1. Sambursky on quantified probability: S.

Sambursky, On the Possible and the Probable in

Ancient Greece, Osiris 12 (1956) 35-48.
2. eikos, likely or plausible. Aristotle, Poetics 24 1460a27.
3. eulogon, reasonable, pithanon, what is persuasive or plausible or approvable.
4. Frequency of Socrates baths: Ammonius [c.440-520 AD], On Aristotles On Interpretation
139.15; P.L. Donini, Ethos: Aristotele e il determinismo, Alessandria (Torino) 1989, 54. (The
example may be secondary; Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Aristotles Prior Analytics, 163.3 has
Socrates going for a walk in the afternoon or conversing with a particular person, and id., On
Aristotles Topics 177.27 has washing, with no reference to Socrates. Ammonius or his source may
have conflated the two examples. But even if he has, the example produced by his doing so still
serves to highlight the implausibility of the theory.) On the threefold division of the contingent and
its history see R.W. Sharples, Schriften und Problemkomplexe zur Ethik, in P. Moraux, ed. posth.
J. Wiesner, Der Aristotelismus bei den Griechen, vol.3: Alexander von Aphrodisias, Berlin, De
Gruyter, 2001, 513-616, at 549-550.
5. Alexander of Aphrodisias [fl. c. 200 AD], On Aristotles Prior Analytics, 39-40:
So he speaks only of the contingent and possible which is for the most part, and of that which is
naturally and in accordance with nature (and this is itself for the most part), since from such
[premisses] some of the things which are in accordance with nature are shown, and there are certain
crafts which are concerned with what is contingent in this way, for example those that proceed by
conjecture. For the doctor, taking it that a man who is ill in a certain way is for the most part
troubled by an excess [of blood], and that the person who is troubled by an excess [of blood] is for
the most part cured by cutting the veins, infers that it is possible (my emphasis) for the man who is
ill in a certain way to be cured by cutting the veins, and on this basis he makes use of cutting the
veins.
6. Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Aristotles Prior Analytics, 165
Many crafts, proceeding by conjecture, draw inferences about the matter in hand from what is
contingent in this way [i.e. what happens for the most part]. And indeed in general the conclusions
of deliberation are drawn by means of this type of the contingent; for example, if someone enquires
whether he should put to sea now, and considers that, when the winds are steady, those who put to
sea arrive safely for the most part; but now the winds are steady; so those who put to sea now will
arrive safely for the most part.
7. Aristotle [384-322 BC], Metaphysics E2 1027a20:
For all knowledge is either of what is always or of what is for the most part for how will anyone
learn or teach anything else? For it is necessary for it to be defined either by what is always or by
what is for the most part; for example, honey-water is good for a man with fever for the most part
and he will not be able to state the exceptions, when it is not so, for example at the new moon;
for this at the new moon, too, is either always or for the most part; but the accidental is what is an
exception to this.

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Cf. W.D. Ross, Aristotle: Metaphysics, Oxford 1924, vol. i 361; David Balme, Greek Science and
Mechanism: I, Aristotle on Nature and Chance, Class. Quart. 33 (1939) 129-138. On the relevance
of description of the situation to the analysis of chance, in particular, cf. L. Judson (ed.), Aristotles
Physics, Oxford 1991, ch.4.
8. Hippocrates, Sacred Disease [5th century BC?] 7:
Its origin is like that of the other diseases, according to ones family. For if the child of a
phlegmatic parent is phlegmatic, of a bilious one bilious, of a consumptive one consumptive and of
a splenetic one splenetic, what reason is there why, when a father and mother were afflicted by this
disease, some of their offspring should not also be affected, since the seed comes from everywhere
in the body, healthy from what is healthy and diseased from what is diseased? (My emphasis).
9. Plutarch [c.50-120 AD], On Stoic Self-Contradictions 1045b:
Speaking against these people on the grounds that they violate nature by [introducing] what is
without cause, Chrysippus in many places adduces the knucklebone and the balance, and many of
the things that cannot [he says] fall or incline in different ways at different times without some
cause and difference either concerning them or concerning what comes from outside. For what is
uncaused and spontaneous is altogether non-existent; in the [case of the] adventitious impulses that
are invented and spoken of by certain people undetected causes intrude, and we are not aware that
they lead the impulse in one direction [rather than the other].
[Translation reproduced with the permission of the publisher, Routledge, from R.W. Sharples,
Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, London 1996, p.49.]
Cf. George Boys-Stones, The epeleustik dunamis in Aristos Psychology of Action, Phronesis
41 (1996) 75-94.
10. Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradictions 1056d:
For not once or twice, but everywhere, and especially in the whole of his Physics, [Chrysippus] has
written that particular natures and movements are obstructed and hindered in many ways, but the
[nature] of the universe not at all.
11. Themistius [c.317-388 AD], On Aristotles Physics 37.8-10:
Congenital deformities ... too are works of nature, when it is tripped up and does not progress in the
natural way.
12. Simplicius [first half of 6th century AD], On Aristotles Physics 271.10-20:
Natural [literally by nature, and so in what follows] and according to nature are not the same
thing, but natural is wider than according to nature. For we call those things according to
nature that are by nature and achieve their proper perfection. But there are some things which are
natural, since they come about through the activity of nature, but are not however according to
nature, as is the case with congenital deformities and, in general, privations ... and for this reason
we say that being healthy is according to nature, but being sick that happens to us naturally, though
it is contrary to nature.

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13. Philoponus [c.490-570 A.D], On Aristotles Physics 201.10:

But perhaps not even these things [such as monstrous births] are contrary to nature without
qualification, but while as far as particular nature[s are concerned] they are not natural but contrary
to nature, from the [point of view of] universal [nature] they are natural and in accordance with
nature. For particular nature aims at one [particular] form and avoids one [particular] privation,
while universal nature aims at every form and avoids every privation.
Cf. S. Sambursky, The Physical World of Late Antiquity, London 1962, 93-98; id., Conceptual
developments and modes of explanation in late Greek scientific thought, in A.C. Crombie, ed.,
Scientific Change, London 1963, 70-73.
14. Cicero [106-43 BC], in his treatise On Fate (15), ridicules the Stoic Chrysippus for suggesting
that astrologers should express the conclusions of their art not in the form if Fabius was born with
the Dog-star in the ascendant, he will not die at sea but rather in the form not both: Fabius was
born with the Dog-star in the ascendant, and Fabius will die at sea.
15. D.N. Sedley, On Signs in J. Barnes et al. (eds), Science and Speculation, Cambridge and Paris
1982, 239-272, at 253-5; cf. A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, Cambridge
1987, vol. i 236.
16. Cicero, On Divination 1.127 (Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta 2.944):
Moreover, since everything happens by fate, ... if there could be any mortal who could observe with
his mind the interconnection of all causes, nothing indeed would escape him. For he who knows the
causes of things that are to be necessarily knows all the things that are going to be. But since noone but god could do this, what is left for man is that he should be aware of future things in
advance by certain signs which make clear what will follow. For the things which are going to be
do not come into existence suddenly, but the passage of time is like the unwinding of a rope,
producing nothing new but unfolding what was there at first.
17. id. 1.118 (SVF 2.1210):
For the Stoics do not think that god is concerned with individual fissures in livers or songs of birds
- that would be neither seemly nor worthy of the gods nor in any way able to happen; rather, right
from the start the universe began so that certain things are preceded by certain signs, some in
entrails, some in (the flight of) birds, some in lightning, some in portents, some in the stars, some in
the visions of dreamers, some in the utterances of the raving. Those who have observed these things
well are not often wrong; bad conjectures and interpretations are false not through any shortcoming
in the facts, but because of the ignorance of the interpreters.
[Translations of 16 and 17 reproduced with the permission of the publisher, Routledge, from R.W.
Sharples, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, London 1996, pp.50-51.]
18. id. 1.124:
I for my part think that even if those who seem to perform divination either by skill or by
guesswork go wrong in many things, nevertheless divination exists; but human beings can go astray
in this as in other skills. It can happen that some sign which was given in an ambiguous way is
taken as certain.

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On the criticisms of divination in book 2 of Ciceros treatise cf. N. Denyer, The case against
divination, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 31 (1985) 1-10; M. Schofield,
Cicero for and against divination, Journal of Roman Studies 76 (1986) 47-65.
19. K. Ierodiakonou, Alexander of Aphrodisias on medicine as a stochastic art, in Ph. J. van der
Eijk, H.F.J. Horstmanshoff, P.H. Schrijvers, eds., Ancient medicine in its socio-cultural context,
Amsterdam 1995, vol.2 473-485; R.W. Sharples, Alexander of Aphrodisias: Quaestiones 2.16-3.15,
London 1994, 112-113 n.54.
20. Goal and task: Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Aristotles Topics 32.26-34.5; Quaestio 2.16
(translation in Sharples 1994, cit.)
21. Galen [129-216 AD], On the Method of Healing 3.7 10.206.1ff Khn:
Since what is peculiar to each persons nature cannot be expressed, or grasped by the most accurate
knowledge, the best doctor for all individual illnesses will be the one who has provided himself
with a method which will make him able to distinguish the natures and to aim at (stokhastikos) the
proper cures for each. To think that there is some common treatment for all people is the extreme of
folly; and this is what the most stupid Methodics do.
22. id. 9.16, 10.653.11K.:
We find through inquiry that it is through many signs which are hard to recognise that the
temperament of each of the parts (of the body) is discovered, in a conjectural (stokhastiks) rather
than a scientific (epistmoniks) way.
23. id. 12.7, 10.860.9K.:
The diagnosis of such illnesses (pleurisy and dysentery) is a matter of science (epistmonik), being
recognised by definite signs, but that of those that have just been mentioned (bad effects of a
purgative) is a matter of conjecture (stokhastik), and one that can only be discovered by those who
understand (epistasthai) accurately the proper treatment for each illness.
Cf. Ierodiakonou 1995, 481 and n.25; Alexander of Aphrodisias, Quaest. 2.16 61.20-22, and
[Alexander], Medical Problems 2 prologue, p.52.14-19, 53.5-9 Ideler.
24. Stochastic arts are composed of principles that themselves have the property of only applying
for the most part: Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Aristotles Prior Analytics 39,17-40,5; 165,8-15;
300,3-12.
25. Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Fate 6, 169.26-170.5, 171.7-16.
As fate is located in these things and is of such a nature, it is necessary that, as are the things that
come to be in accordance with nature, so should those be too that come to be in accordance with
fate. But the things that come to be in accordance with nature do not do so of necessity; the coming
to be of things that come to be in this way is sometimes hindered. And for this reason the things
that come to be in accordance with nature come to be for the most part, but not of necessity. For
that which is contrary to nature, too, has a place in them, and comes to be when nature is hindered
in its proper working by some external cause. It is for this reason that man does not come from man

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of necessity but for the most part, and neither does each of the things that come to be in accordance
with nature always come to be in accordance with the fixed time that seems to be laid down for the
things that come to be in this way ... Moreover, someone who wanted to come to the aid of those
who profess the art of prophecy might give this as the cause of their not always hitting the mark;
while the nature and fate of each individual does not have a free passage in all things, but some
things come to be contrary to it as well, the prophets reveal the things that come to be in accordance
with fate, as indeed do the physiognomists. At any rate, when Zopyrus the physiognomist said
certain extraordinary things about the philosopher Socrates which were very far removed from his
chosen manner of life, and was ridiculed for this by Socrates associates, Socrates said that Zopyrus
had not been at all mistaken; for he would have been like that as far as his nature was concerned, if
he had not, through the discipline that comes from philosophy, become better than his nature.
26. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Supplement to On the Soul (Mantissa) 186.8:
And this opinion [that fate allows exceptions] might also be established by the [fact] that the
prophets do not hit the mark in everything that they foretell.
[Translations in 26 and 27 are reproduced with the permission of the publisher, Gerald Duckworth
& Co., from R.W. Sharples, Alexander of Aphrodisias On Fate, London 1983, pp.46-48 and 114
respectively.]
27. Tacitus [fl. c. 100 AD], Annals 6.22.6:
However, most men cannot be persuaded that what is to come is destined from the first origin of
each individual, though some things turn out otherwise than was said because of the deceitfulness
of those who speak of things which they do not know. This damages the credibility of an art of
which both ancient times and our own have given clear proofs.

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