ABSTRACT
Despite its relative brevity, the list of works that Diogenes Laertius attributes to Strato of Lampsacus,1 Theophrastus’ successor and head of the Peripatos from c. 287-269 BCE, nevertheless suggests a considerable breadth of interests. The preserved titles range over subjects in ethics, cosmology, logic, physics, psychology, theology, zoology, and more. Strato’s reputation in antiquity, however, seems to have rested on his work in natural science to such an extent that he came to be known simply as “the Physicist” (ὁ φυσικός).2 Within Strato’s natural philosophy, one particular subject of scholarly interest, and controversy, has been his position regarding the existence and nature of void. Strato apparently devoted an entire treatise to the topic,3 but, as with any effort to reconstruct the details of his thought, we are today dependent on a relatively few surviving fragments and ancient testimonia.4 In this particular case, unfortunately, the relevant evidence is not merely ambiguous but even apparently contradictory.
