A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

(Βόηθος), surnamed SIDONIUS, was born at Sidon in Phoenicia. As he is called a disciple of the Peripatetic Andronicus of Rhodes (Ammon. Herm. Comment. in Aristot. Categ. p. 8, ed. Ald. 1546), he must have travelled at an early age to Rome and Athens, in which cities Andronicus is known to have taught. Strabo (xvi. p.757), who mentions him and his brother Diodotus among the celebrated persons of Sidon, speaks of him at the same time as his own teacher in the Peripatetic philosophy. Among his works, all of which are now lost, there was one on the nature of the soul, and also a commentary on Aristotle's Categories, which is mentioned by Ammonius in his commentary on the same work of Aristotle. Ammonius quotes also an opinion of Boethus concening the study of the works of Aristotle, viz. that the student should begin with the Physics (ἀπὸ τῆς ψυσικῆς), whereas Andronicus had maintained, that the beginning should be made ἀπὸ τῆς λογικῆς, ἥτις περὶ τὴν ἀπόδειξιν γίνεται. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec iii. p. 480; Schneider, Epimetrum III. ad Aristot. Hist. Anim. p. xcv.; Buhle, Aristot. Opera, i. p. 297; Stahr, Aristotelia, ii. p. 129, &c.)

[A.S]