CHAPTER TWO
1. THE THREE CONDITIONS OF THE THEORETICAL LIFE IN ARISTOTLE
In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle does not make it clear in an exact and explicit way whether the content of theōria involves a direct contemplation of the divine, a life of scientific research, or else a combination of both, in which knowledge of the divine is an aspect of a broader study of reality.1 What he does, however, indicate with remarkable clarity are the external conditions needed to make such activity possible, and there is a substantial agreement between the Eudemian Ethics and the Nicomachean Ethics on the question of the amount and quantity of goods necessary for the bios theōretikos. At Eudemian Ethics VIII.3 (1249a21–b25), an effort is made to determine a criterion (horos) of selection for things that are “naturally good but not praiseworthy,” an expression Aristotle uses to designate external goods.2 These goods are directed for an end (telos), and Aristotle criticizes the attitude that he defines as a “political disposition” (hexis politikē) with respect to these goods, that is, making them the goal of actions and virtues, behavior typical of the Spartans. According to Aristotle, the good life is not a means to acquire external goods; on the contrary, external goods are a means to a good life.
The list of these external goods is spelled out at Eudemian Ethics VIII.3: “honor, wealth, physical prowess, good fortune, and power (timē kai ploutos kai sōmatos aretai kai eutychiai kai dynameis)” (1248b28–29 and 1249b16–18), but obviously what Aristotle is seeking is a moderate amount of these goods, the right “mean” between extremes.3 And to determine the right mean in Aristotle’s philosophy, one must take into account the nature of the thing in question, proceeding, however, by a via negativa, that is, beginning with the opposite extremes and working back until one finds the right mean. In this way, we move from what is most known to us to what is most known in itself, because everybody knows how to recognize an excess which is too obvious, whereas the exact determination of the meson may itself cover a certain range (see On Generation and Corruption II.7, 334b26–30 and Nicomachean Ethics II.9), and it is not easy to find this range with precision. What is needed in fact is not to determine the right mean in absolute terms or in general, focusing abstractly on the thing in itself; rather, we must determine the right mean in concrete terms, and with reference to a specific situation, for this individual, the meson pros hēmas.4
A quantity of goods that actually hinders the attainment of the end for which they come to be chosen is bad, and for the philosophical life it is necessary to attain a moderate prosperity, commensurate with the end that is to be reached, and sufficient to assure freedom from need.5 In this way the theory of the right mean of the external goods harmonizes with the theory of the mental and physical conditions of philosophical activity; as T. Tracy has shown, for theōria, which is the highest level of human activity, what is necessary is a state of moderation and calm in the psychological sense, a stable equilibrium of the functions and desires of the body and, above all, the right regulation of the fundamental emotions of pleasure and pain. Not only the higher functions of the psyche but also the vegetative and sensitive functions should operate at their highest states for there to be freedom to study scientifically, and a man should be free of emotions and desires that exceed the right mean. But because the internal equilibrium is not independent from that of the external environment (periechon), here we find that the two middles, external and internal, are both necessary and interdependent, given that psychological equilibrium and tranquillity also depend upon a proper organization of the external goods.6
On this topic the Nicomachean Ethics does not differ from what is said in the Eudemian Ethics. Here too Aristotle wants to demonstrate the superiority of the bios theōretikos, and he therefore focuses on how it affords a greater degree of self-sufficiency as compared with other types of happy lives. But to be self-sufficient, in the first place, one must first be free from need and possess a moderate fortune (NE X.7, 1177a28–34 and X.8, 1178b33–35). In particular, it could be said that, compared with the political life, the theoretical life is more self-sufficient, given that a politician in order to live well must have access to wealth, respect, and power (dynasteias, X.7, 1177b13), while the efficacy of his actions is subject to the effects of the actions of others. There is no difference on this point between the two works; on the contrary, what was said before is repeated: the politician does not have sufficient tranquillity to think, and he searches to find the criterion or horos of the external goods of fortune, bound up with the sphere of what is noble (to kalon) (X.7, 1177b17). Because there is bound to be an ample margin of uncertainty in the successful outcome of his actions, the politician is naturally worried about contingent results, and his natural condition is that of ascholia, a complete lack of leisure that is not only external but also capable of disturbing the equilibrium of his internal functions (X.7, 1177b2–4, b17–18, 1178a9–22).
The right mean for the philosopher consists in not being very tied to external prosperity (ektos chorēgia, 1178a24–25) and not being worried about whether he is fully equipped with the goods of fortune. Nonetheless, this by no means amounts to a total rejection of them, as happened with the Cynics. The philosopher should, for his own tranquillity, avoid an excess of goods (1178b3–5), but he does require health, food, and whatever is indispensable for living (1178b33–35). Both in order to convince his interlocutors and in order to motivate them to accept these ideas, Aristotle then went on to demonstrate (1179a9–13), by appealing to Solon and his doctrine of moderation (metriotēs),7 how this idea of his also fits in with traditional opinions. Indeed, for Aristotle the metrion constitutes the good in the category of quantity (NE I.6, 1096a25–26). Referring to independence from need and to free time (scholē) as values and as criteria for choosing the type of life to which to devote oneself, all that Aristotle is doing is linking the ideal of the theoretical life to well-known tendencies in Greek popular morality, transcending the Platonic oppositions between philosophy and common sense.8
The first condition necessary for theōria, possession of moderate goods and freedom from need, therefore constitutes the foundation of the second necessary condition, scholē, which is not so much a component of a happy life as one of its necessary conditions, declares Aristotle. These two things, components and necessary conditions of happiness, are different from each other, because in Aristotle’s view the “component parts” possess certain characteristics from which the “necessary conditions” are excluded. “These are not the same: having the things without which being healthy is impossible, and being healthy; and this is how it is in many cases, so that living a good life too is not the same as having the things without which this is not able to happen” (EE I.2, 1214b14–17; see also Politics VII.8, 1328a21–26 and VII.9, 1329a34–39). The reason why the necessary conditions are not parts is based on the distinction between ends and means (Politics VII.8, 1328a28–33). The necessary conditions bear the same relationship to the parts of happiness as the tools of the mason do to the finished house; they are not part of it, but they are indispensable to its creation. And scholē is a condition that becomes all the more indispensable the closer one comes to the peak of eudaimonia, the bios theōretikos. At the highest level of happiness, in its conception of the unmoved mover of the whole cosmos, Aristotle explicitly links theōriaand scholē, making the most complete freedom from external conditions the foundation for the best life of the mind.9 Such a level of independence from need is unattainable for humans, but even in the human world a partial liberation from needs and necessities is possible. Aristotle argues this with the example of the Egyptian priests, whom he refers to at the beginning of theMetaphysics. In Egypt, the conditions necessary for the development of pure theoretical thought were the liberation of certain individuals, the priests, from the need to provide for their own survival, and their attaining a certain comfort.10 According to Aristotle,scholē is a necessary condition for thought from another point of view as well; it distinguishes philosophical reflection from sophistical debate, in which the debaters do battle against their adversary in order to win and are driven by the need for self-assertion. What is needed in order to find truth, on the contrary, is tranquil reflection.11
The third condition of theōria serves in a way as a counterweight to the first two, both of which threaten to push the philosopher’s life away from the right mean and toward an excess of solitude, toward the life of an outsider, like the life of Anaxagoras at Athens had been;12 a philosopher needs friends. In Eudemian Ethics VIII.3 (1249b18), friends are listed among the external goods, which therefore can be taken to include ordinary friends, not interested in philosophy,13 but in the Nicomachean Ethics (X.7, 1177a34), Aristotle mentions “collaborators” (synergous); and so the one doubt is about whether Aristotle means to include, among the best conditions for doing philosophy, only the presence of collaborators in the dialectical discussions and the research enterprises of the Platonic approach to philosophy,14 or also the presence of students at lectures and of less active listeners.15 It should, however, be noted that this condition is not strictly necessary for reflection, in contrast with the first two conditions; a philosopher can be active even on his own, and the presence of friends only makes his condition better.
The relationship between self-sufficiency and friendship is also examined at Eudemian Ethics VII.12, and here Aristotle cautions against the theory that the happiest man, being self-sufficient, can have no need for friends; in fact, it is more pleasurable to share the activities that constitute the purpose of our lives with well-chosen friends, and to devote ourselves with them not only to the pleasures of the body but also to the study of the cultural arts (theōria mousikēs) and to intellectual discussion (philosophia) (1245a21–22). Pleasure is also increased by the act of collaborating (synergein), sharing the activities that constitute the highest good, namely studying together (syntheōrein) and rejoicing together (syneuōcheisthai, 1245b4–5). His only warning to keep in mind is that sharing goods and experiences at this level is reserved to rather restricted groups, because it would be hard to assemble a large number of men disposed to share such feelings (synaisthēsis), and one would not know what to do with them once they had been assembled (1245b23–25).
In order to clarify what Aristotle means by synergoi, we can look at the texts in which he speaks of his students and interlocutors. At Nicomachean Ethics IX.1 (1164b2–3), he is obviously talking about his students, who have a relationship with their master similar to that which binds them to the gods and to their parents, that is, a friendship of superiority (philia kath’hyperochēn, VIII.7, 1158b11–12), in which the two parties are unequal.16 In contrast, at IX.12 1172a1–8, he speaks of the community of those who wish to share with their friends the activity they prefer, and who therefore gather together to pursue what is for them a real life choice, truly so called. Echoing a passage of Isocrates, Aristotle cites as examples of this the principal forms of Greek nonpolitical social life (drinking at symposia, training in the gymnasiums, and hunting),17 and he coins a new term to signify the theoretical life: symphilosophein (to do philosophy together), a word that we shall come across again below.
Unlike in the case of the students, in the community described in Nicomachean Ethics IX.12 there is friendship in the fullest sense of the term. Thus, the relationship described here seems to fit better than the relationship between master and student with the indications given by Aristotle inNicomachean Ethics X.7. Among such friends in the full sense of the term, there is no relationship of pure justice (dikaiosynē), as there is in less complete relationships;18 this too is an indication that will need to be taken up again below.
For now it can be said, on the basis of the three conditions established by Aristotle, that the life of the wise man is not conceived as a deprived life, far from the full development of human capacities; on the contrary, it is presented as the functioning at full stretch of an individual of the human species. It is not strange to us that Aristotle tried to recommend to others the sort of life that he and his friends chose for themselves, defending a conception of the good life that had developed in the Platonic Academy, if not earlier; and it has been widely and well noted that the end of theNicomachean Ethics has a pronounced protreptic quality.19 I believe that here Aristotle wished to speak about a comprehensive choice of life, not about a particular component of the happy life,20 and that such a proposal would have had a certain, albeit limited, success among Athenians of a comfortable station.21
2. THE ORGANIZATION OF THEŌRIA: THE NATURE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS
The purpose of this inquiry of ours is not to assess the acceptability of Aristotle’s proposal or the consistency there may be between this and the other doctrines of the philosopher, but to see whether all these values and practical suggestions for living gave birth to a particular organization for the philosophical life. We are interested in finding out whether, by making use of institutions already present in Athenian tradition, philosophy succeeded in creating for itself an autonomous zone to organize according to its own vision of man and his functioning (ergon).
A standard reconstruction of the Athenian philosophical schools was proposed some time ago, and it has dominated scholarship on the subject since the end of the nineteenth century. Although there are certain precedents, this reconstruction is in very large part due to Wilamowitz (1881), who proposed a bipartite vision, so to speak, of these institutions.22 Basing himself on the presupposition that all ancient associations had a devotional character and that they were recognized as religious associations by Athenian law, which attributed to them the status of juristic persons, Wilamowitz distinguished both an external and an internal aspect of these assemblies of philosophers. From the external juridical point of view, they would have been religious associations (thiasoi) dedicated to the cult of the Muses. From the point of view of their internal organization, on the other hand, these schools (especially the Academy and the Lyceum) would have been precursors of the modern university; in them, scientific research would have been carried on by teams, scientific material would have been collected, museums of natural history would have been organized, and the work of research and teaching would have been undertaken by a division of labor among the various senior and junior “professors” who taught actual courses, with larger public lectures and smaller seminars, for which the professor would have needed to prepare notes, make use of lecture halls, and calibrate the difficulty of the subject matter according to the more or less advanced level of the audience. However, nobody has ever reached the point, as far as I know, of supposing that these schools held examinations and issued degrees, like modern universities.23
As early as 1901, T. Gomperz criticized this reconstruction, claiming that the elements described by Wilamowitz as typical of the thiasoi, such as the statues of the Muses and their worship, were also typical of other institutions such as gymnasia and schools for boys; these elements would therefore not be sufficient to identify the philosophical schools as religious associations. All the other scholars, however, accepted Wilamowitz’s theses; for instance, in his 1909 study of the history of Greek institutions, Poland considered the results of the study of the philosophical schools by Wilamowitz to be definitive contributions. In more recent times, however, doubts have begun to surface again about the picture sketched above, and the reconstruction of Wilamowitz has been chipped and broken in various places. Some have claimed that the status of thiasoi was something more than a juridical fiction; Boyancé has said that the mystical and religious aspects of the philosophical schools should be taken seriously (1937, pp. 261+), and that the worship of the Muses was something for which the members of these schools had a profound feeling.24 On another front, the comparison between the activities of ancient philosophical schools and those of modern universities was radically criticized by Cherniss (1945, pp. 72–73), and similar positions are obviously held by all medievalists who have worked on the origin of the modern university, who have always considered it to be a weird quirk in classical philologists to want to discern in the Athenian schools of Plato and Aristotle the model of the medieval universitas studiorum.25
Even more recently, Gottschalk, Lynch, and Wehrli have again taken up the criticisms that Gomperz directed against Wilamowitz. Gottschalk noted a series of historical inaccuracies and contradictions in Wilamowitz’s writing and concluded that his book should no longer be considered an authoritative account. He claims that it is not admissible to affirm both that the ancient philosophical schools were thiasoi, institutions of common property, and that the scholarch was the sole owner of all the real estate.26 Lynch devotes an entire chapter to his criticism of Wilamowitz, showing that the arguments of the German philologist are weak and in some cases contradictory; he argues in particular that no ancient source ever uses the term thiasoi to refer to the philosophical schools, not even in the last wills and testaments of the philosophers, and commonly used terms such as “free time” (scholē) or “course” (diatribē) were connected with the educational sphere, not the religious; that the philosophers were commonly held to be irreligious; and that Aristotle, when he speaks of the thiasoi and the eranoi, does not mention them as if he were a member.27 The presence of sanctuaries of the Muses in the proximity or the interior of philosophical schools, according to Lynch (who here agrees with Gomperz), does not prove that the entire school was a confraternity dedicated to the worship of the Muses, because mouseia and statues of the gods were also found in elementary schools and in other communities.28 He then repeats Gomperz’s criticisms, and claims that the presupposition of Wilamowitz’s view, that the philosophical schools were established as thiasoi in order to obtain the status of “juristic person,” is unacceptable, because in ancient Greece this concept was not yet available.29 Like Gomperz, Lynch also claimed that the trial of Sophocles of Sounion, who was condemned in 307/306 BCE for having proposed the establishment of state control over the meetings of the “Sophists,” does not prove that these meetings had a devotional character. The discussion was then carried on in book reviews and in collections of studies. Wehrli (1976) supported Lynch with new arguments; in particular, he found that in the will of Theophrastus the philosophers were invited to manage jointly the real estate property left by the philosopher as the site of his school, and that the expression Theophrastus uses is “possessing it in common as if it were a temple” (hōs an hieron koinēi kektēmenois). This would indicate, according to Wehrli, that the property left by Theophrastus was not a genuine temple. This observation strikes me as convincing, and I shall add below a few other observations of this type.
On the other hand, more recently, some scholars have come to the defense of Wilamowitz’s position, such as Isnardi Parente (1986), who gives a complete overview of the discussions and contributions later than 1970; despite noting that Lynch’s thesis is almost entirely successful, she finds that Wilamowitz’s position is still defensible, but she transposes to a later time their resorting to the legal expedient of passing off a community of philosophers as a thiasos of the Muses. In her view (Isnardi Parente 1981, pp. 141–150), this would have happened only when Xenocrates succeeded Speusippus, that is, when a non-Athenian became scholarch of the Athenian Academy, and she advances the hypothesis that the philosophers attempted in this way to give their schools a form of public recognition, a legal guarantee, and moreover that they would have been able to express their special type of spirituality, different from the common one.30 It is difficult to say with any certainty how things went, and Wilamowitz’s reconstruction remains largely hypothetical. As for the second point, I believe that the spirit of the Peripatetic school was different from the spirit of Plato’s Academy.
Even if Lynch’s criticisms of the thesis of Wilamowitz can be considered acceptable, what remains rather perplexing to me is the great determination shown by Lynch, when he tries to demonstrate that the philosophical schools were in the first place “educational institutions,” in other words, if I understand him correctly, institutions that established themselves freely in the environment of the city with the purpose of educating the young. The city, in the reconstruction of Lynch, while not having a direct interest in the foundation of these schools, looked on them very kindly and granted them the use of public spaces in which to teach, such as gymnasia, in exchange for the prestige and fame that accrued from their activity. In this way, the Peripatetic school was established in mixed territory, partly public and partly private.31 It is true that there is no lack of witnesses who talk about an activity of teaching on the part of the philosophical schools. The last will and testament of Aristotle (Diogenes Laertius 5.14) mentions a certain boy named Myrmex, for whom the philosopher directs that “Nicanor shall be in charge of the boy Myrmex, so that he is brought [back]to his own people in a manner worthy of us, together with the assets that we received from him.”
It seems clear that this Myrmex was a young man who had come to attend the school of Aristotle in Athens, or perhaps in Chalcis, just as in his time Aristotle himself had come to Athens to attend the school of Plato, and that Myrmex was then sent back to his family because of the death of the master, who likely did not foresee an uninterrupted continuation of the school’s activities. In his Life of Lyco (5.65), Diogenes Laertius says that Lyco was extremely good at educating young boys; and in his Life of Zeno (7.10–11), Diogenes Laertius transcribes an honorific decree from the Athenians that Zeno the Stoic received for his qualities as an educator of young men. “Whereas Zeno of Citium (son of Mnaseas) has been living for many years in the city as a philosopher (kata philosophian), and has been in other respects a consistently good man who encouraged the young men who joined his group (sustasis) towards virtue and temperance, and urged them to do what is best, providing in his own life a model for all, a life consistent with the lectures he gave; the people has decreed (may fortune favor) that Zeno of Citium (son of Mnaseas) be praised, that he be crowned with a crown of gold according to law on account of his virtue and self-control, and also that a sepulchre in the [cemetery of the] Ceramicus be built for him at public expense.” A suitable sum is to be expended on the memorial tablets “such that everyone may see that the people of Athens honor the good, both the living and the dead.” Therefore the philosophers dedicated themselves, among other things, to educating the young, just as all the Sophists since the time of Protagoras had done. On this point there is no doubt. But the problem lies in establishing whether educating the young was the principal activity of the philosophers, or whether the philosophical schools had been established in the first place to perform quite different functions, functions other than the education of the young or the worship of the Muses.
To me it seems that a reading of the ethical works of Aristotle can clarify this point, because the foundation of the Peripatetic school was not an event detached from the theoretical context in which it came into being; on the contrary, it was an attempt to apply practically the ideas of the master. In Aristotle’s writings, certainly, there is no shortage of indications about how lectures should be given, on the relationship between teaching and research, and on the different types of people of whom the public is comprised, there are passages that provide a direct view of Aristotle’s relationship with groups of students (for more on this subject, see section 3 of chapter 3), and so on. But these were principally, as far as we can tell, students who were already advanced on the path of the bios theōretikos and had decided to pursue the life of a philosopher, like Antimoerus of Mende, who, as Plato tells us with a smile, “is the most famous of the students of Protagoras, and is learning the technique because he is going to be a sophist” (Protagoras315a). Even if there were any such young men in his school, Aristotle does not mention in his works any young men who came there primarily to receive a bit of “higher education.” The nucleus of the philosopher’s activity is not didaskalia, as Protagoras maintained it was for him, when he talked about traveling as a foreigner through the great cities of Greece, where he went around persuading “the best of their young men to abandon their associations with other people, both familiars and strangers, both old and young, and to associate with him, because they are going to be better by associating with him” (Protagoras 316c), but rather the pursuit of the bios theōretikos.32
Nor is the nucleus of the philosopher’s activity the training of rulers in cities, as it seems to have been in Plato’s school, at least according to certain interpretations. Its nucleus is theōria, the cultivation of the highest functioning of man. In his Sophistical Refutations 2, Aristotle clearly contrasts the activity of teaching, which proceeds by demonstrative syllogisms like those described in the Prior Analytics, with other more philosophical activities, such as dialectic and peirastikē, that is, the technique of examining the consequences of premises that appear acceptable to experts. According to the hypothesis of Lynch, the Aristotelian ideal of the bios theōretikos, of a life devoted to the activity of discussion and theoretical development, remained unrealized even in the place that at first glance might seem best suited for it, the school; and we are obliged to see this ideal not as a feasible program for living, even if only for a few, but as a purely utopian vision. Before we reach such a conclusion, however, it would be good to examine the problem a bit more closely.
3. THE ORGANIZATION OF THEŌRIA: PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS AND PERMANENT INSTITUTIONS
If we turn to the historians who have studied the permanent institutions in this period of Greek history, apart from a range of disputed issues we will find a consensus on various facts and judgments that can be useful also to a historian of philosophy who wishes to reach an awareness of how philosophical ideas were experienced concretely, and how the scale of values professed by the philosophers was put into practice within the schools.33
It would appear that the custom of setting up what, to use a modern term, we would call “foundations” had become widespread in Greece as early as the sixth century BCE, if not earlier, in the sense of a perpetual bequest on the part of a private individual of a portion of his property, in real estate or else a sum of money. This bequest was meant to ensure the perennial pursuit (eis aei) of a specific goal, which is particularly important to the person making the bequest. In reality, however, these “foundations” often lasted no more than a few generations.34 Those who made the bequest usually prohibited it from being alienated, and the revenues that accrued from the bequest were used to attain the stated goal. The first foundations were of a devotional character; for example, we know that a foundation was established at Delos by Nicias, and as Plutarch tells us, Nicias “consecrated a tract of land he purchased for ten thousand drachmas, from which the revenues were to be expended by the Delians on sacrificial feasting, requesting from the gods many blessings for Nicias” (Life of Nicias 3.7, 525b). And another foundation was erected by Xenophon at Scillus near Olympia, as he himself tells us (Anabasis 5.3): “Xenophon acquired a plot of land to dedicate to the goddess [Artemis]” (5.3.7). “He built an altar as well as a temple with the sacred money, and ever after he would take a tenth share of the seasonal fruits of the land and make a sacrifice to the goddess. And all the citizens [of Scillus] and all the neighboring men and women took part in the festival” (5.3.9). “Within the sacred space were meadows and hills covered with trees, good enough for keeping pigs, goats, cattle, and horses, so that the yoked animals that brought the people to the festival were also sumptuously well fed. Surrounding the temple itself a grove of cultivated trees produced such fruits as were edible. The temple itself resembled a small version of the large one in Ephesus, and the image of the goddess, despite being of cypress wood, seems to be gold like the one in Ephesus. And a tablet stood beside the temple, thus inscribed: ‘This land is sacred to Artemis. He who holds it and takes its produce must offer a tenth share every year in sacrifice. And from the remainder he must outfit and keep up the temple. And if anyone fails to do this, the goddess will look out for him’ ” (5.3.11–13).
Subsequently there were foundations for the most widely varied purposes: to restore and maintain the walls of a city in good condition, to provide food for the citizens, to take care of the worship of the gods, to pay the costs of the office of gymnasiarch or of other public offices (in this case the donor was named to the office in question for life, for instance, “perpetual gymnasiarch,” and anyone who actually performed the job of the office in the course of time was considered simply a substitute, epimelētēs),35 to pay for the oil for young men who wanted to anoint themselves before wrestling,36 and so on. Foundations were often established in order to commemorate the memory of the donor (eis mnēmēn), and to recall his desire to enjoy a good reputation (philodoxia).37
Of great importance were the educational foundations, in which the donor not only assumed the expenses of teaching the young people, of constructing and maintaining the gymnasium, and of paying the salaries of the teachers, but also dictated rules to be followed in the teaching. Often the founders were buried near the foundation and were venerated with a cult similar to that reserved for heroes.38 Other foundations had a funerary function instead, and they sought to ensure the continuance of the funerary cult of the founder.39 Often the members of the group that was entrusted to celebrate the funerary cult were the members of the donor’s own family.
The Peripatetic school had its origin, in its institutional structure, in a donation of this type, which had characteristics that were very similar to those of the educational and funerary foundations just described; but, in contrast with what Lynch claims, the purpose of the bequest was not to ensure the education of the young. This can be attested by reading the wills of the philosophers preserved by Diogenes Laertius. It is common knowledge that there was nothing at all in Aristotle’s last will and testament about a school, given that Aristotle as a metic could not own real estate in Athens to be left to his students (as Epicurus would later do), nor does it appear that he did so in Chalcis.
Theophrastus, on the other hand, was able to purchase a garden in Athens, with the support of Demetrius of Phalerum, and in the last will of this philosopher we can clearly see that he possessed real estate in Athens that he used to establish a foundation of just the kind described above. The subject of the bequest is a garden, which must have been the one just mentioned, a peripatos, and several houses. It is not perfectly clear just what this peripatos was; the name means “promenade” or “place in which to stroll,” and it could be a colonnade, or else a tree-lined walkway.40 In the same will and testament, provisions are made for the restoration of a sanctuary of the Muses: Theophrastus gives directions to restore the temple and the altar, and to place or return to their proper places some votive statues that were missing, including statues of Aristotle and Aristotle’s son Nicomachus (the latter statue had yet to be sculpted)41 and to fix in place several panels that had maps of the earth. This last provision would suggest there was some connection between the sanctuary and the teaching activity of a school, and it would justify the view of those who claim that maintaining the cult of the Muses was among the activities of the philosophical schools. I do not want to rule this out, or to deny that philosophers might have had a special care for the cult of the Muses. My point is different; I wish to firmly emphasize the fact that the principal purpose of the establishment of the philosophical schools was not the cult of the Muses but was something else, the implementation of the ideal of the theoretical life.
We should also point out that it is not certain that the sanctuary of the Muses formed part of the bequest; Theophrastus concludes the part of his last will and testament devoted to the restoration of the temple of the Muses (Diogenes Laertius 5.52) as if he was finishing part of what he needed to say, and then moving on to the next, commenting, “so now, as for the things that concern the temple and the votive offerings, let them be done this way.” There follows in the will a bequest to Callinus of a small estate that Theophrastus owned in Stagira (see section 2 of chapter 1), and the bequest of Theophrastus’s entire library to Neleus; and it is only at this point that he begins to deal with the garden, the houses, and the community of philosophers who were to make use of them.42
Let us examine the text (Diogenes Laertius, 5.51–53). Theophrastus directs that the funds at the disposal of his trustee Hipparchus are to be applied “in the first place, to bring to completion the [work on the] Museion and the [statues of the] goddesses, and, even if something else stops it, to provide them with more beautiful ornamentation; then next, to place the image of Aristotle in the temple with the remaining votive offerings that were already in the temple; next, to build the small cloister next to theMuseion no worse than before; and to set up the pictures(pinakas) on which there are the maps of the earth (gēs periodoi) in the lower cloister; and to outfit the altar as well, so that it may be perfect and elegant. It is also my wish that the statue of Nicomachus should be completed, of equal size; the cost of the statue is in the hands of Praxiteles,43 but the other costs should come from these funds, and it should be erected in whatever place seems best to those who administer the other written provisions of this will. So now, as for the things that concern the temple and the votive offerings, let them be done this way; but the small property at Stagira belonging to me I bequeath to Callinus, and all my books to Neleus, and I bequeath in perpetuity the garden and the peripatos and all the houses near the garden to those of my friends, hereinafter named, who wish to spend free time together and do philosophy together (syscholazein kai symphilosophein) in these places, since it is not possible for every person to be always resident, on condition that they not alienate the property nor privatize it in any way, holding it in common as if it were a temple (hōs … hieron),44 and treat each other as friends and family, as is right and proper. Let the community consist of Hipparchus, Neleus, Strato, Callinus, Demotimus, Demaratus, Callisthenes, Melanthes, Pancreon, and Nicippus.”
The foundation had property consisting of a garden, a promenade, and several houses. This property was left to a group of ten people, listed by name, as in the foundations for a funerary cult.45 These were ten individuals bound to Theophrastus by special ties of friendship. In the will, the purpose of the bequest is clearly stated; the property is bequeathed “to those of my friends [ … ] who wish to spend free time together (scholē)46 and do philosophy together.” The term used by Theophrastus, symphilosophein, is important. As we have seen previously, this is a word invented by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics to describe one of the ways of passing the free time of scholē with one’s friends, when one enjoys freedom from the occupations required in order to live, in contrast with such traditional pursuits as hunting, going to the gymnasium, or indulging in group banquets (Nicomachean Ethics IX.12, 1172a1–8).47
The evident purpose of the foundation is to assure the philosophers the moderate prosperity and the freedom from need that we have seen constitutes one of the necessary conditions for dedicating oneself to philosophy in tranquillity; and, indeed, the entire complex was bequeathed only to those who are in a position to be able to live in the garden on an ongoing basis, since “it is not possible for every person to be always resident,” as Theophrastus himself tells us (5.53). This indication of the purpose is followed by a series of prohibitions, typical in these cases: never sell the land and the buildings, do not use them as private assets, but keep them for the purpose established by the donor, and use it in common, as if it were a temple. Like other donors, Theophrastus asks to be buried in the garden, with a funerary monument, which he himself provides the funds for erecting.48 Then are prescribed relations of friendship among the members of the group, with a substantially equal relationship among them; the members of the community are enjoined to “treat each other as friends and family, as is right and proper” (5.53). The common possession of the garden and the houses was based on their mutual relationship of close friendship (philia) and kinship.
Those who have studied in juridical terms this type of ownership49 have recognized that in the case of the philosophical schools we are in the presence of a sort of shared property based more on the goodwill of the members of the group than on any actual juridical norms, a relationship, that is, that depends primarily upon natural philia, as described by Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics (VIII.9, 1159b25+ and VIII.11, 1161a25–30). It is a case analogous to the one of a group of brothers who, following the death of their father, decide not to split up the estate but to continue shared ownership; this is a type of shared property that was quite common throughout antiquity and which, according to Biscardi, is attested as persisting until the Byzantine era.
In this way an effort was made to put into practice the ideal of the bios theōretikos, and Theophrastus wanted to ensure its external conditions. The goal of the school was philosophy as a life choice, not the education of young people to undertake assignments assigned by the city, or to be successful in political life generally, as had happened in the time of the Sophists. All the same, this does not exclude either possibility: that the philosophers later taught the general public as well or that entry to the garden was reserved only to the ten members of the original group. In one source (Diogenes Laertius 5.37), it is said that Theophrastus had a huge number of listeners, more than two thousand, although that figure has been questioned by modern scholars.
The ten individuals to whom Theophrastus bequeathed the school must have had among themselves long-standing relationships of friendship and familiarity, relationships closer than those that exist nowadays between the professors of a single university department. Among them, six were also executors of the will of Theophrastus and therefore people with whom the philosopher was bound by ties of friendship and trust.50 One of them, Neleus, was the son of Coriscus of Scepsis, who had accompanied Aristotle at the court of Hermias at Assos; so his friendship with Theophrastus probably dated from the moment that Theophrastus himself had become a student of Aristotle. To Neleus, Theophrastus left a special bequest, his own personal library, without by this act intending to establish any primacy of Neleus over the others,51 given that Neleus was among those who wished to remain in the garden and devote themselves to philosophy. With this testamentary gift, Theophrastus had no intention of depriving the school of its library, which perhaps included the writings of Aristotle. This bequest, however, was the source of the legend, recounted by Strabo (13.1.54) and Plutarch (Life of Sulla 26), of the disappearance of Aristotle’s works into a cellar during the time of Strato, a disappearance that deprived the Peripatetic school of the authentic views of the master, and which made all the more precious the republication of the Aristotelian treatises, first by Tyrannion, and later by Andronicus of Rhodes. We shall return to this point later (pp. 102–104).
Two others of the ten, Melantehs and Pancreon, were heirs to Theophrastus and therefore close relatives, possibly sons or grandsons, since Melanthes had also been the name of Theophrastus’s father.52 Perhaps the Demaratus mentioned in this list was Aristotle’s grandson (see section 3 ofchapter 1). Hipparchus, next, was the administrator of Theophrastus’s assets in Athens. As the eleventh member, when he attained the proper age, Aristotle the younger, the son of Pythias and grandson of the philosopher, could be added to the list. Therefore, the original group of ten seems to have had this composition: six executors of the estate (among them a friend from his youth), two close relatives, the trustee of the estate, and one grandson of the founder of Peripatetic philosophy. The composition of the group seems anything but haphazard, and the life of philosophy almost seems like the business of a family clan, restricted to a small circle that mixed together relationships of kinship, of friendship, of business, and of culture.
There are also hints of ties of close friendship between Callisthenes and Theophrastus, between Theophrastus and Demetrius of Phalerum, and between Demetrius of Phalerum and Strato of Lampsacus, successor to Theophrastus as the head of the school, but listed in the last will and testament as an executor of the will. The same sort of ties can be found in later institutions; Taormina (1989, pp. 24–25) and Sorabji (1990, p. 8) describe the family relations between the ancient scholars who directed schools of philosophy in Athens and Alexandria, as follows: Iamblichus had as his students not only Sopater I but also that student’s two sons, Sopater II and Himeraius, as well as the son of Himeraius, Iamblichus II, who in turn had as his student Plutarch of Athens; Hermias of Alexandria, for his part, married a relative of Syrianus, who was originally supposed to marry Proclus, and their son was Ammonius.
As was said above, there has been much discussion about whether this community was less a particular cult of the Muses (Wilamowitz) or whether it was more especially dedicated to the cult of the dead (Boyancé), either as a sort of hero cult or as a basic funerary cult.53 There are also some who observe that the two things could go together, and that there are other examples of this in history (see the foundation of Epiketas, Inscriptiones Graecae XII/3, no. 330).54 There are also some who believe, as we have seen above, that the school, in Aristotle’s time, had the custom of commemorating Hermias of Atarneus with a daily ceremony.55 This in no way diminishes the fact that the fundamental purpose for which these schools had been established was, above all, to enjoy free time (scholē) by spending it in “relaxation and scholarship,” as Antigonus of Carystus puts it in a passage that we shall quote below (section 4, pp. 93–95).
4. SUBSEQUENT EVENTS
We know that Theophrastus was very successful with his teaching; according to Diogenes Laertius (5.37), two thousand pupils attended his lectures. That number is probably meant to indicate the overall number of all the students of Theophrastus, not the number of those who listened at the same time to one of his logoi. Despite this success,56 his position was not invulnerable, and “for a short time even he had to go into exile with all the rest of the philosophers, when Sophocles the son of Amphiclides proposed a law that none of the philosophers is to be in charge of a school (scholē), except by decree of the Council and the People; otherwise, death is to be the penalty. But right away they returned, the next year, when Philo prosecuted Sophocles for making an illegal proposal. Then the Athenians also repealed the law, fined Sophocles a penalty of five talents, and voted the recall of the philosophers, in order that Theophrastus also might return and be in the same circumstances” (Diogenes Laertius, 5.38). Another parallel report, given by the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux (9.42), is that “there is also an Attic law written against the philosophers, moved by Sophocles, the son of Amphiclides of Sounion, in which he made certain accusations against them and proposed that none of the sophists should be given permission to establish a school.”
This event, which occurred in the years 307–306 BCE, is connected by all authors to the fall of the government of the Peripatetic Demetrius of Phalerum, who had done his best to favor the philosophical schools, helping both Xenocrates and Theophrastus (seesection 3 of chapter 1). And indeed the decree of Sophocles of Sounion was directed against all the schools, as is shown by a polemical tirade written in those same years by the comic poet Alexis in his play The Horseman, roughly around the winter of 306, given that it presupposes that the decree of Sophocles of Sounion is in effect. A fragment of this tirade is reported by one of the characters in the work of Athenaeus (13, 610d–f). “Then am I not right to hate all you philosophers, seeing that you hate literature? You are not the only ones whom King Lysimachus expelled from his kingdom by proclamation, as Carystius [of Pergamum] declares in his Historical Notes, but the Athenians did it as well. Alexis, at any rate, says this in The Horseman: ‘So this is what the Academy is, this is Xenocrates? May the gods grant many blessings to Demetrius and the legislators, for they have hurled out of Attica into hell the men who transmit to our youth the power of logoi, as they call it.’ A man named Sophocles also drove out of Attica all philosophers by a resolution [in the Assembly]; against him Philo, a student of Aristotle, wrote a speech, after Demochares, the cousin57 of Demosthenes, had made a speech defending the resolution of Sophocles.” This passage gives us a fairly precise account of the issue, which completes and confirms the information in Diogenes Laertius: on the one hand are the members of the democratic faction, such as the orator Demochares and this Sophocles, the son of Amphiclides of Sounion; on the other hand there are the Peripatetics, such as this Philo, who must have been a citizen, given that he was able to defend the school publicly, as noted by Wilamowitz (1881, pp. 263+). Theophrastus had apparently spoken before Demochares, who scored some points at his expense (Aelian, Miscellaneous Research 8.12).
Of the speech of Demochares in defense of the law of Sophocles of Sounion, we have a few fragments, the most important of which has already been quoted in section 2 of chapter 1, p. 6. The passages that survive show that the speech of Demochares was heavily based on political arguments. In his On Philosophy, Aristocles reports that Demochares “said bad things not only about Aristotle, but also about the others” (excerpted in Eusebius 15.2.6 = testimonium 58g); and from Athenaeus (5, 215c) we learn that he raised general doubts about the fitness of anyone educated in philosophy to act as a military leader, and that he cast aspersions on the prowess of Socrates,58 saying that “no one could make a spear point from a stick of savoury [an aromatic herb], just as no one could make a good general out of Socrates.”59 He then went on to state that Aristotle betrayed his homeland, and that the students of Plato tried in every way imaginable to make themselves tyrants in their cities. With respect to other accusations against the philosophers, here the question of the impiety of philosophical doctrines, which led to the death of Socrates, seems not to have been mentioned any more, and the debate seems to have been conducted primarily on political arguments; only Alexis, in order to amuse the public, refers back to the old anti-Sophistic argument of “the power of the logoi,” with which philosophers supposedly turned the heads of young people, making them insubordinate and uncontrollable.60 But the philosophers won the case, we do not know with what line of argument, and the school reopened.
At a certain point following the death of Theophrastus, the group to which the garden had been bequeathed elected Strato as its head, and, as such, Strato in his last will and testament bequeathed the school to Lyco. This change has been much discussed,61 but it would seem to have been an exception to the rule; indeed, Strato seeks to excuse himself for the measures that he took, saying that the other members of the community were either too advanced in years or too busy (Diogenes Laertius, 5.62), and nevertheless he exhorts the other philosophers to collaborate with Lyco. Theophrastus too had excluded from the community those who were too busy to remain always in residence in the garden (5.53). Lyco, then, blended the model of Theophrastus with that of Strato, and he bequeathed the school to another group of ten students, charging them, however, to elect a scholarch from among their ranks (5.70). It is not really known what happened after that, but in the group of these ten students there was a young man who had lived for many years with Lyco and was considered by him as a son, who had the same name as him; this son called Lyco was also the trustee, along with a brother of his named Astyanax, of their father Lyco’s estate (confusingly, there was a grandson of Lyco also called Lyco). Another member of the group Ariston of Ceos, who was, according to tradition, the successor of Lyco (the father) as scholarch of the Aristotelian Peripatos. But it is uncertain whether the school survived past the first century BCE.62 In the wills of the successors of Theophrastus, there is no longer a repetition of the entire description of the bequest as done by Theophrastus; only Lyco exhorts his successors to keep the school open, to oversee the maintenance of its activity, and to foster its progress (Diogenes Laertius 5.70).
An admittedly polemical description of later developments in the school at the time of Lyco has been transmitted to us by Antigonus of Carystus. In a passage cited in Athenaeus 12 (547d–548b), Antigonus informs us that Lyco the Peripatetic, when “he was head of the Peripatos, used to dine his friends with much expense and much pretense; apart from the entertainers brought in and the silverware and the textiles, the other arrangements and the elaborateness of the dinners and the hordes of serving staff and cooking staff were so excessive that many people were horrified and were repelled, despite wanting to join the school (diatribē), just as they would be cautious about joining a bad government regime that is full of public service and taxation obligations. For they had to be in charge of the regular running of the Peripatos (which was to ensure the decorous behaviour of the debaters) for a period of thirty days; then, on the last day of the month and the first of the next, having received from each of the debaters nine obols, they had to include [in the dinner] not only those who had contributed, but also the people Lyco invited, besides those of the older men who attended administrative meetings at the school (scholē), so that the money collected was not even enough to pay for the perfume and the garlands; and they had to perform sacrifice as well as be administrator of theMuseions.
“Now all this evidently has nothing to do with argument (logos) and philosophy (philosophia), but is more appropriate to a life of luxury and affluence. For even though some of those who were unable to spend money on these things were excused from the duty because their resources were limited and ordinary, still the custom was entirely out of place. For surely it was not in order for those who stream together and crowd in the same place to enjoy dinners that last until morning, or to get drunk, that the followers of Plato and Speusippus instituted these gatherings, but rather to display themselves as revering the divine and associating with one another in cultural pursuits, and, most of all, for the purpose of relaxation and scholarship(philologia). Now all this became secondary in the eyes of their successors to the fancy clothing and the extravagance just described; nor do I make an exception of any of the others. And Lyco was so pretentious that he took a twenty-couch room in the most exclusive part of the city, in Conon’s house, which suited him for his parties. And Lyco was a good and skilful ball-player.”
It is difficult to think that this description of the operation of the Peripatetic school in the time of Lyco, given to us by Antigonus of Carystus, is validly applicable also to the Peripatos of the time of Aristotle, or even the time of Theophrastus; in fact, the fundamental theme of the passage is a denunciation of a “change” that is also a “decline.” Wilamowitz finds in this passage definitive proof of the religious character of the schools (1881, pp. 194–197); it names the office of a supervisor of the good behavior of the students (archēn … epi tēs eukosmias), who also looks after the rites honoring the Muses.63 Wilamowitz believes that in this passage with the term presbuteroi, a distinction is made between the younger students and the more senior members of the community, the ones named in the will of the previous scholarch who “participate in the succession.” But the text of Antigonus could instead refer quite generally to those older students who attended administrative meetings at the school (tous epimelōs synantōntas tōn presbuterōn eis tēn scholēn).64 The presence of the office of “administrator of the Museions” in this text is today the strongest argument in defense of Wilamowitz’s thesis.
The fact remains that when Theophrastus established the foundation of the Peripatos in his last will, he did not include among the purposes of his bequest the worship of the Muses but only the pursuit of the theoretical life, and he defined the goods that constituted the common estate as something similar to a hieron, not something that was literally a temple. Antigonus of Carystus himself, at the end of the passage cited by Athenaeus, when he speaks of the purpose for which these schools were founded by “the followers of Plato and Speusippus,” although he does mention a religious element, puts the emphasis on the intention to enjoy scholē as befits philosophers and wise men. This, in my view, remains the fundamental purpose of the institution of the Peripatetic school.