Aristotle died in Greece in 322 BCE. In 86 BCE, the Roman general (and soon-to-be dictator) Sulla captured Athens. He confiscated the library of a man named Apellicon of Teos, whose collection included manuscripts of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Sulla had the library transported to Rome, where the meticulous Andronicus of Rhodes edited the texts, forming what became the very first complete edition of Aristotle’s works.
What had happened to Aristotle’s library in the intervening 236 years? According to Strabo, a Greek geographer born in 63 BCE, a generation after Sulla:
“From Scepsis [near the northwest coast of Asia Minor, now in Turkey] came the Socratic philosophers Erastus and Coriscus and Neleus the son of Coriscus, this last a man who not only was a pupil of Aristotle and Theophrastus, but also inherited the library of Theophrastus, which included that of Aristotle. At any rate, Aristotle bequeathed his own library to Theophrastus, to whom he also left his school …
Strabo continues: “Theophrastus bequeathed it to Neleus; and Neleus took it to Scepsis and bequeathed it to his heirs, ordinary people, who kept the books locked up and not even carefully stored. But when they heard how zealously the Attalic kings to whom the city was subject were searching for books to build up the library in Pergamum [about 60 miles south of Scepsis], they hid their books underground in a kind of trench. But much later, when the books had been damaged by moisture and moths, their descendants sold them to Apellicon of Teos for a large sum of money, both the books of Aristotle and those of Theophrastus. But Apellicon was a bibliophile rather than a philosopher; and therefore, seeking a restoration of the parts that had been eaten through, he made new copies of the text, filling up the gaps incorrectly, and published the books full of errors. The result was that the earlier school of Peripatetics who came after Theophrastus had no books at all, with the exception of only a few, mostly exoteric works … [Subsequently,] immediately after the death of Apellicon, Sulla, who had captured Athens, carried off Apellicon’s library to Rome, where Tyrannion the grammarian, who was fond of Aristotle, got it in his hands by paying court to the librarian.”
Then Tyrannion gave copies to Andronicus. Fragility of preservation, indeed.
(Sources: Strabo, Geographia, XII, 1.54-55, Hamilton and Falconer translation, 1903. Another version here. The map shows the location of Scepsis, across the Aegean. Side note: Andronicus was a teacher of Boethus of Sidon, who in turn was a teacher of Strabo.) Related: The first book of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, in my Philosophers, Explained series: