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Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 18:33:26 -0400
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Subject: RE: hypothetical sources


A rather famous example in ancient philosophy is the supposedly lost
source Aetius, who shows up chiefly in Stobaeus and Ps.Plutarch. Aetius
was discussed and reconstructed by Hermann Diels, in his "Doxographi
Graeci," which has "Aetius" at the top of the page and Stobaeus and
Ps.Plutarch arrayed in parallel columns.  Thus in Diels (and later with
Kranz), Fragmente der Vorsokratiker














 the source for many presocratic
testimonia is given simply as Aetius, with the result that many readers,
not going back to Doxographi Graeci have come to think of this otherwise
almost entirely unknown Aetius as a real author in his own right.

	Diels' mehtods and results have been examined by Jaap Mansfeld
and David Runia; see volume 1 (all so far published) of their "Aetiana:
The method and intellectual context of a doxographer" Brill, 1997.

David Sider
.