Eustratius of Nicaea on Absolute and Conditional Necessity. A Survey of the Commentary on Book VI of the 'Nicomachean Ethics'
Eustratius of Nicaea on Absolute and Conditional Necessity. A Survey of the Commentary on Book VI of the 'Nicomachean Ethics'

Summary/Abstract: As far as we know Eustratius of Nicaea’s commentary on book VI of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics should be considered the last work we possess by the author who in the Latin West shares with Averroes the title of Commentator. He himself claims in the prologue to this commentary that he is “diseased, afflictedbythenaturalsicknessdueto the old age”, his mind being “affected by limitation”. As is well known the firstpartofthisprologueisentirelydevotedtothepersonwho actually asked Eustratius to write such a work, a princess endowed with many virtuous and described by the commentator as “religious and logos-loving”. The fact that is Anna Comnena the princess depicted by Eustratius as more devoted to the beauty of the soul than to the beauty usually pursued by the rest of woman who pay attention to cosmetics and silly ornaments, was convincingly pointed out already in 1962 in a famous article by R. Browning. It was in order to satisfy a request from Anna Comnena that our commentator composed his commentary on book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics. Eustratius rhetorically remarks his surprise at such a request, considering his old age and the limitations of his intellectual capacities. Furthermore, he clearly enphasizes the fact that this is not the first time that he has been called upon for such a task, namely the one requested by an important member of the Comnenian court.

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