ABSTRACT
Fr. 21 and fr. 22 Wimmer—two passages in Simplicius’ commentary on Aristode’s Physics— constitute virtually all the available information concerning Theophrastus’ ideas about place. 1 Fr. 21 (Simpl., In Phys., Corollarium de loco [CAG vol. 9 p. 604.5-11 Diels]) contains a relatively straightforward enumeration of what Simplicius describes as a set of aporiai put forward by Theophrastus in connection with Aristode’s famous final definition of place as the ‘inner boundary of the surrounding body’. As to fr. 22, an allegedly verbatim quotation (Simpl. In Phys., Corollanum de loco [CAG vol. 9 p. 639.13-22 Diels]), the situation is more complicated. In the first place, it is not immediately clear what exactiy Theophrastus was trying to convey in these rather condensed phrases. As a result opinions differ as to how the contents of this fragment relate to the aporiai of fr. 21 and to Aristode’s theory of place. Secondly, it may well be asked to what extent Theophrastus was himself positively committed to the ideas expressed in fr. 22. Thirdly, a careful assessment of the context in which Simplicius quotes this passage is needed, for it is not immediately clear what position Simplicius assigns to Theophrastus’ conception of place in his Corollarium de loco.
