Abstract

The name of Aëtius is linked to a compendium of physical opinions discovered and reconstructed by Hermann Diels in his Doxographi Graeci (Berlin 1879). Diels was able to show that a very complex doxographical tradition derives from a single work to be dated to the first century CE, which he attributed to an otherwise unknown person called Aëtius. Diels' reconstruction of this lost work provided the basis for his immensely influential collection of fragments, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin 1903). Diels' discovery and reconstruction is currently being re-examined by Jaap Mansfeld and David Runia in a multi-volume editorial project entitled Aëtiana. The first volume of Aëtiana appeared in 1997.1 That volume deals with the hypothesis that a number of later authors derived their doxographical information from a common source to be identified with a work composed in about 100 CE by Aëtius. The upshot is that the Aëtius-hypothesis is sound but is also in need of revision and refinement. This second volume carries forward the investigation begun in the first volume. It is divided into two parts. The first part consists of a structural analysis of the compendium, and the second offers a reconstruction of its best preserved section, namely book 2.