156 Aristotle and his school
the idea thatall(pantes) ‘extraordinary’ (perittoi) men are melancholics.
The subsequent discussion of the heroes Heracles, Aias and Bellerophontes
and the poets and philosophers Empedocles, Socrates and Plato shows that
the presupposition implied in the question is apparently based on a rather
specific notion of melancholy. Epilepsy, bouts of ecstasy, prophetic powers,
but also depressions, extreme fear of people, and suicidal inclinations are
all attributed to the same disease.^61 It is very important here to establish
clearly the actual aim of the author. Apparently, this aim lies first of all in the
explanation that this attribution actually has a physiological justification,
that is, that the very different, at times even contrasting characteristics
of the melancholic are all based on one coherent physiological condition;
secondly, the author intends to explain the in itself paradoxical connection
between melancholy as adisease( 953 a 13 , 15 :arrosth ̄ ema ̄ ; 16 :nosos; 18 :
helke ̄; 29 :nosemata ̄ ; 31 :pathe ̄) and the extraordinary political, philosophical
and poetic achievements (ta peritta) by means of this physiological basis.
This second aim has correctly been understood as readopting the Platonic
theory ofmania.^62 Yet whereas Plato, in his discussion on the origin of
mania, distinguished between divine enthusiasm and pathological madness
(Phaedrus 265 a), the Peripatetic discussion of this topic not only takes a
much larger range of mental and physical afflictions into consideration,
but also relates them all to one physical condition, and in the explanation
all divine influence is disregarded (even without fierce opposition against
this, as we find this in the Hippocratic writingOn the Sacred Diseaseand
in Aristotle’sOn Divination in Sleep^63 ).
Answering the opening question of the chapter is in fact only attempted
in the context of the second aim; the largest part of the text is devoted
to answering the other question of why the ways in which melancholy
manifests itself differ so much. The opening question is referred to on
just two occasions: in 954 a 39 –b 4 and, very briefly, in 954 b 27 – 8. This
division is also followed in the structure of the final summary of the chapter
( 955 a 29 ff.), which first recapitulates the explanation of the instability
(anomalia ̄ ) and the variety of aspects to the nature of the melancholic
character, followed by the summary of the explanation of the relationship
(^61) On a number of occasions, although never in a systematic order, these features are indeed associated
with melancholic diseases in the Hippocratic writings (see M ̈uri ( 1953 ) and the commentary of
Flashar ( 1962 ) on the particular occurrences).
(^62) Flashar ( 1966 ) 62 ; Tellenbach ( 1961 ) 9 ; Klibansky et al. ( 1964 ) 17.
(^63) See Tellenbach ( 1961 ) 10 , Pigeaud ( 1988 a) 51. Boyanc ́e( 1936 , 191 ) presumes that a certain divine
influence is implied in the role of thepneuma, yet there is no indication of this in the text of the
chapter (on the role of thepneumasee n. 68 below).