xenarchus of selucia

[Onasander]

I cant find much on him on the net, and it appears only one book has been written on him.

 

Has anyone come across fragments of his? He knew all the right people..... Didymus, Octavian, Cicero.....

 

I like how he is noted to of challenged Aristotle's concept of aether as complete made up bull.... kinda like calling out global warming today.

 

Its behinning to occur to me next to nothing has been produced on Octavians/Augustus' political philosophy background.....

[Number Six]

I can't help you with Xenarchus, but there is copious production on Octavian's political philosophy background: it's basicly covered by the studies on the age between the Scipios and Octavian himself, mostly being concerned with middle Stoa, Polybius and Cicero's political thought.

Edited December 26, 2013 by Number Six

[Onasander]

Not from my findings, just two books of Arius Didymus Ethics, a PDF on Didymus' in Stobeaus, and then nilche.....

 

Which is very annoying to me. Yet he is rich in biographical attention over many thinkers...... Heck, I just found out there is another collections compiled in the 14th century from this era that havent even been translated into modern greek...... its horrifying how little attention is paid to roman era philosophers.

 

Most everything written on the history of philosophy during the early empire focuses on Philo of Alexandria or Cicero, but it only gets deep Philo... no one tackles Cicero's mnemonics..... I used to head up to the fifth floor of the San Francisco library, tried to read every philosophy journal they had up there.....

 

If there is copious work out, they hide it pretty damn well. God forbid if a non academic comes into contact with it I suppose.

Edited December 26, 2013 by Onasander

[Number Six]

I cannot provide you with a bibliography for such a wide topic. Anyway, why are you dismissing Cicero so promptly? He's perhaps the most important intermediary between Greek philosophy and the political thought that led to the Principate. And indeed there is copious bibliography on Cicero's political thought. But not only on him

[Onasander]

I don't dismiss him, quite the opposite, I dismiss his commentators. He's one of the few psychologists from the ancient world that holds ALOT of untapped potential. I think thoughts by experience and reference, not always with a name. He is a good guy to mine for vocabulary when the ideas line up.

 

I just get very bored and disappointed when reading his commentators. It's not a matter of my thinking I can do better, I'm now so turned off by the idea I doubt I ever will. Cicero is his audience, and his audience's attention is oriented by the tenure farmers trying to get a full professorship. That would be the crowd I would have to lay alongside of.

 

Outside of Cicero's minor infatuation with genocide, he's a good guy.

 

Didymus..... I think this might be his century to dominate philosophically. Ever since his commentary on Aristotle, I've been thinking about him. It was just before the second world war we started considering such ideas scientifically again.

 

The UN is still young, cities are being built on a variety of models, warfare is varying, odd powerhouses are just now starting to form, while the 20th century upstarts are maturing with the general decline of democracy.

 

It's a good time to look to the ancient equivalent of our era. This is it. This is the era.