Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Ammonius Hermiæ

AMMONIUS, surnamed Hermiæ, or the son of Hermias, studied at Alexandria, along with his brother Heliodorus, under the neo-Platonist Proclus during the latter part of the 5th century a.d. He was afterwards the head of a school for philosophy; and among his scholars were Asclepias, John Philoponus, Damascius, and Simplicius. Although a neo-Platonist, Ammonius appears to have devoted most of his attention to the works of Aristotle. Commentaries on some of these are all that remains of his reputedly numerous writings. Of the commentaries we have—1. One on the Isagoge of Porphyry, published at Venice, 1500, fol.; 2. One on the Categories, Venice, 1503, fol., the authenticity of which is doubted by Brandis; 3. One on the De Interpretatione, Venice, 1503, fol. Of each of the commentaries there are several Latin translations, and the three have been published in a collected form, with a Latin translation, Venice, 1546, 3 vols. 8vo. They are also printed in Brandis’ Scholia to Aristotle, forming the fourth volume of the Berlin Aristotle. The special section on fate has been published separately by Orelli, Alex. Aphrod. Ammonii et all. de Fato quæ supersunt, Zurich, 1824. A life of Aristotle, generally ascribed to Ammonius, but with more accuracy to John Philoponus, is often prefixed to editions of Aristotle. It has been printed separately, with Latin translation and Scholia, at Leyden, 1621, and again at Helmstadt, 1666. Other commentaries on the Topics and the first six books of the Metaphysics still exist in manuscript. Of the value of the logical writings of Ammonius there are various opinions. Prantl, perhaps the highest recent authority, speaks of them with great but hardly merited contempt (Geschichte der Logik, i. 642). (For list of his works, see Fabricius, Bibliotheca Græca, v. 704–707; and also Brandis, Memoirs of the Berlin Academy, 1833.)