Anicius Manlius Seuerinus Boëthius (500? – 524 CE)
This Roman aristocrat, born in Rome around 480, senator, consul (510), prime minister
(magister officiorum) to the Ostrogoth king Theoderic (522), but sentenced to death without
trial (523) under pretence of conspiracy with the court of Constantinople and executed in
Pavia in 524 (after several months spent in jail, where he wrote his masterpiece, the Consola-
tion of Philosophy), was both an intellectual and a politician. Together with his father-in-law,
Symmachus, he meant to foster a revival of Greek literary pursuits in Italy during Theoderic’s
30-year peaceful reign and planned to translate into Latin not only Aristotle’s logical corpus
but Greek scientific works he deemed fundamental as well.
Still in his youth, he worked out an adaptation of N G’s Introduction
to arithmetic, under the title Institutio arithmetica. Starting from basic definitions (even and
odd numbers, compound, prime, perfect ones and so on) and going through a presentation
of multiples and proportions, this summary of the “Pythagorean” doctrine rises to the
study of “means” (notable proportions), enabling one to elucidate the composition of the
World-Soul as described in P’s Timaeus. Boëthius coined the word quadriuium to mean
the Neo-Platonic conjunction of the four mathematical sciences (Inst. ar. 1.1.1 and 7) and
wrote, according to C (Variae 1.45.4), a treatise on each (arithmetic, music,
geometry, astronomy). However, no trace of his Astronomy exists, and his Geometry has sur-
vived only in the pseudonymous medieval Geometries (compilations from the 9th and 11th c.).
A Latin translation of E’s works is also ascribed to him, extracts of which have
survived. Only his Institutio musica (mutilated at its end) and his Institutio arithmetica have
survived. The latter ought to be read first since it deals with numbers “in themselves,” while
music deals with them “in relation” (musical relationships being numerical ratios).
There is nothing original in Boëthius’ scientific writings, since they simply transmit
the Greek tradition, but he is important because he provided a bridge between ancient
and medieval times. The western world of the Middle Ages drew its body of knowledge
from him, until it could benefit from the contribution of the Arabs. The teachings
of his Institutio arithmetica provided the basis for the medieval game “rhythmomachy”
(actually “arithmomachy,” a contest of numbers), a kind of arithmetical chess game still
widely played at the time of the Renaissance.
Ed.: Geom. I and translation from Euclid: K.Lachmann, Die Schriften der Römischen Feldmesser, v. 1 (1848);
Inst. Mus. and Geom. II: G.Friedlein (1867); Inst. Ar.: Jean-Yves Guillaumin, Institution arithmétique: Boèce
(CUF 1995).
H. Chadwick, Boethius (1981).
Jean-Yves Guillaumin
Boëthos of Sido ̄n (Peripatetic) (1st c. BCE)
Peripatetic scholar, is recorded in late sources as a pupil of A R
(I P, in Cat. = CAG 13.1 [1898] 5.18–19), and as Peripatetic scholarch
(A, in An. Pr. I = CAG 4.6 [1899] 31.12). With Andronikos, he seems to be at the
origin of that peculiar form of Aristotelianism, the Peripatetic commentary tradition
which will culminate with A A. Born in the first half of the
1st c. BCE, he flourished either in the middle or second half of the century, depending on
Andronikos’ dates, which are uncertain and controversial. Later scholars preserve some of
his views on Cat., An. Pr., Phys., psychology and ethics. Pre-eminent was his commentary
on A’s Categories, where Boëthos discussed among others such categories as Time,
BOE ̈THOS OF SIDO ̄N (PERIPATETIC)