Theophrastus is frequently quoted in Arabic sources, partly because of his presumed relationship to Aristotle - he may have been confused with Speusippus, the son of Aristotle’s sister; the Arabs also refer to him as the son of Aristotle’s brother or of his maternal aunt - and because he was his spiritual successor. The major source for the Arabic Theophrastus is Gutas 1992, which contains all texts, including manuscript sources, in which Theophrastus is named or quoted; sometimes his name is difficult to identify. Gutas describes the main lines of Theophrastus’ thought as known by the Arabs. He is presented as a translator of and a commentator on Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione and of some of Aristotle’s works on physics (cf. Abu l-Faraj ibn al-Tayyib, a Nestorian philosopher, physician, and theologian, d. 1043, and known in the Latin world as Abulfaragius Abdalla Benattibus).
The philosopher al-Farabi (d. 950) reports that after the defeat of Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BCE, the Roman emperor Augustus found in the Egyptian libraries manuscripts of Aristotle’s works written in his lifetime and in that of Theophrastus (Gutas 1992:95). Books attributed to
Theophrastus include On the Soul and On Meteorology, On Sensation, On Metaphysics, and On the Causes of Plants, in a single book, and Natural Questions. These titles can be recognized in the well-known De sensu et sensibilibus, Metaphysics, De causis plantarum, and Physicorum opiniones; whether the title On Education, also in a single book, corresponds to the Characteres is uncertain. Several of these works were translated into or commented on in Arabic. A work on Democritus that is related to Theophrastus might be that quoted by Diogenes Laertius (= 68 A 34 Diels-Kranz [Fragmente der Vorsokratiker ed.]). An anonymous Latin source (Gutas 1992:439) states that Theophrastus wrote a Book on Causes that is no longer extant in Greek but only in Arabic, and that it was translated into Latin by a certain David. Ibn al-NadIm (tenth century), author of al-Fihrist, the ‘‘index’’ of names of authors and works in different fields of knowledge, refers to a book by Theophrastus entitled On Problems. Qusta b. Luqa, a physician and translator of the ninth century, is said to have relied on Theophrastus in his Book on the Difference Between the Spirit and the Soul.
Aristotle never wrote about minerals and metals - though he states the contrary at the end of Book III of his Meteorologica - but Theophrastus wrote a treatise De lapidibus and a work on metals, now lost. He also wrote about fossils, corals, petrified plants, and salts in other lost works (Lettinck 1999:301). Writings in Arabic on these matters indicate that these works may have been seminal in the later tradition. The eleventh century scientist al-BirunI refers to Theophrastus’ statement that a container is heavier if filled with lead than if it is filled with gold or silver.
From the Siwan al-Jtikma - The Cupboard of Wisdom, a history of Greek and Arabic philosophy written by Abu Sulayman al-SijistanI al-Mantiql (d. c. 985) - we know that on his deathbed Theophrastus reproached nature for giving humanity so short a life.
World History
