ABSTRACT
This chapter determines what people can say about the character of his work and his contribution to the school. Theophrastus was from the island of Lesbos, Eudemus from Rhodes. Aristotle replied that he would comply with their request, as soon as an opportunity presented itself. There is a good deal of truth in this, but in many ways Eudemus' work and career were different from those of most members of the school. Eudemus' choice of texts will have been based on his experience of Aristotle's lectures, but was not inevitable. Simplicius refers to Eudemus as the "truest of Aristotle's followers", and our survey of his fragments has borne him out. Eudemus turns out to have been a worthy professor battling to instill the rudiments of Aristotelian philosophy into an undistinguished group of students. Eudemus preferred to expound Aristotle's philosophy, point by point, as a completed system.
