Note 27 — Chapter II · ARISTOTELIAN CANON.

The testimony of Porphyry in respect to Andronikus, and to the real service performed by Andronikus, is highly valuable. Porphyry was the devoted disciple and friend, as well as the literary executor, of Plotinus; whose writings were left in an incorrect and disorderly condition. Porphyry undertook to put them in order and publish them; and he tells us that, in fulfilling this promise, he followed the example of what Andronikus had done for the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Ἐπεὶ δὲ αὐτὸς (Plotinus) τὴν διόρθωσιν καὶ τὴν διάταξιν τῶν βιβλίων ποιεῖσθαι ἡμῖν ἐπέτρεψεν, ἐγὼ δὲ ἐκείνῳ ζῶντι ὑπεσχόμην καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἑταίροις ἐπηγγειλάμην ποιῆσαι τοῦτο, πρῶτον μὲν τὰ βίβλια οὐ κατὰ χρόνους ἐᾶσαι φύρδην ἐκδεδομένα ἐδικαίωσα, μιμησάμενος δ’ Ἀπολλόδωρον τὸν Ἀθηναῖον καὶ Ἀνδρόνικον τὸν Περιπατητικόν, ὧν ὁ μὲν Ἐπίχαρμον τὸν κωμῳδιογράφον εἰς δέκα τόμους φέρων συνήγαγεν, ὁ δὲ τὰ Ἀριστοτέλους καὶ Θεοφράστου εἰς πραγματείας διεῖλε, τὰς οἰκείας ὑποθέσεις εἰς ταὐτὸν συναγαγών, οὕτω δὴ καὶ ἐγὼ πεντήκοντα τέσσαραὔντα ἔχων τὰ τοῦ Πλωτίνου βίβλια διεῖλον μὲν εἰς ἓξ ἐννεάδας, τῇ τελειότητι τοῦ ἓξ ἀριθμοῦ καὶ ταῖς ἐννεάσιν ἀσμένως ἐπιτυχών, ἑκάστῃ δὲ ἐννεάδι τὰ οἰκεῖα φέρων συνεφόρησα, δοὺς καὶ τάξιν πρώτην τοῖς ἐλαφροτέροις προβλήμασιν. (Porphyry, Vita Plotini, p. 117, Didot.) Porphyry here distinctly affirms that Andronikus rendered this valuable service not merely to the works of Aristotle, but also to those of Theophrastus. This is important, as connecting him with the library conveyed by Sylla to Rome; which library we know to have contained the manuscripts of both these philosophers. And in the Scholion appended to the Metaphysica of Theophrastus (p. 323, Brandis) we are told that Andronikus and Hermippus had made a catalogue of the works of Theophrastus, in which the Metaphysics was not included.