The articles collected here are based for the most part on papers read at the Colloquium “The
Placita of Aëtius: Foundations for the Study of Ancient Philosophy,” held in Melbourne in December 2015. The
Placita, a first century CE collection of systematically organised tenets in natural philosophy ranging from first principles to human physiology is incompletely extant in several later sources. Its laborious reconstruction and the identity of its author are discussed from various angles. The text of the treatise is further elucidated by a novel statistical exploration of what is extant and what is missing. Its relation to various currents in the history of Greek philosophy and its reliability are also examined in some detail.
Jaap Mansfeld is emeritus professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy in the University of Utrecht. He has published numerous papers and several monographs on ancient philosophy, among which (together with David T. Runia) the three previous volumes of Aëtiana.
David T. Runia is Director of the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, and also Professorial Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. He has written widely on ancient philosophy, with a particular focus on the thought of Philo of Alexandria.
List of Figures and Tables List of Abbreviations Notes on Contributors
Introduction Jaap Mansfeld and David T. Runia
Reconstructing and Editing the Placita
1
Diels’ Whodunit: The Reliability of the Three Mentions of Aëtius in Theodoret Jean-Baptiste Gourinat
2
Arius Didymus as a Doxographer of Stoicism: Some Observations Keimpe Algra
3
Pythagorean Cosmology in Aëtius: An Aristotelian Fragment and the Doxographical Tradition Oliver Primavesi
4
Towards a Better Text of Ps.Plutarch’s Placita Philosophorum: Fresh Evidence from the Historia Philosopha of Ps.Galen Mareike Jas
5
The Text of Stobaeus: The Manuscripts and Wachsmuth’s Edition James R. Royse
6
Theodoret as a Source for the Aëtian Placita Jaap Mansfeld
7
Aétius et le problème des sources de Théodoret: à propos de GAC 4.12 Gérard Journée
8
Archai Lists in Doxographical Sources: Ps.Plutarch, Stobaeus, Theodoret, and Another Ps.Plutarch Jaap Mansfeld
Exploring the Placita
9
Not Much Missing? Statistical Explorations of the Placita of Aëtius Edward Jeremiah
The Placita and Greek Philosophy
10
Epicurus and the Placita David T. Runia
11
Aëtius, Stoic Physics, and Zeno Anthony A. Long
12
Galen and Doxography Teun Tieleman
13
The Downside of Doxography Richard McKirahan
Index locorum Index nominum et rerum
All interested in the history of philosophy, and more particularly those interested in Doxography and the history of Ancient Philosophy.