MXIMO BRIOSO SNCHEZ

b) El aprecio del arte refinado y personal21 , nico digno de vencer al implacable.tiempo: cf. 2,7, 27, 28 yfr. 398. En 1y29(cf. tambin 31)estainclina cin se
manifiesta con el mximo alcance, abarcando todo el horizonte vital.
c) El ideal de la concisin: cf. 8.
d) La vinculacin entre este arte, al amparo perdurable de la divinidad, y un
ideal tico, uno y otro susceptibles de acarrear al poeta la malevolencia ajena: cf.
8, 21 y, de nuevo con valor referido a una conducta general, 1 (cf. tambin 26)22.
6. Una breve recapitulacin , que juzgamos til para cerrar estas pginas, nos
conduce a las siguientes conclusiones:
a) La tan mencionada coherencia de las tesis literarias de Calimaco se
confirma una vez ms. Los textos de un slo gnero, analizados independiente mente, se muestran concordes en lo esencial con los de los dems gneros y slo
varan la densidad y amplitud con que las ideas son desarrolladas.
b) Que esta densidad y amplitud variables pueden estar supeditadas a la
entidad y lmites de los distintos gneros sigue siendo una opinin razonable.
Pero a la vez y sobre todo despus de un detallado anlisis de los epigramas
pertinentes, la cuestin de la cronologa no parece ser ajena tampoco a aquellas
diferencias. El lugar ocupado por el epigrama 27, que al tiempo permite distribuir
los dems textos de modo aproximado, se nos antoja un dato no siempre
suficientemen te valorado. A la luz de estas muy verosmiles premisas creemos
que no es disparatado llegar a la no desdeable sospecha de que la toma de
posicin programtica de Calimaco, si bien sin contradiciones evidentes, fue
23
gradual y slo cuaj en la etapa de madurez de su produccin potica
MXIMO BRIOSO SNCHEZ

cin acertada, se ha quedado a medio camino al limitarse a la comparacin con Tecrito VII 47 s., y
algo semejante le ocurre a G. Scrrao (Proh/emi di poesa a/essandrina. J, Studi su Teocrito, Roma
1971, p. 53, y en Studi in onore di A. Ardizzoni, Roma 1978, pp. 931 s.), que se hace ceo de Lohse.
20
Es muy frecuente hoy ver en Kul<A1Kv el sentido de " banal, vulgar", sin Txvq ni ooq>a (en
paralelo con nepq><>nov y 6qotov ), lo que est de perfecto acuerdo con el contexto: cf. por ejemplo
PuelmaPiwonka, op. cit. p. 120n. 1,oMeillier,op. cit. pp. 124s. Peroesdificilima ginartambinque
Calimaco se pennitiese dejar de lado el sentido obvio de " homerizante" o que, al menos, no tuviese
en cuenta la atractiva ambigedad del trmino. Tambin en Horacio (A.P. 136) creemos que es
patente el doble posible sentido. Digamos en todo caso que el lector contemporneo del epigrama de
Calmaco (un lector selecto sin duda), dado el contexto, reparara bsicamente en el primer valor de
la palabra, pero difcilmente podria no pensar en el segundo, sobre todo si conoca de modo previo la
obra y las ideas estticas del autor.
21 Es exagerada sin embargo la afirmacin de Scrrao (Studi ... Ardizzoni, p. 931): "l'esasperato
desiderio di originalita comportava implicitamente il rifiuto di qualsasi modello (sia antico che
moderno) e una affannosa riccrca di elementi nuovi e personali", basndose errneamente en la tan
manida e imprecisa versin ''odio el poema cclico' ' del epigrama 28.
22 El Profesor Giangrande en sus dos articulos citados en n. 12 ha abierto una perspectiva de gran
inters para el valor de la flomcovlq calimaquca.
23 Por supuesto las palabras del propio poeta en fr. 1, 21 ss. (que un autor como Eichgriin, op. cit.
p . 81 , toma ingenuamente casi al pie de la letra) deben ser consideradas como simple figura literaria.

THE RIDDLE OF AESCHYLUS, PERSAE

Can you imagine in spring 1952 in Warsaw a tragedy, written, directed, and
acted by a Polish army hero, portraying the ruin of the second World War in
Poland in terms of its effect on Adolf Hitler and bis immediate family, entitled
The Germans, and being the hit ofthe spring season? Aeschylus bad shared in
the battles of Marathon and Salamis. 1 The glorious grove of Marathon and the
deeptressed Mede knew bis valor well.2 His brother's arm had been hacked off
by the enemy while grasping the poop of a Persian ship beached on the shore at
Marathon. Xerxes had devestated Greece. Personally, as commander-in -chief of
the invading force, he had ordered the total destruction of Athens, block by
block, house by house. Altars and temples were despoiled (Pers. 811 , cf. Ag.
527). Nothing had survived. 3 By 472 a new city had arisen to replace the old.
Victory, indeed survival, had been remarkable and unexpected. Plato (Lg. III
698b ff.) describes the exaggerated patriotism ofthe time in contrast to that ofhis
ownday.
Aeschylus glorifies victory by exultation of the foe's defeat. He won first
prize. The idea was colossal and dangerous. Homer's Trojans were a remote
4
para.lle!. In the visual arts we must wait over two hundred years before such
provocation is dared. An autocratic, Athenophile King, Attalos I of Pergamon,
ID the first year of bis reign (241-197 B. C.) gained a great victory o ver the Gauls.
After the battle he took the title ofking and dedicated before the Athene Temple
on t~e acropolis a group of col os sal bronze figures of two of which Ro man copies
surv1ve: the Dying Gaul of the Capitoline Museum and the Ludovisi Gaul, who
1
For the life of Aeschylus see U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, " Das Leben des Dichters,"
Aischylos Interpretationen, Berlin 1914, pp. 231-252, still unsurpassed.
2
. "Das schne Grabepigramm, das ich wenigstens in Athen entstanden glaube und am liebsten
gleichzeitig: es redel nur von den Rhme des Kriegers, nicht von dem des Dichters. ": Wilamowitz,
op. cit. (supra, n. 1), pp. 233-234.
~In spite of U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Euripides Herakles 13 Einleitung in die griechische Tragadie , Darmstadt 1969, p. 51 , n. 7, I doubt that any Aeschylean script survived the
conflagration of 480.
4
Not enough survives of Phrynichus, Phoenissae ( = TGF3 Fr. 8-12) to rule opon his point ofview.

129

128
HOMENAJE ADRADOS, 11. -

WILLIAM M. CALDER III

THE RIDDLE OF AESCHYLUS, PERSAE

has slain bis wife and plunges the sword into bis own brcast.5 Not entirely
dissimilar is Polybius' portrayal of Scipio weeping at the fall of Cartbage.6 But
both these were victories abroad and as well the popular setting of the crowded
theater ofDionysus lacked. Nothing remotely like this could have been risked or

even contemplated in 1953.7

Forme this remains the riddle of Persae; but 1have never seen 1t rece1ve the attention it deserves. Max Pohlenz in 1954 Germany sensed a problem but dismissed it witb:B "lbe Greeks were no chauvinists; and Aescbylus was able also to
descn"be the sorrow of the foe with genuine sympatby." 1bat is not enough.
Indeed, it is utterly misleading. Tbe Greeks were as chauvinistic as the Frencb.
Pericles would have understood De Gaulle. He could never have comprehended
the Marshall Plan. How did Aescbylus dare to write the play? How did Pericles
dare to produce it? How did the archon eponymous dare to approve its peormance? What could the reaction of that first audience in March 472 have been? 1
shall offer four reasons that 1 think make the outrageous paradox palatable.
1. The play was written by a veteran for veterans. 9 In a sense every citizen was a
veteran at Ieast every citizen had shared in the Oight to Salamis, many in the actual figbting or defence. Homer, a blind non-combatant, composingfive b~
years after the struggle from distorted saga, glorified war. Amal~o Mo~
heads bis list of the one bundred most dangerous books ever wntten with Homer' s Jliad. 1 Tbe /liad glorified war and exerted a regrettable influence on
Herodotus, wbo made a war the center of bis bistory. Tbucydides followed bis
example as have many subsequent bistorians. Because bistory remembers men
who fight wars, men fight wars to be remembered by bistory. Herodotus was no
soldier but a tourist who visited battlefields, as one might Verdun or Normandy,
and romanticized a past wbich he knew only from others. Aeschylus' Persae is a
veteran's antidote for a casual reading of Herodotus' History. Just so the
Herald' s Speech in Agamemnon (551-582) about dampness and cold and lice and
death is the antidote for Homer. Aeschylus writes asan eyewitness: 11

"Natallus of Chrysa, commander of ten thousand, leader of the

Black Horse thirty thousand strong, in deatb dyed red bis thick
and shaggy beard, changing its colour with a deep purple stain."

(Pers . 314-317)

Or:
"Tbarybis, admiral offive times fifty sbips,in lineage Lymaean,
a beautiful man, Iies dead and ugly."
(Pers. 323-325)
2. Persae was written by the bereaved for the bereaved. Kynegeiros fell at
Marathon. Aeschylus' chorus was modeled after an earlier Phrynichan chorus of
Phoenician war-widows. Although Aeschylus' chorus is composed of old men,
the female Vorbild, as Wilamowitz with a flash of genius discemed,'2 may
occasionally be glimpsed through them.
"Many a dame, having her portion in our sorrow, rends her veil
with tender hands and bedews with drenching tears the robe ling
her bosom. And the Persian wives, indulging with soft wailing
through longing to behold their late-wedded lords, abandon
the daintily wrought coverlets of their couches, wherein their
delicate youth had its joyance, and moum with complainings
that know of no satiety ...
Lacerated by the swirling waters (alas!) they are gnawed (alas!)
by the voiceless children ofthe stainless sea (alas!). Tbe home,
bereaved of bis presence, Iamenteth its head; and parents, reft
of their children, in their old age bewail their heavensent woes
(alas!), now that they leam the full measure of their afilictions."
(Pers. 531-545; 576-583)

S For dctails see H. von Steuben, apud W. Hclbig-Hcrminc Spcie~, Fhrer durch dieffentlichen
Sammlungen klassischer Altertmer in Rom u4: Die Stdtischen Sammlungen, Tbingcn
1966, pp. 246-242(No. 1436)csp. (242): "AngesicbtsdcrcrschttemdcnScbildcrungdcruntergehcnden Barbaren mu~ man in der Tat an die Perser des Aiscbylos zmckdcnken. Nur dort wurdc den
Besiegten ein ebenso cbrenvoUes und beroiscbes Denkmal gesetzt, wie es bier in dcr bildenden
Kunst gescbab."
6 See Polybius XXXVIII 21, 1-22. 3 witb tbe important remarks of A. E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus, Oxford 1967, pp. 282-287.
7 Aescbylus may already bave attempted to depict a war from tbe standpoint of tbe defeated in bis
Eleusinioi but little is lmown of tbe action and less of date: see Hans Joachim Mette, Der
Verlorene.Aischylos, Berln 1963, pp. 46-41.
8 M . Poblenz, Die Griechische Tragdie 12 , GOttingen 1954, p. 61.
9 R. Lattimore, "Aescbylus on tbe Defeat of Xerxes," Classical Studies in Honor o/William Abbott Oldfather(Urbana 1943) 87 and Antbony J. Podleclti, The PoliticalBackground of Aeschylean
Tragedy (Ann Arbor 1966) 8-9 see tbis only asan bistorical curb on poetic license.
10 See A. Momigliano, Studies in Historiography, London 1966, pp. 112-113.
11 I bave cited or sligtby adapted tbe noble version of H . Weir Smytb, Aeschylus l, Cambridge/London 1946, p. 111 ff., below.

130

The bereavement of the Persian women reminds the Athenians of their bereavement. If one wrote the play from the Athenian point of view, one would have to
minimize the grief because of the rejoicing in victory. The floating bodies of
Athenians had been caten by fish. The mutilated corpses of fair men were not
only Persian. Athenian parents would die alone and neglected. 13
3. The play was written by an Athenian for Athenians. 14 Tbere is no gloating,
what the Greeks (Arist. EN 110710) called emxmpeKOKa precisely Schadenfreude. Tbe matter was too important to be cheapened that way. Persae is,
therefore, tragic rather than patriotic. A.E. Housman, himself a poet who
composed patriotic verse, saw the limitations of the genre. "Of all the virtues, he
said, the one wbich had inspired the least amount of good poetry was patriotism,
the
reason being that it so easily degenerated into vice, for when poets began by
--......:..

___ _

12

Wilamowitz, op. cit. (supra n. 1) p. 49 witb n. 2.

One recaUs Pericles' cheerless remarks to aged parents oftbe war-dead (Tbuc. 1144, 4).
See H .D. Broadhead, "Tragedy and Palriotic Celebration," The Persae of Aeschylus, Cambridge 1960, pp. XV-XXXII.
13

14

131

l
WILLIAM M. CALDER III

praising their own country they commonly ended by insulting others."s B~t
there is muted cbauvinism. 16 I tbink of the catalogue of the parodos, of Atossa s
intcl'Tgation of the cborus about Atheos (230 ff.). 1 tbink of ~.question to~
Messeogcr (348): "Is then the city of Athens not yet despoiled? Nota building
had been left standing but there is the outrageous answer: "No, wbile her sons
still live her ramparts are impregnable." Certainly a roar of applause grected this
reply. Tbe warcry "w nailit:i; EAAJvwv in::," (402-05) retlected in the Kallimachos dedication, 17 quoted by Euripides (Hec. 929-930), the inspiration for the
MarseUaise must bave thrilled the bearers. The enormity ofthe Persian effortthat failed :_ flatters Athens (715 ff.). One finds frequent reference to Salamis, a
particularly Athenian victory11 and the implicit denigrations of Plataea. Dari~s
recipe for Persian prosperity would win approval. Do not fight Greeks agam,
even though numeri~y superior (790-793).
Athens is portrayed as the instrument ofGod's will, a portrayal both tlattering
and sobering. Atossa, the corypbaios, even Xerxes (911) invoke a daimon, 19 the
god of the moment. They do not know which God wrecked Persia. The clue is at
976 where w<JTyve ooiov becomes woruyva<: 'A6va~ The role of Athens in
Persae will be the role of:leus in the Prometheia and Oresteia and of Apollo in
the Oedipodeia. H the adventitious tbawing of the Strymon (502-507) is an
Aeschylean invention,20 we bave an obvious clue for the falsification of the
miraculous. Tbere is an understandable exaggeration of loss in Persian terms
(especially 584ff. the breakupofEmpire ). Classicists whoviewthePers ian Wars
through the eyes of Aeschylus and Herodotus will find it salutary to hear a
modero historian of Persia rather than of Greece. A. T. Olmstead writes: 21
''Taken by itself, Salamis was a check to the Persian frontier
advance and nothing more. None of the recently acquired territory was lost, the army was intact, the tleet was still poweul
and needed only reorganization. The allies, to be sure, had been
encouraged by an unexpected victory, but they were reduced in
numbers and the next year should see them also.conquered."

IS A.E . Housman cited apud Laurencc Housman, My Brother, A .E. Housman: Personal Reco1/ections Together with Thirty Hitherto Unpublished Poems, New York 1938, pp. 83-84. There are
further good remarks on the limitations of patriotic poelly al Gilbert Murray, Aeschy/us the Creator
of Tragedl, Oxford 1962, pp. 121-124 and H . Weir Smyth, Aeschylean Tragedy , Berkeley.1924, pp.

67-69.
16 I disagree with W. Schmid, Geschichte der Griechischen Literatur l. 2, Munich 1934, p. 207 that
the play is "frei vonjedem Chauvinismos. "
17 /G 2_ 609, 5: see Evelyn B. Harrison, GRBS 12, 1971 , p. 10 n. 13.
11 See Podlecki, op. cit. (supra n. 9) , pp. 9-13
.
19 See Pdlecki, op. cit. (supra n. 9), p. 22. I should recall M. Lamson Earle, Euripides' Alcestis,
Loodon/New York 1894, p. 120 (ad 384): "owv is the individual form of ruxq, as, in Homer, KJP is
tbe individual fonn of0vanx;."
20 Iamconvinced that is byG. Grote, A Historyo/Greece4, London 1888, p . 237n. 2,acceptedby
G . Busolt, Griechische Geschichte bis zur Schlacht bei Chaeronea 112 , Gotha 1895, p. 713 n. 2.
2l A.T. Olmstead, History ofthe Persian Empire, Chicago 1%0, p . 255 .

132

THE RIDDLE OF AESCHYLUS , PERSAE

On the other band there is no list of Greek heroes. Not even Themistokles is
named. 22 The poet counsels humility not jubilation. The Athenians are humble
because they I:iave barely and miraculously survived. The play is ultimately
pacifistic and not Herodotean, who is Homeric and dangerous. He romanticizes
war and becomes an ideologist.
4. Finally the play was composed by a great dramatic artist for a knowledgable
audience of taste. 23 The artistic peection of the piece coated the pill. In the
Nietzschean sense one can contemplate the abyss of human misery only softened through the illusion of Kunst. Aeschylus had not yet begun to present
connected trilogies. But the play itself is an embryonic trilogy, divided up into
three "acts" each dominated by one huge character: the entrance of Atossa. the
conjuration of Dareius,24 the entrance and lament of Xerxes. Aeschylus had a
Wagnerian sense forthe spectacle.is lt is no accident that the Wagnerian Nietzsche preferred him. The three entrances are carefully contrived. First (150)
Atossa enters gorgeously apparelled on the royal chario: and relates that Plutos
with bis foot will overtum the car of0lbos. 26 The spectacle incarnates the figure.
She enters a second time (598) but modestly on foot with offerings borne by several attendants. 27 Finally (908), Xerxes enters on foot, in tattered finery, alone. 28
.Neither ridiculous nor squalid, he is "the embodiment of the disaster which has
struck Persia. " 29 The costumes of the chorus were exotic. There were foreign
22
The play seems to ha ve been produced on the eve ofThemistokles' ostracism and for its implied
pro-Themistoklean Tendenz see A.O. Podlecki, The Life o/ Themistocles: A Critica/ Survey of the
Literary and Archaeological Evidence , Montreal/Londoo 1975, pp. 47-49. That Pericles was choregus proves that Xanthippus was dead.
23
Of course there are critics who disparage the play. See recently J. Ferguson , A Companion to
Greek Tragedy, Austin 1972, p . 48: "The Meno/ Persia is not agreat play." One cannot refute such
statements.
2
. For the importance of this scene see Schmid, Geschichte l. 2, p. 205 n. 6. For Persae as a
selfcontained trilogy see Wilamowitz, op. cit. (supra n. 1), p. 42. S.M. Adams' attempts to detecta
selfcontained tetralogy with the exodos representing a satyr-play is a perversion of Wilamowitz'
insight: see S.M. Adarns, "Salamis Symphony: the Persae of Aeschylus," Srudies in Honour of
Gilbert Norwood, Toronto 1952, p . 53.
2S This 1 prefer to J .A. Davison, apud Ancienl Society and Jnstitutions: Studies presented to
Vctor Ehrenberg on his 75th Birthday, ed. E . Badian, Blackwell 1966, p. 106 n. 24: " That Aeschylus
hada Verdian delight in spectacle needs no detailed proof." For the unneeded proof see O. Taplin,
"Spectacle in Aeschylus," The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: the Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in
Greek Tragedy, Oxford 1977, pp. 39-49. lndeed, Taplin argues that many scholars have exaggerated
the spectacular.
26
Thus Wilamowitz, op. cit. (supra n. 1) p. 43 n. l.
27
So Wilamowitz, op. cit. (supra n. 1) p. 45 . Taplin prefers her in black and alone : op. cit. (supra
n. 25) p . 99. Certainly is impossible.
28
"909 intrat Xerxes solos veste discissa squalida, arcu armatus. ": so Wilamowitz, Aeschy/i
Tragoediae , Berlin 1914, p . 169. See further the excellent remarks ofTaplin, op. cit. (supra n. 25) pp.
121-123.
29

The citation and preceding phraseology are from Taplin, op. cit. (supra n. 25) p. 127. IfTaplin
intends his denial ofsqualid to refute Wilamowitz' squalida (supra n. 28), he misleads. Wilamowitz
merely means that Xerxes' clothing is dirty with nothing of the English squalid = " repulsive or
loathsome to look at" (OED s. u., l. l. b).

133

WILLIAM M. CALDER ID

names, an attempt, as Timotbeus later, at pidgin Greek. 30 Aeschylus had tboroughly altered tbe structure of bis Pbrynichan model. 31 Pbrynichus' play had
begun (TGF3 Fr. 8) witb tbe recital oftbe catastrophe by an eunuch slave. All tbe
action following this prologue formed an extended tbrenos. Aeschylus postpones tbe news and tbereby develops a rising curve of understanding. There is a
disaster, known to tbe audience, Salamis. First one sees apprehension (Chorus
and QUeen), tben verification (tbe messenger's report oftbe battle), tben explanation by tbe ghost of Dareius, and at tbe end tbe emotional realization in' tbe
lamentations of Xerxes and tbe chorus. How wise Gilbert Murray was to call bis
bookAeschylus: the CreatorofTragedy. A phrase ofWilamowitz had suggested
tbe title. 32
These are sorne tboughts tbat 1 have tbe honor to set before tbe distinguished
laudandus, an attempt to explain how Aeschylus dared to present Persae and
why he succeeded. Aeschylus won first prize. Plutarch wrote no essay de
malignitate Aeschyli. A warning lurked implicit in tbe action. To see tbe Persian
catastrophe from tbe Persian side alerted the Atbenians against Empire. In 467
with Septem a simillll' warning against internal political strife discouraged tbe
Klassenkampf. 33 Aeschylus may have convinced Thucydides (/. 69, 5), who
writes ''you know that the barbarian failed in large bimself on his own account.''
That is precisely how Darius had explained tbe matter. 34
WILLIAM M . CALDER III

The University ofColorado

30

See Walter Headlam, CR 12, 1898. pp. 189-193.

See Wilamowitz, op. cit . (supran . 1) p. 241; H. WeirSmyth, op. cit. (supra n. 15), p. 77;Gerald
F. Else, The Origin ami Early Form ofGreelc Tragedy, Cambridge 1965, pp. 87-88.
32 See U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, "Die Bhne des Aischylos," Hermes21, 1886, p. 611 ( =
KS l. 161): "Wohl werden wir den altemden Schopfer derTragOdie bewundem." Philos. VitAp 6. 11
(220.8K) reports that Athenians called Aeschylus "the father oftragedy."
33 Wolfgang Schindler convinced me that such is the political message of the two plays.
34 See Schmid, Geschichte l. 2, p. 2(fl with n. 8: "Das Urteil des Aischylos ber Xerxes' Schuld
hat si ch im Altertum durchgesetzt.''
31

134

LA DEFLEXIN DE LOS TOMOS EN EPICUR01

l. Es de sobra conocido que Epicuro tom de Demcrito, de quien se consideraba seguidor en un principio, la teora atmica. Tambin es conocido que las
escuelas filosficas inmediatamente anteriores a Epicuro criticaron el atomismo
y que, especialmente, Aristteles atac profunda y convincentemente la teora
atmica en los puntos ms dbiles de la misma: la indivisibilidad fsica y teortica, el movimiento de los tomos etc2 Aunque tradicionalmente no se haba
prestado la suficiente atencin a este hecho, hoy dia nadie se atreve a poner en
duda que es precisamente movido por esta crtica por lo que Epicuro introdujo
varias modificaciones en el sistema, las cuales transformaron decisivamente el
atomismo democrteo3. La teora aceptada por lo general -y que se refleja tanto
en las Historias de la Filosofa griega como en las monografas de Epicuro- es que
ste dot a los tomos de partes mnimas teorticas con lo que eliminaba el
problema de la indivisibilidad absoluta; en segundo lugar, que dot a los tomos
de peSo4, con lo que explicaba un movimiento natural de los mismos exento de
necesidad externa y, finalmente, que les atnbuy un movimiento mnimo, incierto y espontneo de deflexin (parnklisis) en su cada vertical para evitar la
necesidad interna que se derivara del peso. De esta forma el epicuresmo, sin
abandonar el sistema atomista, se consideraba una filosofia no necesitarista en el
terreno fisico ni determinista en el moral.
1
Este trabajo es una elaboracin de los comentarios realizados por el autor sobre la Carta a
Herdoto en el Seminario de Postgraduados dedicado a Epicuro en la Facultad de Letras de Granada
durante el curso 1980-81.
Empleamos el trmino deflexin por ser traduccin exacta de la palabra griega napyKA101~ a
sabiendas de que en Fsica moderna se aplica especficamente a la desviacin de un haz de electrones
por la accin de un campo magntico.
2
Especialmente en el libro Z de la Fsica, pero no slo ah.
3
Fu E. Bignone (L'Aristotele perduto e la formazione filosofica di Epicuro, Firenze 1936) el
primero en poner de relieve la influencia de Aristteles sobre Epicuro, aunque su tesis especifica de
que ste slo conoca las obras exotricas de aquel no goza hoy de general aceptacin.
A pesar del testimonio de Aristteles en De Gener. et Co"upt. 326a9, hay muchos comentaristas
modernos que dan la razn a la tradicin doxogrfica {cf. Aecio, 1.3.8) segn la cual el peso fu
aadido por Epicuro, no siendo una cualidad primaria del tomo democrteo. Cf. Kirk-Raven:
'.'hasta que no se halla implicado en un vrtice, ningun tomo es activado en absoluto por el peso"
(Los Filsofos Presocrticos, Madrid, 1969, pp. 577-78). En todo caso, no podemos entrar en este
Problema que nos llevara demasiado lejos. Cf. W.K.C. Guthrie, A History ofGreelc Philosophy ,
Cambridge, 1965, pp. 400404.

135