The Earliest Peripatetic Commentators in the First Century BCE and the Old Academy: A Neglected Antiochean Legacy

This paper examines the references to the members of the Old Academy in Andronicus and Boethus. I defend the proposition that these earliest Peripatetic commentators’ use of Speusippus and Xenocrates is indicative of their notion of “the ancients” and “the recent authors.” These first-century BCE Peripatetics attempt to return to “the ancients” or their philosophical authorities, namely Plato’s first pupils: Aristotle, Speusippus, and Xenocrates. Furthermore, it is argued that this philosophical agenda is indicative of the Antiochean influence, which enables us to reevaluate the philosophical exchanges between different philosophical schools in the first century BCE.