Kurzfassungen und Erbstreitigkeiten

There are two versions of Aristotle’s will. One of them is found in Diogenes Laertios’ account of Aristotle in his Lives of the Philosophers, the second one is preserved (only) in an Arabic translation as a part of Ptolemy’s biography of Aristotle. A comparison of these two versions shows that the Arabic translation is a faithful rendering of a lost Greek version. This Greek version, furthermore, is not based on that preserved in Diogenes Laertios, but is rather an independent second version, whose function inter alia was to support the case of Aristotle’s son Nikomachos within inheritance disputes.