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ZKEYH AIKA2TIKA

(See description on p. xci)

ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΟΥΣ AOHNAIQN TIOAITEIA

ARISPOTGLES CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS

A REVISED TEXT WITH AN INTRODUCTION CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES TESTIMONIA AND INDICES

BY

mR JOHN EDWIN SANDYS, Litt.D., F.B.A,

FELLOW OF ST JOHN’S COLLEGE, AND PUBLIC ORATOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE; HON. LITT.D. DUBLIN; HON. LL.D. EDINBURGH.

Tetradrachm of Athens, C. 590—525 B.C. (See note on page 41.)

SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED

MACMILLAN AND CO, LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON [912

ΔᾺΝ 18 1954

COPYRIGHT First Edition 1893 Second Edition 1912

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION (1893).

HE preparation of the present volume was planned not long after T= the memorable publication of Mr Kenyon’s editio princeps on Friday, the thirtieth of January, 1891. In that important work much was happily done by its able editor to facilitate the study of the newly discovered treatise by a skilful decipherment of the papyrus, by a careful comparison of the text with that of the existing fragments, by a judicious restoration of a large number of passages imperfectly pre- served in the manuscript, and by an eminently readable commentary - on many interesting points of constitutional history. The edttio princeps was also the editoris primitiae ; and, considering the brief limits of time within which it was prepared, and notwithstanding certain super- ficial blemishes which have since been removed, it was undoubtedly a remarkable achievement.

In the opinion, however, of competent critics there appeared to be room, by the side of Mr Kenyon’s work, for an edition in which closer attention might fitly be paid to matters of scholarship and verbal criticism, together with a more minute comparison of the fresh evidence with that already familiar to us in two closely allied departments of Classical learning, (1) the Constitutional History, and (2) the Legal Antiquities of Athens. There was also at that time an acknowledged need of an Jndex Graecttatis; and lastly there was a call for a fuller and clearer statement of the evidence on the text so far as it could be derived from quotations in later Greek literature. It has been the aim of the present writer to endeavour to supply such an edition.

Vili PREFACE

The J/ntroduction begins with a slight sketch of the political literature of Greece before the time of Aristotle, so far as it was directly concerned with theories of government. This is followed by a brief notice of the Politics of Aristotle and of the lost political works ascribed to the same author. ‘The external evidence as to the authorship of the Πολιτεῖαι is next reviewed in chronological order, showing that, according to testi- mony extending over fifteen centuries from the age immediately suc- ceeding that of Aristotle, the work, as a whole, was ascribed to Aristotle and to none beside. A brief account of the later literature of the subject is succeeded by a description of the Berlin Fragments, and the British Museum papyrus, of the ᾿Αθηναίων πολιτεία. The date of the treatise is placed between 328 and 325 B.c., which corresponds to the latter part of Aristotle’s life; and, after a discussion of its relation to the Politics, and an examination of its style and language, it is accepted as being substantially the work of Aristotle himself; due regard is, however, paid to the considerations that have been urged on the other side by several eminent scholars. The discussion of the authorship is followed by an indication of the authorities either certainly or probably used by the writer. This is succeeded by an abstract of the contents, which (excepting a few dates added for the sake of clearness, with one or two items supplementary to the lost beginning of the treatise), is strictly confined to the author’s own statements, any extraneous matter being carefully distinguished as such. The rest of the Introduction is mainly devoted to a conspectus of the Bibliography of the treatise, showing that, apart from editions and translations and separate works, the number of writers of signed contributions to the literature of the subject, in the department of periodical publications alone, already exceeds one hundred and thirty. Many of these papers were not published until after the present edition was already in type, the Com- mentary on the first forty-one chapters and the first draft of the Critical Notes and Testimonia having been written during the Long Vacation of 1891, while the greater part of the Introduction was prepared for delivery in the form of College Lectures in the autumn of the same year....Professor Bruno Keil’s important volume of nearly 250 pages on the Solonian Constitution as described in the ᾿Αθηναίων πολιτεία, with many interesting criticisms on the treatise in general, did not appear until the present edition was nearly ready for publica- tion ; but it has been found possible to include a few references to it in the Addenda and in the English Index.

PREFACE ix

In settling the Zex¢ I have constantly used the facsimile published by the Trustees of the British Museum; and, on nearly all points of special difficulty, I have also endeavoured to form an opinion of my own by consulting the papyrus itself. In the case of passages im- perfectly preserved in the ms, I have considered it safer to accept Mr Kenyon’s testimony as to the exact number of letters still visible, than that of other editors who, without having had the advantage of inspecting the Ms, much less of having constant access to it, have not unfrequently indicated letters as actually visible which (at the best) are represented only by the faintest traces in the facsimile on which their texts are confessedly founded. Where the reading is uncertain, or the MS defective, I have freely admitted conjectures that commended them- selves to my judgment as sound restorations of the text. My own conjectures, so far as they are here put forward for the first time, are always distinguished by an asterisk whenever they are included in the text; but even of these, several must be regarded as merely provisional and tentative restorations. Others are only suggested in the notes. References to all of them may be readily found in the English Index, under the heading ‘ Conjectures ’.

In the Critical Notes the readings of the ms are for convenience recorded in a distinctive type. No one, however, who is familiar with the facsimile as a whole, or with the specimen published in Mr Kenyon’s Translation, will regard these ‘small uncials’ as intended to represent the actual characters used by any one of the four copyists employed on the work. I have also indicated the readings or conjectures adopted in the principal critical editions that have already appeared; the Dutch edition, by van Herwerden and van Leeuwen; the two German editions, by Kaibel and von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, and by Blass respectively; and the third (and carefully revised) edition by Mr Kenyon. Where Mr Kenyon has himself withdrawn the reading proposed in his first — edition, I have not thought it desirable to record the reading so withdrawn, unless it helped to explain some of the earlier conjectures which in themselves appeared deserving of mention. I have therefore said nothing about such purely provisional readings as καρδίᾳ καὶ κοινῇ inc. 40]. 17. It was clear that καρδίᾳ could not be right, and more than one scholar (for example, Professor Blass, Professor Mayor, and Mr Bywater) saw at once that καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ κοινῇ was a necessary correction ; but, now that it is admitted that this is virtually the reading of the papyrus, in which KAIAIA is corrected into KAIIAIA, it is no longer

Χ PREFACE

necessary to record the text of the first edition. At the time, however, when the above suggestion was made, it had every right to be described as an ‘emendation’; and it may be interesting to add that, as such, it attracted the notice of the late Mr Freeman, who observes in the pre- face to the third volume of his Azstory of Sicily :—‘ such an emendation as this is not conjecture at all; it is the keen instinct of the true expert seeing his way straight to the right thing.’ Again, it has not been deemed desirable to record αὐ the conjectures that have been proposed since the publication of the edztio princeps, many of them, however attractive at first sight, being excluded by our present knowledge of the actual readings of the papyrus, or by other considerations.

The Zestimonia, printed immediately below the critical notes, con- tain further evidence on the text, in the form of quotations in Greek Lexicographers, Scholiasts, and others. Many, but by no means all, of these, had already been recorded in the various editions of the Frag- ments. In the present volume, a good deal of pains has been spent on the endeavour to trace in the Scholiasts, and in authors such as Ari- stides, tacit quotations or paraphrases of our text, which had hitherto escaped detection owing to their source having been unacknowledged. In the case of these quotations, it has been thought best not to remain content with giving references alone, but (as a general rule) to print the passages in full. It is only thus that their exact value in rela- tion to the text can be readily seen.

In the Explanatory Notes considerable space has naturally been assigned to the quotation of parallel passages, especially from the Pod- tics ; and on every point an endeavour has been made to compare the new evidence with the old. In the historical notes to the first part (c. 1—41) much had already been accomplished by Mr Kenyon; but the second part (c. 42 to the end) was comparatively new ground. Throughout the work special attention has been given to the evidence of Greek Inscriptions.

The Greek [Index gives a complete list of the vocabulary, with full citations of the phraseology of the treatise, including that of the passages quoted from the poems of Solon and the decrees’of Athens, which are duly distinguished from citations from the body of the work. Words not recorded in the Judex Aristotelicus, and words hitherto unknown, are indicated by distinctive marks. In checking the items in this Index, much help has been derived from the two Greek Indices, the /udex Dictionis and the Judex Nominum et Rerum, of the Dutch edition; but

PREFACE : xi

in the present work it has been thought best to have only one Greek Index, and to adopt a more cofvenient mode of reference. The pre- paration of this Index has been a laborious task and has considerably delayed the publication of the volume.

The Archaeological [illustrations in the frontispiece are borrowed from Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des Antiguités (Hachette, Paris): the Aeginetan and Attic coins on p. 41, from Baumeister’s Denkmiler des Klassischen Alterthums (Oldenbourg, Munich). To the publishers of both of these important works, the best thanks are due for the readiness with which they have accorded the use of these illustrations. ; |

Among those who in other ways have aided me in preparing the present work, I gladly mention in the first place Mr Kenyon, who, with his able colleagues in the department of mss at the British Museum, has ‘afforded me every facility for studying the papyrus ; and, at times when my daily duties in Cambridge made it impossible for me to visit the Museum, has readily given me the fullest information on any point on which I had occasion to consult him. It is a pleasure to add that for a large number of valuable notes and references I am indebted to the kindness of two whose names have long been eminent in the world of scholars:—Mr W. L. Newman, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and editor of Aristotle’s Poditics ; and the Rev. John Fyton Bickersteth Mayor, Senior Fellow of St John’s, and Professor of Latin in the University of Cambridge. I am similarly indebted in no less degree to a scholar of more recent reputation, Mr W. Wyse, late Fellow of Trinity, and now Professor of Greek in University College, London, whose felicitous emendations of the text, founded mainly on a minute acquaintance with the Attic Orators, and proposed at a time when he was resident in his College rooms in Cambridge, are one more proof that the spirit of Dobree still happily dwells in its ancient home. _ Lastly, in response to a request conveyed by Mr George Macmillan, Secretary of the Hellenic Society and a member of the firm by which _ this volume is published, his Excellency the Minister for Greece, whose recent departure from England is regretted by all lovers of Hellenic learning, was good enough to lend me his own copy of the admirable emendations proposed by his brother, Anastasios Gennadios, in the _ columns of an Athenian newspaper taking its name from the Acropolis. δε also kindly allowed me the use of a number of a Greek philological magazine, ᾿Αθηνᾶ, containing valuable articles on the textual criticism

ΧΙ PREFACE

of the treatise by G. A. Papabasileios, and K.S, Kontos. This magazine was not to be found in the Library of the British Museum, and is prac- tically inaccessible in England except to its annual subscribers. While engaged in exploring the scattered literature of such a subject as the present, one feels in such a case, no less than in that of the Sitzungs- berichte of the Berlin Academy, the full force of the complaint made not long ago by the late Mr Freeman. ‘Noman can undertake to find out every pamphlet and every article. And, when one has found what is wanted, it is sometimes forbidden to buy the number that one wants, unless one chooses to buy a whole volume that one does not want.’ I can only add that I shall be grateful to writers of similar articles for any separate copies of their papers that happen to be available; and, if in this way I become possessed of any duplicates, I propose to present the duplicate to a Library where it will be readily accessible to many who are interested in the subject.

I owe much besides to the principal editions of the treatise, espe- cially to Mr Kenyon’s third edition, more particularly for details con- nected with the readings in the papyrus. The study of the ms and of the facsimile alike has been considerably facilitated by the convenient plan adopted in the Dutch edition of Professors Van Herwerden and Van Leeuwen, in which the contents of the Ms are indicated, not merely column by column, but also line by line. The edition of the text by Professors Kaibel and von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff has been of much use in revising the text and the ¢estzmonza, and in dealing with the fragments. In this last particular, as in some others, a still further advance has been made in the very useful Teubner text recently edited by Professor Blass, the results of -whose subsequent examination of the papyrus have, by his own kindness, reached me in time to be included in the Addenda [ed. 1893]. |

My obligations to other published works are acknowledged as they arise, and are also expressed in general terms at the close of the biblio- — graphical part of the Introduction. It may here be noticed that several — of the most important of the books of reference to which I am thus indebted, are already attesting in their new editions the value of the evidence on the Constitutional History and the Public Antiquities of Athens which is contained in the treatise that, little more than two ~ years ago, was so unexpectedly restored to us from the tombs οὔ

Egypt. Up to the time of that fortunate event, the student was compelled —

PREFACE xili

to satisfy his curiosity with the scattered fragments that, in successive generations, first in Italy and France, and afterwards in Holland and Germany, had been diligently sought by the industry of scholars, and _ collected into one by those ‘friends of Truth’, who (in Milton’s phrase) ‘imitating the carefull search that Isis made for the mangl’d body of Osiris, went up and down gathering limb by limb still as they could find them’. Even now, when in place of these distecta memora, the actual body of the work has been happily recovered in an approximately complete condition, the ‘friends of Truth’ have made much ado over many minor details of the great discovery. After all that has been found, the quest continues still; but it is no longer limited, as it was two years ago, to the enterprise of a single scholar, enjoying all the privileges, and, at the same time, encountering not a few of the perils of a solitary pioneer. On the contrary, it is shared by a goodly number of eager investigators in many lands; and the very number of those who are joining in the quest is almost a source of embarrassment to any one of them who attempts to gather up the main results of their research and to combine them with his own. The last two years have led to many points con- nected with the new treatise being viewed in a more sober light and with a more fitting sense of proportion: the exaggerated expectations that were at first aroused have been followed by a natural reaction, which is now succeeded in its turn by the prevalence of an intermediate state of settled contentment. Meanwhile, the excitement of that earlier time is over; and those who are still engaged on the quest must be content to continue their patient toil unstimulated and unrewarded by any such general and public interest as that which justly awaited the first announce- ment of an event which has enabled men of letters to realise in the present day some of the joyous surprises of the age of the Renaissance. In the feeling language lately used in Cambridge by a learned prelate belonging to both of the two oldest Universities of the United Kingdom, ‘the dignity and nobility of a scholar’s life lie in this, that it claims no recog- nition, and asks for no reward. It seldom admits of excitement; it has no prospect of great encouragement: it looks forward to no definite achievement.’ There are times, however, when a student, while at- tempting to restore and explain some imperfectly recorded remnant of the past, may take a quiet pleasure in obeying the precept of George Herbert :—‘ If studious, copie fair what Time hath blurr’d’. And at last there is a moment when, in the spirit of thankfulness that comes with the completion of an arduous undertaking, he may, as at present, S. A. b

Xiv PREFACE

offer to the kindly criticism and to the use of others a work which, how- ever long delayed by lack of leisure, and however inadequate in itself, has at least been the result of the most ie aa labour and the most strenuous endeavour.

December 27, 1892.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

HIS work, which was first published in the early part of 1893, has been out of print for several years; but it was not until a little more than a year ago that it was possible to begin preparing the present revised and enlarged edition. |

Among editors of the ‘Constitution of Athens’ there is now a greater consensus as to the text. An exact and authoritative statement as to the letters visible in the British Museum papyrus may be found in Mr Kenyon’s Berlin edition of 1903. Hence, in the present revision, whenever the letters needed for the completion of any given word are perfectly certain, as in βασιλεὺς καὶ πολέμαρχος καὶ [ἀ]ρ[χω]ν (c. 3 § 2), it is no longer necessary to retain the square brackets denoting the missing letters. They have therefore been, in general, discarded, and the result is a more easily readable text. The brackets have, however, been usually retained whenever a whole word has been supplied, as in ἐναντίον τῆς [βουλῆς] (c. 47 ὃ 2).

Two new conjectures, proposed by the editor, have been printed in the present text. (1) In c. 67 § 2, in the description of the clepsydra, due recognition is now given to both of its essential parts, the supply- pipe, regularly called the αὐλός, and the outlet, or éxpovs. This result is obtained by substituting κλεψύδ[ραι] αὐλ[ούς τε] ἔχουσ[αι. καὶ ἔΪκρους for the current texts κλεψύδ[ραι} αὐλ[ίσκους] ἔχουσαι €|xpovs (or. μικρούς), which mention the outlet but omit the supply. (2) In c..47, 13, where the numeral in the /acuna resembles either γ΄ or ὦ (3 or 10), τὰ μέταλλα -τὰ εἰς { δέκα) ἔτη] πεπραμένα is now proposed, the alternative term of three years being practically excluded by the context.

PREFACE XV

The Critical Notes, the Testimonia, and the Commentary have been carefully revised, needless repetitions removed, and supplementary notes inserted. About fifteen pages have thus been added to the Commentary, and about the same number to the Greek Jndex. ‘The Jntroduction has also been revised and supplemented. It ends with an enlarged Bibliography, showing that, since the publication of the previous edition, the number of the writers of scattered articles on the text or subject- matter has risen from 135 to 240. The present edition thus includes a probably complete conspectus of the numerous contributions to the criticism of this treatise which have been made by scholars of many lands during the last twenty-one years. Exactly that time has elapsed between the memorable publication of Mr Kenyon’s editio princeps on January 30, 1891, and the date of the writing of the present preface. Under the fostering care of successive editors at home and abroad, the printed text of the ‘Constitution of Athens’ has now come of age, and is ready to submit to a friendly δοκιμασία on the part of the Council of critics.

January 30, 1012.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION §1. The political literature of Greece before the time of A plait § 2. Political works ascribed to Aristotle § 3. Evidence of ancient authorities on the αὐ τον of the Πολιτεῖαι § 4. The later literature of the Πολιτεῖαι 8 5. Zhe Berlin Fragments of ἐλε ᾿Αθηναίων rohan § 6. Zhe British Museum Papyrus ° ° : : » § 7. Date and Authorship of the treatise § 8. Authorities followed in it § 9. Abstract of its contents . . ; ; ὃ το. Bibliography . ς ; ‘ ‘ . : : Ξ § 11. List of Abbreviations used in the critical notes § 12. List of [llustrations . : Ἶ : : CORRIGENDA ADDENDA

TEXT AND NOTES

HERACLIDIS EPITOMA Ἶ ‘ Ἶ ’

FRAGMENTA ex prima libri parte 266—8; dubia 268 FRAGMENTORUM IN PAPYRO LONDINENSI INVENTORUM INDEX . GREEK INDEX

ENGLISH INDEX

PAGES

XVii—xxi Xxi—xxVili

XXVill— xxxix

Xxxix—xli xli—xliii xliii—xlix xlix—Ixv Ixv—Ixxi lxxi—lxxix lxxx—xci xci

xci

XCii

xcii 1—264 265 266—8 269 270—325

326—331

INTRODUCTION.

$1. The political literature of Greece before the time of Aristotle. —

In a brief preliminary survey of the extant political literature of Greece’, it is unnecessary to dwell on the names of representatives of the pre-Socratic schools of philosophy, such as Pythagoras of Samos and Protagoras of Abdera, although the former is said to have written a πολιτικὸν σύγγραμμα (Diog. Laert. vili 6), and the latter a treatise περὶ πολιτείας (20. ix 55). The work ascribed to Pythagoras was undoubtedly spurious ; like that of Protagoras, it has been lost to posterity.

The earliest extant specimen of this branch of literature is the treatise preserved among the works of Xenophon under the title of ᾿Αθηναίων πολιτεία. Among modern scholars Cobet stands almost alone in being content to accept it as Xenophon’s (Vov. Lecz. p. 706). Its authorship is in fact uncertain: it has been attributed to Alcibiades’, and also to Critias*, who is known to have written on the πολιτεῖαι of Sparta, Thessaly and Athens. It may fairly be regarded as emanating from the oligarchical party at Athens, and as primarily intended for the perusal of readers at Sparta who sympathised with their aims. It was probably written between B.c. 426 and 413. It is in any case the earliest Greek political treatise that has come down to us. More than this, it is the ‘oldest extant specimen of literary Attic prose’‘; it is also ‘the oldest extant specimen of a political pasquinade’. The real or imputed abuses of the Athenian Democracy are attacked in a tone of bitter sarcasm or insidious irony, relieved by acute remarks on interesting points of national economy, such as the relations of Athens to her subjects and rivals, and the comparative strength and weakness of her naval and military establishments’.

1 Cf. Henkel, Studien zur Geschichte also by Conrad Miiller (Zittau, 1891),

der Griechischen Lehre vom Staat, esp. pp. 1—17, ate politischen Schriften der Philosophen, 1872; also R. Scholl, Ax- Jange einer politischen Litteratur bet den Griechen, Munich, 1890; and, on the lost literature of this subject, Wilamowitz, Aristoteles und Athen, 1893, i 169—185.

2 W. Helbig, Rhein. Mus., xvi 511 ff.

3 eg. by Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, 111 v, vol. i p. 390 Frankel;

and Drerup, Neue Jahrb. suppl. xxvii

313 f.

4 Jebb, Primer of Gk. Lit., p. 114.

5 Col. Mure’s Literature of Greece, V 422—5. See also A. Kirchhoff, in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy for 1878, 1—25; Scholl, Zc. 14 f; and W.L. Newman’s ed. of Aristotle’s Politics, i 538 f.

xvii ZHE POLITICAL LITERATURE OF GREECE

The Λακεδαιμονίων πολιτεία, though regarded as spurious by Deme- trius of Magnesia (Diog. Laert. li 57), is accepted as the work of Xenophon by Plutarch (Zyc. 1) and others in ancient times, and among the moderns by Cobet (Vov. Lect. p. 705—724) and many others’. Its composition belongs to the years 387—-378. It is a work inspired throughout by admiration of Spartan institutions. The Κύρου παιδεία is later than the death of Socrates (Cyrop. 111 i 38—40), and was probably written after Xenophon’s return from exile, or about 369. While pro- fessing to describe the education of the founder of the Persian empire, it is really a historical and political romance, an idealised biography with ἃ didactic purpose, being practically an encomium on Socratic principles and Spartan practice. It is prompted by the author’s experience of Hellenic political and social life, especially the instability and vicissitudes of various forms of government’. οὐ The pamphlet entitled πόροι [ἢ περὶ προσόδων] is assigned by Cobet (Nov. Lect. 756 £) to the year 355. According to others, it was written about 346 B.c. as a manifesto of the party who held that the commercial prosperity of Athens depended on peace with Philip. In the latter case, it falls after the death of Xenophon in 355. It suggests several expedients for enlarging the revenue, especially by means of taxes levied on resident aliens, as well as profits derived from the labour of 10,000 public slaves who. were to be employed in the, mines of Laurium. ae

Passing from ‘Xenophon’. to Plato, we have in the Republic the most memorable of all delineations of an Ideal State. In the first four books the description of the State is in harmony with Hellenic notions of religion and morality; in the remainder, the Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy, of which all other governments are perversions*. In the eighth book* all conceivable forms of constitutions are reduced to five classes, represented by aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and despotism or tyranny, corresponding to five leading types of individual character. In the por- traits of the typical ‘timocrat,’ tyrant, and democrat, and in the account of the successive changes which they represent, we have a sequence of transformations that is not entirely in accordance with historical facts, but nevertheless supplies us with something of the nature of a philosophy of history. The author is clearly no lover of democracy, or indeed of any of the existing varieties of government. His gaze is fixed on some- thing above and beyond the horizon of his time. In his view, as

1 Modern objections have been. an- 2 Introduction to Holden’s ed. swered by Erler, Leipzig, 1874, and 3 Jowett, /utrod. to the Republic, p. 3. Naumann, Berlin, 1876. + p. 544, compared with Iv τ...

BEFORE THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE ΧΙΧ expressed in the closing words of the ninth book, the man of under- standing is little likely to be a politician in the land of his birth, though he will certainly be a politician in an ideal city which is all his own; a city whose pattern is laid up in heaven, and he who desires may look on that pattern and in the vision find indeed his home. But whether there really is, or ever will be, such a city, is of no concern to him; for he will do all things in obedience to the laws of that city and of no other.

The Republic is almost always called the Πολιτεία, but sometimes bears the plural name, Πολιτεῖαι. Thus Themistius (ii 32 C) associates with the name of Plato Πολιτεῖαί τε ai κλειναὶ καὶ of θεσπέσιοι Νόμοι. In the Politicus, which falls between the Republic and the Laws, ‘the characteristic of a true government is not that it is of few or many, voluntary or involuntary, but that it is scientific’; and ‘the science of government can only be attained by a very few,’ pp. 292-3 (Jowett, iv 494f). In this inquiry into the definition of a Ruler, there is much affinity with the Zaws of Plato and the /o/itics of Aristotle. In con- trast to the doubtless earlier scheme in the Repudiic, with its five types of constitution, we here find a series of seven, in which, apart from the ideal and only perfect type, we have six existing forms of government. These six are obtained by dividing the rule of the One (μοναρχία), of the Few (ἢ ὑπὸ τῶν ὀλίγων δυναστεία), and of the Many (δημοκρατία) into two varieties each, (1) into kingship and tyranny, and (2) into aris- tocracy and oligarchy, while the two varieties of democracy (‘consti- tutional government’ and ‘simple democracy’) are undistinguished by any differences of name. ‘The distinction in each of these three pairs turns upon the question whether Law is observed or not’. In its political views, and probably in its date, this dialogue occupies an intermediate position between the Repudlic and the Laws; and its classification of typical forms of government reappears, with slight differences of terminology, in the Z¢hics and Politics of Aristotle”.

- The dialogue on the Zaws was composed after the Republic (Ar. Pol. ii 3, 1), and was published after the author’s death (Diog. Laert. iii 37). It sets forth in minutest fulness the details of an Ideal Code ; and, in the absence of any actual code of the institutions of Athens, the indications of the existing laws therein contained are often of special value*. The lofty conception of the ‘rule of Philosophers’ is here

Aristoteles und Macchiavelli’, Breslau, 1888,

1 Politicus, pp. 291, 302. 2 Eth. viii 10; Fol. iii 7 and vi (iv) 2.

Cf. Newman’s Politics, i 430—433, and Prof. Sidgwick in Class. Rev. vi 141-4 ; also Lutoslavski, ‘Erhaltung und Unter- gang der Staatsverfassungen nach Plato,

8 See esp. K. F. Hermann, De vestigiis institutorum veterum, imprimis Atti- corum, per FPlatonis de Legibus libros indagandis, 1836.

xx 72Ὲ. ῬΡΟΣῚΤΟΑ Δ ‘LITERATURE OF GREECE

abandoned, and the State described is the best which is practically possible under the existing limitations of Greek life’. In the third book the author reviews the constitutions of Sparta, Persia and Athens, noting the causes of the success and failure of each; and then proceeds to develop his own constitution. : εἶ

Of the other political dialogues bearing Plato’s name, the Zfznomis is an appendix to the Zaws, and is mainly concerned with Education; the Minos discusses the definition of Law; but neither of these can be reckoned among the genuine works of Plato. |

The de Pace of Isocrates advises Athens to abandon the Empire of the Sea; while the Areopagiticus commends the earlier mode of appointing the officers of State by election (αἵρεσις) rather than by lot (κλήρωσις), and pleads for the restoration of the censorial power once wielded by the Council of the Areopagus. Both of these works may be ascribed to the year 355 B.c., and both have important points of contact with the ᾿Αθηναίων πολιτεία, which was written nearly thirty years. later®,

The above summary has been purposely confined to writings strictly concerned with politics, to the exclusion of historical works in which political discussion only plays a subordinate part. Otherwise, we might have recalled the debate on the relative merits of monarchy, oligarchy and democracy, which is ascribed to the Persian grandees in the pages of Herodotus (iii 80—8z2); and the reflexions on the effects of party spirit. in Grecian politics, to which Thucydides is prompted by the narrative of the vengeance of the victorious demos on the oligarchs of Corcyra (iii 82 f). As it is, in the limited field of purely political literature, we have noted the rise of the polemical pamphlet, and the historical romance, while in Plato’s delineation of an Ideal State and an Ideal Code, we have seen the prototype of writings such as Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and Bacon’s ew Atlantis. ‘The setting forth of such ideals became a favourite medium for the expression of political criti- cism; butit is characteristic of Aristotle that, while following this fashion, he succeeded in bringing the political speculations of philosophy into closer relation with the facts of history. In the language of one of the foremost authorities on the political writings of Aristotle, “ political science ‘begins’ for Aristotle ‘in History’, no less than in Ethics”*% ‘The vision of an ideal State did not make Aristotle indifferent to the problems and difficulties of the actual State. The age which dreams of

1 Plato saw ‘‘that his earlier ideal of 2 Some of these points are noticed in the Republic had been pitched too high _ Bruno Keil’s Solonische Verfassung (1892) for men, and was only suitable for ‘gods 78 ff, 215. 7 or the sons of gods’”’, Laws, 739 D, 8536 3 Mr W. L. Newman’s Politics, vol. i (Newman’s Po/itics, i 86). p. 15. by

BEFORE THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE δ 00 ideal States is often on the point of losing its interest in politics ; but this was far from being the case with Aristotle’’. :

Political works ascribed to Aristotle.

§ 2.

Among the political writings ascribed to Aristotle by far the most important is, of course, the /o/itics. The imperfect form in which it has come down to us has been variously explained. ‘The earlier view, supported by Spengel®, was that the work of Aristotle was originally completed by himself, and that important portions of it were afterwards lost. The later view, which is more probable in itself, and is accepted by almost all Aristotelian scholars in modern times, regards the Po/itics as a work that was left unfinished. This view is corroborated by the fact that in later writers we have no reference to the /o/tics which cannot be traced to the existing work. The latest event mentioned in it is the death of Philip, B.c. 336 (vili (v) 8, το, p. 1311 2). As to the order of the books, it can hardly be doubted that, owing to the nature of their contents, books vii and vili should come immediately after iii, while it is not quite certain that books v and vi should be transposed. The order adopted by Susemihl is as follows : 1, ii, ili, vil, Vili, iv, vi, v. Thus books iv—viii of the new order correspond to vii, viii, iv, vi, v, of the old®*, In the Foditics Aristotle discusses the origin of the household, the village and the state, and examines the nature of property, and in particular of property in slaves (Bk 1). The citizen is defined as one who shares in the judicial or deliberative administration of a state. In the next book, Aristotle criticises the Repudlic and the Laws of Plato, the constitutions framed by Phaleas and Hippodamus, and the actual forms of government prevailing in Sparta, Crete and Carthage, closing with some (possibly interpolated) criticisms on Solon and Pericles (11). The various types of government are thereupon described in turn, Monarchy, Aristocracy and a mixed constitutional system called πολιτεία, together with the three forms into which they respectively degenerate, Tyranny, Oligarchy and Democracy (111). The

1 22. p. 89. Fora sketch of the earlier recent discussions of the order of the

‘history of Greek political philosophy’ see esp. 16. 374—457-

2 Ueber die Pol. des Ar., pp. 44 ff.

3 In the present work, whenever the books of the Po/ztics are specified, the number in the new order is given first, followed (in parenthesis) by that of the old order. Asa general rule, however, the references are solely to the pages and lines of the Berlin ed.—Among the most

books may be mentioned Shute’s History of the Aristotelian Writings, pp. 164— 176; and Newman’s Politics, vol. i 292, vol. ii pp. xxi—xxiv. See also Wilamo- witz, Ar. τι. Athen, i 355, ‘Beide Unter- suchungen (ΔΕΖ, H®) sind nicht im entferntesten bis zum Abschlusse gefiihrt. Ihre Reihenfolge ist nicht von grosser Bedeutung, da sie eben in Wahrheit neben einander stehen’,

καὶ §§ POLITICAL WORKS ASCRIBED

author next delineates his Ideal State, and deals with the subject οἱ Marriage and of Education, Bk tv (H, vit). The latter should be national and also liberal; its two main branches are ‘music’ and ‘gymnastic’, Bk v (@, vil). The types of government are then dis- cussed in detail. Of the three perversions, Tyranny, the perversion of Monarchy, which is itself the best and most divine, is necessarily the worst. Oligarchy, the perversion of Aristocracy, is not so bad as Tyranny; the last, and the least bad, is Democracy. The different kinds of government are then further discriminated, with the forms assumed by the deliberative and the executive power in each, Bk v1 (A, rv). The basis of democracy is defined to be liberty, which includes the principle that ‘all should rule and beruled inturn’. The characteristics of democracy are then described :—all officers of state are appointed “by all, and out of all’; all rule over each, and each in turn rules over all; the appointment is by lot, except in cases where special knowledge is required ; there is little or no qualification ; office is held for a short time only, and rarely (if ever) twice, except in the case of military offices; all men, or at least persons selected out of all, sit in judgment in all causes, or at. any rate on the most important; the public Assembly is supreme, not the officers of state; when the citizens are paid, even the Council loses its power, as the Assembly and the Lawcourts take all the business to themselves. Then follow the various kinds of oligarchies ; and the consideration of the due coordination of offices in the state, Bk vii (Z, vi). The author’s design is now nearly completed. He has still to speak of the motives, objects and occasions of revolutions in states, Bk vit (E, v). Revolutions begin in trifling matters but involve important issues. They are brought about either by force or by fraud. The author next considers how revolutions may be avoided, and tyrannies and monarchies. preserved ; he describes a despot of a virtuous and beneficent type; and adds some reflexions on the short duration of tyrannies and oligarchies. Lastly, he attacks the views put forward in the Republic as to the cycle through which states are described as passing in the course of their decline. Thus the work ends (as it began) with a criticism on Plato. ©

Among the lost writings of Aristotle was one entitled Πολιτικός, a dialogue in two books, expressly mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (v 22), and vaguely noticed by Cicero’. The anonymous list of his works, now ascribed to Hesychius, includes the περὶ ῥήτορος ἢ πολιτικοῦ.

1 De Fin. V 4, τι, ‘cumque uterque ΠῚ 5, 1, ‘Aristotelem, quae de republica — eorum (Aristoteles et Theophrastus) do- εἰ praestante viro scribat, ipsum loqui.’ cuisset, qualem in republica principem Cf. Bernays, die Dialoge des Ar. pp. 53; esse conveniret’—; ad Quintum fratrem, 153. ἢ

TO ARISTOTLE XXill In that of Diogenes Laertius, the titles of the dialogues end with ᾿Αλέξ- avdpos ἢ περὶ ἀποικιῶν α΄ (on colonisation)’, and περὶ βασιλείας". In closer connexion with contemporary history, the δικαιώματα πόλεων ascribed to Aristotle are said to have contained the formal pleas on the points of difference submitted by the Greek states to the arbitration of Philip*. A work of far wider scope was that known as the νόμιμα, or νόμιμα βαρβαρικά, of Aristotle. This was a comprehensive account of the institutions of various non-hellenic peoples, including the Etruscans, under the head of νόμιμα Τυρρηνῶν. An abstract of this existed at one time under the name of νομίμων βαρβαρικῶν συναγωγή“.