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Theophrastus (; ; c. 371 – c. 287 BC) was an ancient Greek Philosophy and Natural history. A native of Eresos in Lesbos, he was Aristotle's close colleague and successor as head of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy in Athens. Theophrastus wrote numerous treatises across all areas of philosophy, working to support, improve, expand, and develop the Aristotelian system. He made significant contributions to various fields, including ethics, metaphysics, botany, and natural history. Often considered the "father of botany" for his groundbreaking works "Enquiry into Plants" () and "On the Causes of Plants", () Theophrastus established the foundations of Botany. His given name was (Ancient Greek: Τύρταμος); the nickname Theophrastus ("divine speaker") was reputedly given to him by Aristotle in recognition of his eloquent style.
He came to Athens at a young age and initially studied in Platonic Academy. After Plato's death, he attached himself to Aristotle who took to Theophrastus in his writings. When Aristotle fled Athens, Theophrastus took over as head of the Lyceum. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-six years, during which time the school flourished greatly. He is often considered the father of botany for his works on plants.Matthew Hall, Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botany, p. 28. After his death, the Athenians honoured him with a public funeral. His successor as head of the school was Strato of Lampsacus.
The interests of Theophrastus were wide ranging, including biology, physics, ethics and metaphysics. His two surviving botanical works, Enquiry into Plants (Historia Plantarum) and On the Causes of Plants, were an important influence on Renaissance science. There are also surviving works On Moral Characters, On Sense Perception, and On Stones, as well as fragments on Physics and Metaphysics. In philosophy, he studied grammar and language and continued Aristotle's work on logic. He also viewed space as merely the arrangement and position of bodies, time as a byproduct of motion, and motion as an inevitable result of all activity. In ethics, he regarded happiness as depending on external influences as well as on virtue.
After receiving instruction in philosophy on Lesbos from one Alcippus, he moved to Athens, where he may have studied under Plato. He became friends with Aristotle, and when Plato died (348/7 BC) Theophrastus may have joined Aristotle in his self-imposed exile from Athens. When Aristotle moved to Mytilene on Lesbos in 345/4, it is very likely that he did so at the urging of Theophrastus. It seems that it was on Lesbos that Aristotle and Theophrastus began their research into natural science, with Aristotle studying animals and Theophrastus studying plants. Theophrastus probably accompanied Aristotle to when Aristotle was appointed tutor to Alexander the Great in 343/2. Around 335 BC, Theophrastus moved with Aristotle to Athens, where Aristotle began teaching in the Lyceum. When, after the death of Alexander, anti-Macedonian feeling forced Aristotle to leave Athens, Theophrastus remained behind as head ( scholarch) of the Peripatetic school, a position he continued to hold after Aristotle's death in 322/1.
Aristotle in his will made him guardian of his children, including Nicomachus, with whom he was close. Aristotle likewise bequeathed to him his library and the originals of his works, and designated him as his successor at the Lyceum.; comp. Aulus Gellius, xiii. 5. Eudemus of Rhodes also had some claims to this position, and Aristoxenus is said to have resented Aristotle's choice.
Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for 35 years, and died at age 85, according to Diogenes. He is said to have remarked, "We die just when we are beginning to live".Cicero. Tusculanae Quaestiones, iii. 28; Jerome, Letter to Nepotian; .
Under his guidance, the school flourished greatly—there were at one period more than 2,000 students, Diogenes affirms—and at his death, according to the terms of his will preserved by Diogenes, he bequeathed to it his garden with house and colonnades as a permanent seat of instruction. The comic poet Menander was among his pupils. His popularity was shown in the regard paid to him by Philip, Cassander, and Ptolemy, and by the complete failure of a charge of impiety brought against him.; comp. Aelian, Varia Historia, iv. 19. He was honored with a public funeral, and "the whole population of Athens, honouring him greatly, followed him to the grave." He was succeeded as head of the Lyceum by Strato of Lampsacus.
In addition, Theophrastus wrote on the Warm and the Cold (Περὶ θερμοῦ καὶ ψυχροῦ), on Water (Περὶ ὕδατος), Fire (Περὶ πυρóς), the Sea (Περὶ θαλάττης), on Coagulation and Melting (Περὶ πήξεων καὶ τήξεων), on various phenomena of organic and spiritual life, and on the Soul (Περὶ ψυχῆς), on Experience (Περὶ ἐμπειρίας) and On Sense Perception (also known as On the Senses; Περὶ αἰσθήσεων). Likewise, we find mention of monographs of Theophrastus on the early Greek philosophers Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Archelaus, Diogenes of Apollonia, Democritus, which were made use of by Simplicius; and also on Xenocrates, against the Platonism, and a sketch of the political doctrine of Plato.
He studied general history, as we know from Plutarch's lives of Lycurgus, Solon, Aristides, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, Lysander, Agesilaus, and Demosthenes, which were probably borrowed from the work on Lives (Περὶ βίων). But his main efforts were to continue the labours of Aristotle in natural history. This is testified to not only by a number of treatises on individual subjects of zoology, of which, besides the titles, only fragments remain, but also by his books On Stones, his Enquiry into Plants, and On the Causes of Plants (see below), which have come down to us entire. In politics, also, he seems to have trodden in the footsteps of Aristotle. Besides his books on the State (Πολιτικῶν and Πολιτικοῦ), we find quoted various treatises on Education (Περὶ παιδείας βασιλέως and Περὶ παιδείας), on Royalty (Περὶ βασιλείας, Περὶ παιδείας βασιλέως and Πρὸς Κάσανδρον περὶ βασιλείας), on the Best State (Περὶ τῆς ἀρίστης πολιτείας), on Political Morals (Πολιτικῶν ἐθῶν), and particularly his works on the Laws (Νόμων κατὰ στοιχεῖον, Νόμων ἐπιτομῆς and Περὶ νόμων), one of which, containing a recapitulation of the laws of various barbarian as well as Ancient Greece states, was intended to be a companion to Aristotle's outline of Politics, and must have been similar to it.Cicero, de Finibus, v. 4. He also wrote on Public speaking and poetry.Cicero, de Invent. i. 35. Theophrastus, without doubt, departed further from Aristotle in his ethical writings, as also in his Metaphysics investigations of motion, the soul, and God.
Besides these writings, Theophrastus wrote several collections of problems, out of which some things at least have passed into the Problems that have come down to us under the name of Aristotle,; comp. Pliny, H.N. xxviii. 6; Aristotle, Probl. xxxiii. 12. and commentaries,; comp. § 43. partly dialogues,Basil. Magn. Epist. 167. to which probably belonged the Erotikos (Ἐρωτικός),; Athenaeus, xii. 2, xiii. 2. Megacles (Μεγακλῆς), Callisthenes (Καλλισθένης),; Cicero, Tusculanae Quaestiones, iii. 10; Alexander of Aphrodisius, de Anima, ii. and Megarikos (Μεγαρικός), and letters, partly books on mathematical sciences and their history.
Many of his surviving works exist only in fragmentary form. "The style of these works, as of the botanical books, suggests that, as in the case of Aristotle, what we possess consists of notes for lectures or notes taken of lectures," his translator Arthur F. Hort remarks. "There is no literary charm; the sentences are mostly compressed and highly elliptical, to the point sometimes of obscurity". The text of these fragments and extracts is often so corrupt that there is a certain plausibility to the well-known story that the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus were allowed to languish in the cellar of Neleus of Scepsis and his descendants.
The Enquiry into Plants was originally ten books, of which nine survive. The work is arranged into a system whereby plants are classified according to their modes of generation, their localities, their sizes, and according to their practical uses such as foods, juices, herbs, etc. The first book deals with the parts of plants; the second book with the reproduction of plants and the times and manner of sowing; the third, fourth, and fifth books are devoted to trees, their types, their locations, and their practical applications; the sixth book deals with shrubs and spiny plants; the seventh book deals with herbs; the eighth book deals with plants that produce edible seeds; and the ninth book deals with plants that produce useful juices, natural gum, resins, etc.
On the Causes of Plants was originally eight books, of which six survive. It concerns the growth of plants; the influences on their fecundity; the proper times they should be sown and reaped; the methods of preparing the soil, manuring it, and the use of tools; and of the smells, tastes, and properties of many types of plants. The work deals mainly with the economical uses of plants rather than their medicinal uses, although the latter is sometimes mentioned. A book on wines and a book on plant smells may have once been part of the complete work.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, Ancient Botany, 2015, p. 10.
Although these works contain many absurd and fabulous statements, they include valuable observations concerning the functions and properties of plants. Theophrastus observed the process of germination and recognized the significance of climate to plants. Much of the information on the Greek plants may have come from his own observations, as he is known to have travelled throughout Greece, and to have had a botanical garden of his own; but the works also profit from the reports on plants of Asia brought back from those who followed Alexander the Great:
Theophrastus's Enquiry into Plants was first published in a Latin translation by Theodore Gaza, at Treviso, 1483; in its original editio princeps from the press of Aldus Manutius at Venice, 1495–98, from a third-rate manuscript, which, like the majority of the manuscripts that were sent to printers' workshops in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, has disappeared. Christian Wimmer identified two manuscripts of first quality, the Codex Urbinas in the Vatican Library, which was not made known to J. G. Schneider, who made the first modern critical edition, 1818–21, and the excerpts in the Codex Parisiensis in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Various smaller scientific fragments have been collected in the editions of Johann Gottlob Schneider (1818–21) and Friedrich Wimmer (1842–62) and in Hermann Usener's Analecta Theophrastea.
Theophrastus describes different ; mentions coal, which he says is used for heating by metal-workers; describes the various ore; and knew that pumice had a volcanic origin. He also deals with precious stones, emeralds, amethysts, onyx, jasper, etc., and describes a variety of "sapphire" that was blue with veins of gold, and thus was presumably lapis lazuli.
He knew that pearls came from shellfish, that coral came from India, and speaks of the fossilized remains of organic life. He also considers the practical uses of various stones, such as the minerals necessary for the manufacture of glass; for the production of various pigments of paint such as ochre; and for the manufacture of plaster.
Many of the rarer minerals were found in mines, and Theophrastus mentions the famous copper mines of Cyprus and the even more famous , presumably of Laurium near Athens – the basis of the wealth of the city – as well as referring to gold mines. The Laurium silver mines, which were the property of the state, were usually leased for a fixed sum and a percentage on the working. Towards the end of the fifth century BCE the output fell, partly owing to the occupation of Decelea from BCE. But the mines continued to be worked, though Strabo ( BCE to CE) records that in his time the tailings were being worked over, and Pausanias ( to ) speaks of the mines as a thing of the past. The ancient workings, consisting of shafts and galleries for excavating the ore, and washing tables for extracting the metal, may still be seen. Theophrastus wrote a separate work On Mining, which – like most of his writings – is a lost work.
Pliny the Elder makes clear references to his use of On Stones in his Naturalis Historia of 77 AD, while updating and making much new information available on minerals himself. Although Pliny's treatment of the subject is more extensive, Theophrastus is more systematic and his work is comparatively free from fable and magic, although he did describe lyngurium, a gemstone supposedly formed of the solidified urine of the lynx (the best ones coming from wild males), which featured in many lapidaries until it gradually disappeared from view in the 17th century. It is mistakenly attributed to Theophrastus the first record of pyroelectricity. The misconception arose soon after the discovery of the pyroelectric properties of tourmaline, which made mineralogists of the time associate the lyngurium with it.Earle R. Caley and John F.C. Richards, Theophrastus: On Stones (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University, 1956), page 110, line 12 of the commentary: "Watson identifies the lyngounon of Theophrastus with tourmaline, but evidently his opinion is partly based on the attractive properties of heated tourmaline which had recently been discovered. This identification is repeated by various later writers. For example, Dana states that lyncurium is supposed to be the ancient name for common tourmaline. However, the absence of tourmaline among surviving examples of ancient gems is clearly against this view." Lyngurium is described in the work of Theophrastus as being similar to amber, capable of attracting "straws and bits of wood", but without specifying any pyroelectric properties.Earle R. Caley and John F.C. Richards, Theophrastus: On Stones (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University, 1956), page 51, paragraph 28 of the original text: "It smaragdos is remarkable in its powers, and so is the lyngourion i.e., … . It has the power of attraction, just as amber has, and some say that it not only attracts straws and bits of wood, but also copper and iron, if the pieces are thin, as Diokles used to explain."
He wrote at length on the unity of judgment,Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Anal. Pr. f. 128, 124; Schol. in Arist. 184. 24. 183, b. 2; Boethius, de Interpr. on the different kinds of negation,Ammonius, in Arist. de Interpr. 128; Schol. in Arist. 121. 18. and on the difference between unconditional and conditional necessity.Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Anal. Pr. f. 12. 6; Schol. in Arist. 149. 44. In his doctrine of syllogisms he brought forward the proof for the conversion of universal affirmative judgments, differed from Aristotle here and there in the laying down and arranging the modi of the syllogisms,Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Anal. Pr. 14, 72, 73, 82. 22, b, 35; Boethius, de Syll. categ. ii. 594. 5, f. 603, 615. partly in the proof of them,Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Anal. Pr. 39, b partly in the doctrine of mixture, i.e. of the influence of the modality of the premises upon the modality of the conclusion.Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Anal. Pr. 39, b. etc. 40, 42, 56, b. 82, 64, b. 51; John Phil. xxxii, b. etc. Then, in two separate works, he dealt with the reduction of arguments to the syllogistic form and on the resolution of them;Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Anal. Pr. 115. and further, with hypothetical conclusions.Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Arist. Anal. Pr. 109, b. etc. 131, b.; John Phil. lx. etc. lxxv.; Boethius, de Syll. hypoth. For the doctrine of proof, Galen quotes the second Analytic of Theophrastus, in conjunction with that of Aristotle, as the best treatises on that doctrine.Galen, de Hippocr. et Plat. Dogm. ii. 2. In different he seems to have tried to expand it into a general theory of science. To this, too, may have belonged the proposition quoted from his Topics, that the principles of opposites are themselves opposed, and cannot be deduced from one and the same higher genus.Simplicius, in Categ. f. 5; Schol. p. 89. 15; comp. Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Metaph. 342. 30. For the rest, some minor deviations from the Aristotelian definitions are quoted from the Topica of Theophrastus.Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Top. 5, 68, 72, 25, 31. Closely connected with this treatise was that upon ambiguous words or ideas,Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Top. 83, 189. which, without doubt, corresponded to book Ε of Aristotle's Metaphysics.
He departed more widely from Aristotle in his doctrine of motion, since on the one hand he extended it over all categories, and did not limit it to those laid down by Aristotle.Simplicius, in Categ.; comp. Simplicius, in Phys. 94, 201, 202, 1. He viewed motion, with Aristotle, as an activity, not carrying its own goal in itself (), of that which only potentially exists,Simplicius, l. c. and f. 94, 1. but he opposed Aristotle's view that motion required a special explanation, and he regarded it as something proper both to nature in general and the celestial system in particular:
He recognised no activity without motion,Simplicius, in Categ. and so referred all activities of the soul to motion: the desires and emotions to corporeal motion, judgment () and contemplation to spiritual motion.Simplicius, in Phys. 225. The idea of a spirit entirely independent of organic activity, must therefore have appeared to him very doubtful; yet he appears to have contented himself with developing his doubts and difficulties on the point, without positively rejecting it.Themistius, in Arist. de An. 89, b. 91, b. Other Peripatetics, like Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus, and especially Strato, developed further this naturalism in Aristotelian doctrine.
Theophrastus seems, generally speaking, where the investigation overstepped the limits of experience, to have preferred to develop the difficulties rather than solve them, as is especially apparent in his Metaphysics. He was doubtful of Aristotle's teleology and recommended that such ideas be used with caution:
He did not follow the incessant attempts by Aristotle to refer phenomena to their ultimate foundations, or his attempts to unfold the internal connections between the latter, and between them and phenomena. In antiquity, it was a subject of complaint that Theophrastus had not expressed himself with precision and consistency respecting God, and had understood it at one time as Heaven, at another an (enlivening) breath ( pneuma).Clement of Alexandria, Protrept.; Cicero, de Natura Deorum, i. 13.
Theophrastus was opposed to eating meat on the grounds that it robbed animals of life and was therefore unjust. Non-human animals, he said, can reason, sense, and feel just as human beings do.Taylor, Angus. Animals and Ethics. Broadview Press, p. 35.
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