The Red Sea Aristotle

Abstract Deriving from a larger investigation into the sources used by Leonidas of Byzantium for his second-century AD Halieutica , this article argues that handful passages in Aelian’s De natura animalium (3.18, 3.28, 10.13, 10.20, 11.21, 11.23–24, 12.24–25[24] and 12.27[25]) comprise coherent series indebted to same section Leonidas’ work. More importantly, all these accounts are ultimately derived Peripatetic treatise on marine fauna Red Sea. The author, whom I dub Sea Aristotle, based first-hand research likely conducted at Ptolemaic settlement northern This seems have been known least one later Alexandrian lexicographer, while Agatharchides Cnidus may had access it already middle second century BC. invites reconsideration orthodox claims about fate scientific zoology Hellenistic period.