and terminology than later sources. Since, from the Hellenistic catalogue of the works of
Aristotle preserved by D L, we know that he had composed a monograph
on Melissos and Gorgias, it seems reasonable that those two treatises of the MXG are based
on the lost Aristotelian prototypes, with some shifts of interest. The treatise on Xenophane ̄s
largely departs from the evidence on the author known from other witnesses, such as
Aristotle. The MXG attributes to Xenophane ̄s the argument e gradu entium for the existence of
God (known from fr.16 of Aristotle’s On philosophy). Further, it misinterprets Theophrastos’
brief account on Xenophane ̄s presented in his Doctrines of the physicists, claiming that
Xenophane ̄s did not say whether God was limited or unlimited, moving or unmoved, and
elaborates it into a “negative theology”: God is neither limited, nor unlimited (cf. Aristotle,
Physics 8.10), neither moved, nor unmoved. In this, as in other parts of the work, the
influence of P’s Parmenides is considerable.
Like that dialogue, the MXG also appears to be a dialectical exercise, but in the Aristotelian
fashion. In this respect, the author may also be influenced by the Megarians, or the skeptical
Academy (Diels, 10–12). Other suggestions are less likely (Neo-Pyrrhonist influence:
Mansfeld; sophistic movement: Cassin). However, typical Skeptical vocabulary is totally
absent from the treatises, especially the On Gorgias, where the author has agno ̄ston (“unknow-
able”) for S’ akatale ̄pton (“incomprehensible”), which becomes standard in epistemol-
ogy from Arkesilaos onwards. At one point (977a4–10, cf. 975a6–7), the author calls a
physical theory mentioned but finally rejected by Aristotle (GC 1.10 [327b30–328a18])
“probable” – compare the probabilism of the Skeptical Academy.
Nevertheless, the author is strikingly ignorant of some crucial Aristotelian passages.
Metaphysical issues especially seem alien to him: e.g. he cannot conceive that the divine is
without magnitude, although has also exegetical and eristic reasons for excluding this
solution (978a16–20, contra Physics 8.10 [267b19–24]). The dominance of dialectic, as
well as some trace of probabilism, is attested in Aristotle’s school after S and
before the revival under A R (cf. S 13.1.54 and C
Tusc. 2.3, 2.9, De finibus 5.10, De oratore 3.80, Orator 14). For dialectic, the exemplary work
for Cicero was Aristotle’s Topics, from which MXG offers a wide range of reminiscences.
For other elements of Aristotelian learning, the author seems interested only in such phys-
ical theories as that of empty space (976b14–19) and mixture (977a4–11), which were
widely discussed among Peripatetics and Stoics, from Strato ̄n (frr. 54 – 67 W.) to A-
A.
Thus, the author appears to be a dialectician in the tradition of the school of Aristotle,
working some time between the composition of the early catalogue of Aristotle’s writings
and the rediscovery of the Aristotle of his school-works, reflecting some developments of
contemporary physics and theology.
Ed.: H. Diels, Aristotelis qui fertur de M.X.G. libellus = Abhandlungen der Königlichen Preussischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften (1900); B. Cassin, Si Parménide: le traité anonyme De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia
(1980).
J. Mansfeld, “De Melisso Xenophane Gorgia. Pyrrhonizing Aristotelianism,” RhM 131 (1988)
239 – 276; István M. Bugár, “How to Prove the Existence of a Supreme Being?” Acta Antiqua
Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 42 (2002) 203–215 at 205–206.
István M. Bugár
M ⇒ M M
ON MELISSOS, XENOPHANE ̄S, AND GORGIAS (“MXG”)