Abstract

Fr. 150 of Eudemus Rhodes, preserved in the De principiis of the 6th c. Neoplatonist philosopher Damascius, is our main source on early theogonical narratives. The analysis of Damascius's method shows that Eudemus' work contained probably more theogonies and certainly more generations from the individual theogonies than what we have in the fragment. A survey of the Aristotelian references to the 'theologians' proves that, pace Wehrli, Eudemus's text was not a digression in a systematic work intended to review endoxa on a particular theoretical question: it was more probably a synoptical collection of the genealogical narratives of the 'theologians.'