In this chapter I set out to address the problem of post-Hellenistic isagogical views of Aristotle’s writings from an ‘indirect’ point of view, namely by focusing on extant witnesses of pre-Alexandrian commentaries. More specifically, by relying on the scarce extant sources, and above all on Aspasius, I shall identify some structural features characterising Peripatetic commentaries in order to detect what conception of Aristotle’s texts they imply. In this way, we will be in a position to address the following questions, which would usually find answers in isagogical writings: how should one read Aristotle’s texts? What, if any, is their specific nature? Why are Aristotle’s writings shaped the way they are? Are they clear or obscure, and why so? To be clear, the point is not that in Peripatetics before Alexander one can already discover later isagogical schemata: this had been suggested by Moraux with reference to Andronicus, but I take Mansfeld to be right in saying that exploring isagogical issues does not imply adopting isagogical schemata. My point is that we should focus neither on the presence of isagogical schemata (since, quite simply, they are not attested), nor on partial ways of addressing them (since this would imply taking later structures as absolute parameters). Rather, we should focus on the possibility of outlining an overall conception of Aristotle’s texts even without isagogical writings, whose goal is – theoretically – to display such a conception and to determine the best approach to the texts within its framework. The limited number of extant sources and their narrow focus might of course discourage us from applying my conclusions to Aristotle's corpus as a whole. However, by making these sources interact and by discovering their methodological consistency, we can at least consider the conclusions drawn from them to represent specific instances (the only known ones) of a wider scenario that is lost to us.

This book explores how introductory methods shaped school practice and intellectual activity in various fields of thought of the Early Imperial Age and Late Antiquity. The isagogical crossroads—the intersection of philosophical, philological, religious and scientific introductory methods—embody a fascinating narrative of the methods regulating ancient readers' approach to authoritative texts and disciplines. The strongly innovative character of this book consists exactly in the attempt to explore isagogical issues in a wide-ranging and comprehensive perspective—from philosophy to religion, from medicine to exact sciences—with the aim of detecting connections, reciprocal influences, and interactions shaping the intellectual environment of the Early Imperial Age and Late Antiquity.

The curious image in which Protagoras' head' pops up at 171d to quibble with the interlocutors is read as alluding to the 'headline' (kephalaion) of his most famous work and part of the case study conducted in the opening of Theaet. on how to do "pre-socratic" philosophy form fragments of thinkers of the past.

The book edited by the two distinguished scholars is the aftermath of the Tenth Symposium Hellenisticum, which was held at the Sapienza University of Rome in July 2004. The volume consists of eight papers, which are preceded by the Introduction written by the editors and completed by the chronological table and indexes (of passages of ancient writers and of ancient and modern names). In the Introduction, the authors explain, among other things, why it was decided to limit the chronological span of the book to the dates stated in the title. The first date is connected with the famous visit of three Greek philosophers in Rome; they represented three most influential Hellenistic philosophical schools, namely the Stoa, the Academy and the Peripatos. Their lectures, delivered to the audience of Roman intellectuals, begin " the great Roman love affair with philosophy ". In 86 BC, the siege of Athens took place and resulted in philosophers' escaping from that city, which irretrievably lost its significance as the leading centre of philosophical studies. J.-L. Ferrary's paper Les philosophes grecs à Rome (155–86 av. J.-C.) refers to the first of the above mentioned historical events. Its importance for the growth of the interest in philosophy among the Romans is richly evidenced in Cicero's writings, such as the Tusculanae disputationes and De oratore. In his paper Critolaus and Late Peripatetic Philosophy, D.E. Hahm discusses one of the envoys chosen by the Athenians to represent their polis in front of the Roman people. This representative of the Peripatetic school was very famous in his time, but we have not very many testimonies concerning his teaching (see F. Wehrli [hrsg.], Die Schule des Aristoteles. Texte und Kommentar, H. 10, Basel–Stuttgart 1959). Hahm analyzes the references in ancient writers to this philosopher and his followers in order to find why his name so easily disappeared from historical records of ancient philosophy. The main cause was that he was mainly concerned with presenting the Peripatetic philosophy to the general public and with supporting it against its rivals during the open philosophical debates. Critolaus did not devote his life to carrying on any research started by his predecessors, Aristotle and Theophrastus, and he probably did not write any treatises either. This 'peculiarity' as far as the way of philosophizing is concerned shows Critolaus as the original and autonomous thinker. This picture of him is confirmed by his two arguments against rhetoric, namely that it is not necessary to be a good and undefeated speaker und that rhetoric is not an art. This makes him much closer to the Platonic than to the Aristotelian position. It is well known that Plato in his Gorgias criticizes rhetoric exactly along these lines. It turns out that also Critolaus was deeply involved in the debate, one of the central questions of that time, about the role and status of rhetoric. In the field of ethics it can be seen, according to Hahm, that there is some convergence between the Stoic and Peripatetic idea of happiness, but this convergence concerns much more the language used than the doctrine itself. (It is worth reminding here that the Stoic terminology, which occurs in the fragments, could be attributed to Critolaus, and this fact was the cause of Wehrli's sceptical attitude to the fragments.) There is no direct evidence how Critolaus argued that his definition of happiness as " that which is jointly completed from all goods, that is, (all) three kinds " (trans. Hahm, p. 65) could be its correct notion (especially crossing swords with the Stoics). However, Hahm proposes to accept the hypothesis based on Cicero's indirect evidence that he could use arguments similar to those of Antiochus and Carneades. The definition as well as the concept of τέλος can again testify to the profound commitment to the ethical debates. Likewise, it has been proved not only by the critical examination made by the Stoics, but also by the polemics which is to be found in the Arius Didymus' Peripatetic ethical doxography (excerpted and preserved in Stobaeus). As far as Cirtolaus' physics is concerned, the same trait is recognized.

The aim of this paper is to examine the interesting Neoplatonist tendency to adopt and lend fixed form to schemata isagogica before the systematic reading of Plato’s dialogues. By examining some of the preliminary questions investigated in late antique schools and established at the beginning of the Platonist curriculum, an attempt will be made to show that the schemata, when employed by the Neoplatonists, do not simply follow extrinsic criteria, i.e. that they cannot be reduced to rhetorical devices used to read any text. As the divine creation of a divine literary craftsman, the Platonic text is not just any text; hence, the exegetical categories put forward in rhetorical treatises prove necessary yet not sufficient in themselves to justify the application of rhetorical reading schemata to the fully systematized corpus of Plato’s writings. An attempt will be made to ascertain how and on what basis these schemata were absorbed within the Platonic system, made compatible with the core theoretical tenets of Neoplatonism, and used to justify some of the doctrinal innovations introduced by the Neoplatonists.