Overview

A new reconstruction and text of the Placita of Aëtius (ca. 50 CE), accompanied by a full commentary and an extensive collection of related texts. This compendium, arguably the most important doxographical text to survive from antiquity, is known through the intensive use made of it by authors in later antiquity and beyond. Covering the entire field of natural philosophy, it has long been mined as a source of information about ancient philosophers and their views. It now receives a thorough analysis as a remarkable work in its own right. This volume is the culmination of a five-volume set of studies on Aëtius (1996–2020): Aëtiana I (ISBN: 9789004105805, 1996), II (Parts 1&2; set ISBN 9789004172067; 2008), III (ISBN 9789004180413; 2009), IV (ISBN: 9789004361454, 2018), and V (Parts 1-4). It uses an innovative methodology to replace the seminal edition of Hermann Diels (1879).

Full Product Details

Author:   Jaap Mansfeld ,  David Runia
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   153
Weight:   4.019kg
ISBN:  

9789004428386

ISBN 10:   9004428380
Pages:   2382
Publication Date:   02 July 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Preface Sigla and Abbreviations General Introduction  1 Aim and Scope of the Edition  2 The Compendium and Its Transmission  3 Reconstructing the Text  4 Introducing the Witnesses to the Text  5 The Proximate Tradition and Other Sources  6 The Edition’s Contents, Method and Layout  7 Appendices to the General Introduction Book 1: The Principles of Nature: Text and Commentary  Introduction to Book 1  Title and Index  Proœmium  1 What Is ‘Nature’  2 In What Way Do a Principle and an Elements Differ  3 On Principles, What They Are  4 How the Cosmos Was Constituted  5 Whether the All Is Unique  6 From Where Did Human Beings Obtained a Conception of Gods  7 Who Is the Deity  8 On Demons and Heroes  9 On Matter  10 On the Idea  11 On Causes  12 On Bodies  13 On Minimal Bodies  14 On Shapes  15 On Colours  16 On Cutting of Bodies  17 On Mixing and Blending  18 On Void  19 On Place  20 On Space  21 On Time  22 On the Substance of Time  23 On Movement  24 On Coming to Be and Passing Away  25 On Necessity  26 On the Substance of Necessity  27 On Fate  28 On the Substance of Fate  29 On Chance  30 On Nature Part 2 Sigla and Abbreviations User’s Guide to the Edition and Commentary Book 2: Cosmology: Text and Commentary Book 3: Meteorology and the Earth: Text and Commentary Part 3 Sigla and Abbreviations User’s Guide to the Edition and Commentary Book 4: Psychology: Text and Commentary Book 5: Physiology: Text and Commentary Part 4 English Translation of the Placita Appendix to the Edition Bibliography Indices

Reviews

""Aëtiana V offers to the scholarly world a new edition of the remains of a lost work that is extremely important for the study of ancient philosophy. It took over 140 years for Diels’ work on this text and its intellectual context to be redone. Mansfeld and Runia have produced a dramatically superior version, one that will last, I predict, even longer than Diels’ work did. In the bargain they have given us the tools to understand better the nature of philosophical activity and works in the crucial but under-documented centuries between Aristotle and the first century CE."" - Brad Inwood, Yale University, in: The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism XXXIII (2021)

Author Information

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, including most recently his Studies in Early Greek Philosophy (Leiden 2018). David T. Runia is Professorial Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor in the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University. He has published widely on ancient philosophy, with a particular focus on the thought of Philo of Alexandria.

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