Arius Didymus on Peripatetic Ethics, Household Management, and Politics

For the discussion of philosophical books.

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Post Reply
EchoesOfTheHorizon
Posts: 356
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:08 am

Arius Didymus on Peripatetic Ethics, Household Management, and Politics

Post by EchoesOfTheHorizon »

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075X ... UTF8&psc=1

The translation came out in September, and the price of the main translation keeps going up, $120 bucks now, I was late in getting it when it first came out, and saw the price increase.

The kindle edition came out, and it cost me $40 some dollars, and I think it was worth it, I've already produced some Venn Diagrams from it, and impressed with it so far.

I was struggling for some times with some of the irregularities inherent in Cynic thought, when I came across the Pomeroy translation of Arius Didymus' Stoic Ethics. A lot is wrong with early Stoicism, well, Greek philosophy in general due to the linking of the concept of Love with Pedophilia/Pedogody, but I know of later writers from after that purge, and it was a easy adoption. Fit in already with a lot of my view points, and found it was a very simple jump over. If you are expecting Seneca, you won't find him in Pomeroy.

In this text, so far the focus in Ethics parallels my own emphasis on survival. I'm really liking the viewpoint, and find it a good fit so far. I gotta root around in the Greek text and figure out what some of their terminology is.... took a long time with Stoic Ethics, but should go faster this time around.

It is also really good to be exposed to the thinking of past philosophers who existed after Aristotle, seeing how the school evolved. Also gives important insight to the thought process of Arius Didymus, Emperor Augustus' Court philosopher. In the west, we've largely lost his biography but know from the little we have he was a important figure, and had likely the largest influence on Augustus' statecraft over any other thinker. He is a philosopher who is largely forgotten but sits at the heart of the western tradition. I've done a lot of independent work tracking details of his life down. I'm really excited right now. I was divided between buying this and a medieval text on statecraft, but had to go for this in the end.

The translator, William W. Fortenbaugh also made a excellent edition of Theophrastus' surviving works. I knew I would be getting a excellent edition. My own complaint is it isn't always easy to get a side by side Greek and English comparison of the text, due to kindle's annoying tendency to place text not in a fit format, but rather as a continuation that depends on your screen size and font size. It be better if it was split down the middle, with English on the right, Greek on the left, so I can easily track down in the text in Koine that I just read in Greek. Pomeroy was easy for me, given all the repetitive, subsequent nature of the text... I was able to quickly navigate the text after learning the alphabet. This is going to be a bit harder, but kindle offers a translate option now. I just don't know if it will translate different Ancient Greek words, or think it is modern Greek. I see the function at the bottom, but don't know if it is up to spec.... I'll find out later, I guess.

I got a new notebook to fill now, a few pages into it.
Post Reply