Abstract

Diogenes Laertius' list of Aristotle's works includes a Homeric Puzzles in six books, as does the list in the biography of Aristotle attributed to Hesychius. This latter also includes a Homeric Problems in ten books, which appears to be the same as an item in the biography attributed to Ptolemy al-Gharib. The later and more derivative Vita Marciana attributes to Aristotle a Homeric Questions. The only other reference to the title of such a work by Aristotle is from the anonymous Antiatticista, a second-century a.d. lexicon : ‘They say Alcaeus the comic poet and Aristotle in Homeric Puzzles said this.’ Finally, Poetics 25 – which begins περὶ δὲ προβλημάτων καὶ λύσεων – is a summary, with examples, of just such a work, and a description of how to undertake such an inquiry.