνες, commissioned from Gryllion) to be completed and set up — Nicanor's, Proxenus's, and that of Nicanor's mother; the brother's image dedicated as his memorial, ἐπειδὴ ἄπαις ἐτελεύτησε; the image of "our mother" dedicated to Demeter at Nemea or wherever seems best; Pythias's bones to be taken up and laid where he is buried, ὥσπερ αὐτὴ προσέταξεν; four-cubit stone images vowed to Zeus Soter and Athena Soteira at Stagira. No writing, book, library, school, or successor.
3. The catalogues: relations
3.1 Counts and totals
| titles (as parsed) | stated total in στίχοι | order | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aristotle (V.22–27) | 144 | 445,270 | not alphabetical; grouped |
| Theophrastus (V.42–50) | 221 | 232,808 | two alphabetical sequences and a tail (§3.2) |
Parsing rule: a title is the text preceding a group of book-numerals (α′ β′ …); bracketed entries are counted as they stand on the page. Editorial totals differ by a few from these parses.
3.2 The structure of Theophrastus's list
The sequence of initial letters of the titles (prepositions and articles skipped) runs, after a short unordered prefix, through the alphabet once (α … ψ), then restarts and runs through it a second time (α … χ), then continues in an unordered tail of roughly thirty titles. What is observable is the double alphabetical run and the unordered tail. That these reflect distinct source lists placed end to end is a further inference, recorded as such; the identity of the sources is not given by the page. Aristotle's list shows no such alphabetization.
3.3 Doublets within Theophrastus's list
Nine titles occur twice within the list (normalized): Περὶ βασιλείας, Ἐπιχειρημάτων, Θέσεις, Προβλημάτων συναγωγῆς, Περὶ διαβολῆς, Περὶ μέτρων, Περὶ τῶν προβλημάτων φυσικῶν, Προτρεπτικός, and one single-letter entry. Two of these carry the editorial brackets on the page ([Περὶ διαβολῆς α′], [Προτρεπτικὸς α′]).
3.4 Titles identical across the two catalogues
Twelve distinct titles appear, letter for letter, in both Aristotle's and Theophrastus's lists: Περὶ βασιλείας · Περὶ ζῴων · Περὶ κινήσεως · Περὶ λέξεως · Περὶ μουσικῆς · Περὶ πλούτου · Περὶ φιλίας · Περὶ φύσεως · Περὶ ἑκουσίου · Προτρεπτικός · Τὰ πρὸ τῶν τόπων · Ἐρωτικός.
3.5 Entries in Theophrastus's list that name the other authors
Five titles in the Theophrastan catalogue carry the name of Aristotle, Plato, or the Academy in the title itself:
- Ὑπομνημάτων Ἀριστοτελικῶν ἢ Θεοφραστείων — Notes, Aristotelian or Theophrastan. The catalogue assigns the work to either name with ἤ.
- Περὶ ἡδονῆς ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης — On pleasure, as Aristotle [has it].
- Ἐπιτομῶν Ἀριστοτέλους περὶ ζῴων — Epitomes of Aristotle's On Animals (six books).
- Ἐπιτομὴ τῆς Πλάτωνος Πολιτείας.
- Πρὸς τοὺς ἐξ Ἀκαδημείας.
3.6 The Ἀκίχαρος entry
Ἀκίχαρος α′ stands in the Theophrastan list. The title is that of the Ahiqar book; the entry itself does not distinguish a library holding from a work attributed to Theophrastus, and the note does not.
3.7 The totals as sentences
Both totals are stated in the same form — a title-list closed by a sum of lines — and both stand in the same text (Diogenes), at the same position in each life (between the works and the will, for Theophrastus; after the works, for Aristotle). The Theophrastan total is 52.3% of the Aristotelian.
4. Strabo XIII.1.54: relations
4.1 The custody chain in Strabo's verb
Strabo narrates the custody with one verb three times: ὁ γοῦν Ἀριστοτέλης τὴν ἑαυτοῦ Θεοφράστῳ παρέδωκεν, ᾧπερ καὶ τὴν σχολὴν ἀπέλιπε … Θεόφραστος δὲ Νηλεῖ παρέδωκεν· ὁ δ᾽ εἰς Σκῆψιν κομίσας τοῖς μετ᾽ αὐτὸν παρέδωκεν. The verb is παραδίδωμι in each link.
4.2 What Strabo asserts that the wills do not
1. That Aristotle handed his library to Theophrastus (the will of Aristotle names no books).
2. That Aristotle left the school to Theophrastus (the will of Aristotle names no school).
3. That Theophrastus's library contained Aristotle's (ἐν ᾗ ἦν καὶ ἡ τοῦ Ἀριστοτέλους) — the will of Theophrastus says τὰ βιβλία πάντα without partition.
4. That Aristotle was πρῶτος ὧν ἴσμεν συναγαγὼν βιβλία and taught the kings in Egypt βιβλιοθήκης σύνταξιν.
4.3 What Strabo asserts that agrees with the will
That the books went from Theophrastus to Neleus (Νηλεῖ παρέδωκεν ~ τὰ δὲ βιβλία πάντα Νηλεῖ).
4.4 Neleus's provenance in Strabo
ἐκ δὲ τῆς Σκήψεως οἵ τε Σωκρατικοὶ γεγόνασιν Ἔραστος καὶ Κορίσκος καὶ ὁ τοῦ Κορίσκου υἱὸς Νηλεύς, ἀνὴρ καὶ Ἀριστοτέλους ἠκροαμένος καὶ Θεοφράστου. Strabo calls Erastus and Coriscus Σωκρατικοί; Neleus is Coriscus's son and a hearer of both. The names Ἔραστος and Κορίσκος are the addressees, with Hermias, of the sixth of the Platonic Epistles (VI, 322c–323d); the co-occurrence of the names is recorded here, the identity of persons not asserted.
4.5 The route, in Strabo's words
The heirs at Scepsis were ἰδιῶται who kept the books κατάκλειστα … οὐδ᾽ ἐπιμελῶς κείμενα; on learning of the Attalid book-collecting for Pergamum, κατὰ γῆς ἔκρυψαν ἐν διώρυγί τινι; damaged ὑπὸ νοτίας καὶ σητῶν; sold late to Ἀπελλικῶντι τῷ Τηίῳ for much silver — τά τε Ἀριστοτέλους καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοφράστου βιβλία (the two names together as one lot); Apellicon, φιλόβιβλος μᾶλλον ἢ φιλόσοφος, restored the worm-damage into new copies ἀναπληρῶν οὐκ εὖ and ἐξέδωκεν ἁμαρτάδων πλήρη τὰ βιβλία; after Apellicon's death Sulla took the library to Rome; Tyrannion the grammarian handled it (φιλαριστοτέλης ὤν); booksellers used bad scribes and did not collate (οὐκ ἀντιβάλλοντες), as with books written for sale ἐνθάδε καὶ ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ. Andronicus is not named in Strabo's passage.
4.6 Strabo's statement about the school's books
συνέβη δὲ τοῖς ἐκ τῶν περιπάτων τοῖς μὲν πάλαι τοῖς μετὰ Θεόφραστον οὐκ ἔχουσιν ὅλως τὰ βιβλία πλὴν ὀλίγων, καὶ μάλιστα τῶν ἐξωτερικῶν, μηδὲν ἔχειν φιλοσοφεῖν πραγματικῶς, ἀλλὰ θέσεις ληκυθίζειν. The Peripatetics after Theophrastus had, per Strabo, few books and mostly the exoteric ones. Set beside this, without inference: the extant Aristotelian corpus consists of the treatises, and the exoteric works are lost.
5. Counts: the two acts
| extant, counted (open corpora, one edition per work) | catalogued, stated (D.L.) | catalogued, converted (6.0–6.7 words/στίχος, calibrated on the extant Aristotle's 4.66 letters/word) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plato | 561,330 words (37 works) | no total in D.L. III | — |
| Aristotle | 981,399 words (48 works as digitized; the Bekker corpus as a whole runs nearer 1.05–1.1 M) | 445,270 στίχοι | 2.67–2.99 M words |
| Theophrastus | 170,763 words (7 works as digitized; ~195,000 with the opuscula not in the open corpora) | 232,808 στίχοι | 1.40–1.56 M words |
The left column counts one act — what the transmission kept, as digitized. The middle column reports another — what a catalogue stated. The right column converts the second by a calibration drawn from the first. The ratios (Aristotle ~35% of his stated total; Theophrastus ~12%; Plato ~20% of Aristotle's stated total) are relations between the two acts, not measurements of loss, and are labeled as such.
Of the extant Theophrastus, the two botanical works are 141,438 of 170,763 counted words (83%).
6. Underdetermined areas (questions, not readings)
1. How the Aristotelian books reached Theophrastus. The will of Aristotle is silent; Strabo supplies παρέδωκεν. No text states a mechanism.
2. Why the books and the premises were bequeathed under different regimes — one person for the books, a commons under a prohibition on alienation for the premises — and whether the will's silence on the books' regime is the text's or the tradition's.
3. What Strato's will did with ὧν αὐτοὶ γεγράφαμεν, and to whom.
4. Whether Callinus in Theophrastus's will and Callinus in Lycon's are one person; whether Hipparchus in Aristotle's and in Theophrastus's are one.
5. The referents of the twelve identical titles across the two catalogues: two works, one work listed twice, or one library listed under two heads.
6. The entry Ὑπομνημάτων Ἀριστοτελικῶν ἢ Θεοφραστείων: what state of a work, or of a list, produces ἤ.
7. The sources of the two alphabetical sequences in the Theophrastan list and of its tail; whether the 232,808 is the sum of the list as it stands or of a list it was copied from.
8. The Strabo route against the Athenaeus route (Neleus's sale to Ptolemy Philadelphus): pending seating of Athenaeus I 3a–b.
9. Andronicus: named by Plutarch (Sulla 26), absent from Strabo; pending seating.
10. Strabo's "mostly the exoteric" against the extant corpus's "only the esoteric": two statements about the same books, in inverse.
11. The names Erastus and Coriscus in Strabo and in Epistle VI: a co-occurrence of names at the custody point, awaiting the Letter's seating beside the geography.
Texts
Diogenes Laertius: Perseus canonical-greekLit tlg0004.tlg001.perseus-grc2 (Book V), fetched 2026-09-06; the four wills cut at their opening formulae and the closing διαθῆκαι sentence; catalogues cut at Συνέγραψε δὲ πάμπλειστα βιβλία / the stated total, and at the Theophrastan list's beginning / Ἃ γίνονται στίχων. Strabo: tlg0099.tlg001.perseus-grc2, XIII.1.54, fetched the same day. Word counts of the extant corpora from PerseusDL canonical-greekLit and OpenGreekAndLatin First1KGreek (tlg0059, tlg0086, tlg0093), Greek tokens of body text after removal of apparatus and notes, one edition per work (the fullest). Print collation pending throughout.
