Aristoxenus in Athenaeus

The Deipnosophistai of Athenaeus contains as many as 27 fragments of Aristoxenus of Tarentum (approximately a fifth of the fragments in Wehrli’s edition, more than any other author): of these, 18 (plus one not considered by Wehrli) are taken from writings on music and dance (16 are found in Book XIV alone), while 8 are derived from the works of a biographical nature about thinkers and philosophers, in which cases Aristoxenus probably considered only those data relevant to his polemical purposes (see for example the fragments of the Life of the dithyrambic poet Telestial—on Aristoxenus as biographer, see Suet. fr. Reiferse and 1 Plut. mor. 1086c). It is clear, therefore, that, for Athenaeus, Aristoxenus is importance not only in contexts directly related to music; on the other hand, the Symmikta Sympotika of Aristoxenus (Athenaeus cites a large fr.: A = 14.632 fr. 124 W.) can well be considered a precursor of the work of Athenaeus, although not the only one. For many fragments is impossible to say whether they are direct quotes or second-hand (the latter is more likely for Athen. D = 13.555 fr. W. 57, from the Life of Socrates—compare it with Plut. Aristid. 27 [448-9]). In four cases (frr. 45, 101, 109, 89 W), when Athenaeus quotes Aristoxenus he indicates the author, title and number of the book; for frr. 100, 124, 129, 50 W. the book number is missing; in the remaining nineteen cases, the citation includes only the name Aristoxenus. However, if we compare the text of the Deipnosophistai with that of its Epitome, we find that, in the case of fr. 89 W. (The only Aristoxenus fragment also found in the Epitome for which Athenaeus gives the book title and provenance of the work in the text of the Deipnosophistai), the Epitome does not include the title and provenance of the quote (see Athen. Deipn. 14.619 de epitom. 2.2, p. 127 l. 20). In another case (11.467 a), the Epitome does not include that POLLAKIS? with which Athenaeus indicates that he is referring to an affirmation occurring in multiple places in the cited author [451]. These examples suggest how the text dell'Epitome, where it is the only remaining version of the work, often omits bibliographic data which are present in the completed work. This could be the process by which many fragments have become anonymously. Appendix: Fragments of Aristoxenus in Atheneus [453-4].