Aristotle's Missing Dialogues. Who Wrote The Sophist, The Statesman, and The Politics

Political Theory
http://ptx.sagepub.com The Case of Aristotle's Missing Dialogues: Who Wrote the Sophist, the Statesman, and the Politics?
Roger D. Masters Political Theory 1977; 5; 31 DOI: 10.1177/009059177700500103 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ptx.sagepub.com
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THE CASE OF ARISTOTLES
MISSING DIALOGUES
Who Wrote the Sophist,
the Statesman, and the Politics?

ROGER D. MASTERS
Dartmouth
College
Many,
many years ago, I attended a series of lectures on Aristotles philosophy. The lecturer began his exposition as follows: &dquo;As regards Aristotle himself, as regards the circumstances and the course of his life, suffice it to say: Aristotle was born, spent his life in philosophizing, and died. &dquo; This beginning seemed to me then most appropriate, for Aristotle means to us, indeed, nothing but what we know of him, or fancy we know of him, as of a man engaged in that extravagant enterprise which, since Pythagoras (according to the tradition), has borne the name of &dquo;Philosophy. &dquo; There is a difficulty, though. Whenever we try to understand what Aristotle is saying, we stumble on something that we simply cannot ignore, ,7nd that is that his words bring up the words of another man who was his teacher and bore the name of Plato. There is no alternative; we have to face that peculiar circumstance in Aristotles life.
1 -Jacob Klein
One of the most puzzling questions that can be posed in history of &dquo;classical&dquo; thought concerns the apparent disappearance of Aristotles early writings. Of course, many works that were well known in antiquity have not survived to modem times. But some of these lacunae are more difficult to explain than others. Of particular interest are the dialogues which were written by Aristotle as a young man, while at Platos
Academy.
POLITICAL
THEORY,
Vol. 5 No.
1, February 1977
© 1977
Sage Publications, Inc.
[31]
[32]
Given Aristotles subsequent fame, it is interesting to wonder why these works should not have been preserved. If dialogues were even fabricated so that they could be attributed to Plato and Aristotle, why did those which Aristotle actually wrote come to disappear? This puzzle is all the more worth pursuing because the extant texts of Aristotle explicitly refer to these lost works as being directed to the &dquo;general public&dquo; (e.g., Politics, III. iv.1278b; VII.i.1323a). Moreover, the catalogues of ancient librariessuch as the one reproduced by Diogenes Laertius-apparently contain references to these dialogues.2 In other words, Aristotle presents us with the paradox of an author whose works directed to a public audience-the so-called &dquo;exoteric&dquo; dialogues for use outside the Lyceum-have disappeared, whereas the lectures destined for his students (and called &dquo;esoteric&dquo; for this reason) have survived. Moreover, the now lost, public writings were well known to exist in antiquity, because they are mentioned both in the surviving lectures and in literary histories. Why, then, should dialogues written for a general audience by a thinker as famous as Aristotle have simply disappeared? To answer this question, a broader issue must be posed. How were the writings of Aristotle transmitted to us? And, in particular, to what extent does the existing corpus of Aristotle represent the actual writing of Aristotle himself? To approach this issue, an apparently circuitous route will be necessary. First, the history of the Aristotelian texts now in our possession must be traced. The authorship of the Politics, one of Aristotles best known treatises on a subject touched upon in the lost &dquo;exoteric&dquo; discourses, will then be discussed. As we shall see, this problem-while in itself vexed enough to be the subject of considerable scholarly controversy in the nineteenth century-perhaps offers a key to the fate of the works Aristotle destined to a general public.
I. The
History of Aristotles Writings
As is generally known, the texts of classical antiquity were written on scrolls which were costly to produce and difficult to preserve. After his death in 322 BC, Aristotles writings were inherited by Theophrastus, his successor as head of the Lyceum. Theophrastus, however, willed his library to Neleus, whereas the Lyceum itself became the property of the community of scholars, headed by a physicist named Strato. Thus, after the death of Theophrastus in 287 BC, the lecture notes and published
[33]
writings of Aristotle left the Peripatetic school and-along with Theophrastus own works-became the private property of the family of Neleus.3 The loss of Theophrastus library, which also contained a vast collection of other writings collected by the school, thus condemned his successors in the Lyceum to a repetition of the known doctrines of Aristotle without access to most of his lecture notes.4Although Strato himself was an able scientist, his will indicates a sense of fatalism concerning the decline of the Peripatetic school in Athens; Lyco, who followed as its head, is described by Diogenes Laertius as &dquo;a master of expression and of the foremost rank in the education of boys.... But in writing he fell off sadly.&dquo;5 After Lycos death in 225 BC, it is even unclear to what extent the Peripatetic school continued to function as an institution for research and scholarship. These circumstances are of great importance, for they explain the
relative absence of written references to Aristotle in the second and third centuries BC. According to most sources, the manuscripts of Aristotle and Theophrastus were taken to Skepsis (a city in the region of Troas) by Neleus, whose heirs stored the collection to keep it from being seized by the King of Pergamum for his library. Although some traditions claim that copies of many if not all the texts were gathered in the great library of Alexandria, there is little evidence of their general diffusion prior to the 6 first century BC.~ A rich book-collector named Apellicon of Athens apparently acquired the manuscripts of Aristotle and Theophrastus-or copies thereof-around 100 BC, only to have them seized by Sulla, the Roman general who conquered Athens in 86 BC. This collection was in turn procured by a contemporary of Ciceros named Tyrannion, and communicated to a philosopher named Andronicus of Rhodes. Andronicus, who reconstituted the Peripatetic school in Rome, edited the Aristotelian manuscripts between 40 and 20 BC. In so doing, it is known that Andronicus changed the organization of the original scrolls, and arranged them according to various topics in the form now known to us. Under the Roman Empire, there are indications that many writers were acquainted with the Aristotelian works compiled by Andronicus-and, indeed, it is possible that the Politics was used by the teacher of the 8 Emperor Augustus.8 Throughout the earlier middle ages, however, Aristotles writings were little known in the Christian West (with the exception of the Organon), though they continued to be studied by the great Islamic philosophers. Finally, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
[34]
Latin translations of Aristotle, along with the monumental integration of his philosophy with Christian doctrine by Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, and their followers, assured the transmission of the Aristotelian corpus to modern times. As this brief historical sketch indicates, we apparently do not have Aristotles writings in their original form. Far from being an obstacle, however, recognition of this fact is perhaps the first step toward a better understanding of Aristotelian thought. Whereas we can be relatively sure that Platonic dialogues like the Republic and the Symposium have come to us in roughly the same form in which they were written, Aristotles works are compilations of lectures and other materials originally used within the
Lyceum.
Whatever the difficulties of establishing the best manuscript reading of Platonic dialogues, therefore, the texts of Aristotle pose an additional problem. Not only does one have to consider variants due to the errors of copying, as successive scribes reproduced the works of classical antiquity over the generations. In the case of Aristotle, there is the additional question of the extent to which they were modified when Andronicus of Rhodes compiled and edited them in the first century BC. II. The
Authorship of the
Politics
The difficulty of Aristotles texts has long puzzled interpreters. In addition to the complexity of the argument, the existing manuscripts often have paradoxical and repetitive features. To cite but one crucial example, Book III of the Politics ends with a passage that is repeated at the beginning of Book VII.9 As Barker says of this problem: &dquo;It is an old question among scholars whether the order of the books of the Politics should be changed, and Book VII should be made to follow immediately on Book III.... Meanwhile it is sufficient to say that the end of this chapter, or even possibly the whole, may well be a later addition. It is by &dquo; no means clear.... In his well-known interpretation of Aristotle, that the Politics originally included only Books I-III, VII, Jaeger argued and VIII; in this view, Books IV-VI were subsequently added by Aristotle later in his career. 11 Other scholars, however, have rejected Jaegers
2 interpretation. 1
Perhaps the most interesting and plausible hypothesis is also the most radical. Although it is usually assumed that the best-known &dquo;Aristotelian treatises ... are the work of Aristotle himself,&dquo; there is strong evidence
[35]
that they were written by &dquo;some of the outstanding members of his school&dquo; over a long period; in this view, Andronicus of Rhodes combined the lectures of many leading Aristotelians and attributed the result to Aristotle. 1 With reference to the Politics, there is general agreement that parts of the text are by Aristotle himself; the question, therefore, is whether the existing work is entirely by Aristotle or a composite of Aristotles lectures with those of Theophrastus (or others from his
school).14
Writing in the first century BC, before Andronicus of Rhodes assembled the Aristotelian corpus in its present form, Cicero refers to the similarities and differences between the political thought of Aristotle and that of Theophrastus, Aristotles successor as head of the Lyceum (see De Finibus, V.iv-v and Laws, IIl.iv-v-cited below). When Andronicus acquired the manuscripts of Aristotle, it was as part of a collection containing writings of both Aristotle and Theophrastus. Moreover, catalogues of the original scrolls from which Andronicus compiled Aristotles writings were ultimately reproduced by historians, the best known being that of Diogenes chapter of Lives of the Eminent Philosophers devoted to Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius includes among the scrolls written by
Aristotle: &dquo;Politics, two books&dquo; and &dquo;Eight books of a course of lectures on Politics like that of Theophrastus&dquo; (V.24). In the chapter on Theophrastus, we find listed scrolls entitled: &dquo;Of Legislators, three books; Of Politics, six books; A Political Treatise dealing with important crises, four books; Of Social Customs, four books; Of the Best Constitution, one book; ... On Kingship, two books; ... How states can best be governed, s one book; ... Concerning politics, two books&dquo; (V.45-50).1 Diogenes Laertius, therefore, provides us with evidence that both Aristotle and Theophrastus had written extensively on politics. Even more perplexing, he cites an early catalogue describing the scrolls most akin to our present Politics, in eight books, as being somehow related to the lectures of Theophrastus. Given the origins of the Aristotelian corpus as a composite edited by Andronicus, and a number of peculiarities discussed below in Section III, it seems plausible to hypothesize that the book now known as The Politics combines Aristotles own lectures with those of Theophrastus (and perhaps other members of his school). This hypothesis cannot, of course, be proven irrefutably. Since the treatise has been conventionally described for almost two millennia as the work of one man, for most purposes it is probably appropriate to treat Aristotles Politics in the traditional manner. Compared to other philoLaertius. In the
[36]
sophical positions, therefore, one can speak of &dquo;Aristotles political thought&dquo; as a unity, even though it may historically represent Andronicus of Rhodes synthesis of the Peripatetic School of thought. This is precisely the procedure used in contemporary biblical scholarship : &dquo;The first five books of the Bible make up a group which was known
The Law and for many centuries all five of the books were as the sole or principle author. However, modern study of the texts has revealed a variety of styles, a lack of sequence and such repetitions and variations in narrative that it is impossible to ascribe the whole group to a single author; four distinct literary traditions can be identified and found side by side in the Pentateuch.&dquo;16 Despite this historical origin, one can speak of &dquo;the Mosaic religion&dquo; and &dquo;the Mosaic law&dquo;; although &dquo;the modifications required by changing conditions over some seven centuries were presented as interpretations of the mind of Moses and invested themselves with his authority,&dquo; discovery of the complex evolution of the Pentateuch does not necessarily challenge its 7 divine origin. ~ ~ The example of Biblical scholarship thus shows the possibility of analyzing the historical origins and development of the major texts in the Western tradition. Moreover, this example indicates that the structural unity of a religious or philosophic position need not be denied merely because the texts in our possession have been subjected to historical analysis. This parallel does, however, suggest an interesting paradox in the history of science: why have classical scholars generally failed to apply the canons of Biblical exegesis to the secular works like Aristotles Politics? Why should the supposedly &dquo;sacred&dquo; texts have been scrutinized to discover the human conditions of their origins, whereas the nontheological or human writings of Aristotle are treated as if such a historical analysis 8 would &dquo;profane&dquo; the classics?&dquo;
as
to the Jews
attributed to Moses
III.
Aristotle, Theophrastus, and
the Politics
It is not possible here to engage in a detailed analysis of the entire text of the Politics, in the hopes of disentangling the possible contributions of Aristotle, Theophrastus, or other Peripetetics. While detailed stylistic analysis might conceivably be used to this end, for preliminary purposes it is sufficient to focus on a more evident problem. As has been mentioned, the last sentence of Book III is repeated almost verbatim at the outset of Book VII (the principal difference being that the text at the end of Book
[37]
III breaks off in the middle of the sentence-as would be the case if a scroll 9 had been tom or broken to insert new material). 1 The relation of Books IV-VI to the remainder of the Politics is therefore an obvious problem, which has been discussed even by scholars who presumed that Aristotle himself wrote the entire work. In part, this question can be addressed in terms of the content of the various Books of the Politics. Books IV through VI specify the consequences which flow from the presence or predominance of varied economic interests and groups in a society, and contain a detailed analysis of how regimes change as well as how statesmen can preserve even defective constitutions. Books IV through VI thus differ markedly from Books I to III, VII, and VIII, which generally analyze political problems and classify forms of government in relation to the &dquo;best regime.&dquo; In the light of the argument presented in Section II, one plausible explanation is that Books IV, V, and VI of the traditional text of the Politics contain lectures by Theophrastus, and were inserted in Aristotles lectures by Andronicus of Rhodes.2Evidence for this interpretation might be found in Ciceros comparison between Aristotle and Theophrastus. Describing their political writings prior to Andronicus compilation, Cicero says: &dquo;From Aristotle we learn the manners, customs and institutions, and from Theophrastus the laws also, of nearly all the states not only of Greece but of the barbarians as well. Both described the proper qualifications of a statesman, both moreover wrote lengthy treatises on the best form of constitution; Theophrastus treated the subject more fully, discussing the forces and occasions of political change, and their control as circumstances demand. &dquo;21 The last sentence of this passage by Cicero seems to describe the contents of Books IV-VI of the Politics. Yet for Cicero, who apparently had access to the original works of both Aristotle and Theophrastus,2the study of &dquo;the forces and occasions of political change, and their control as circumstances demand&dquo; were only found in the writings of Theophrastus. Lest this one citation seem insufficient, careful study of another passage in which Cicero compares Aristotle and Theophrastus seemingly confirms this hypothesis. In Book III of his Laws, Cicero turns to the 3 legislation for the best state with respect to magistracies.2 After presenting specific legal provisions which Quintus describes as &dquo;practically the same as those of our own State [i.e., Rome] &dquo; (III.v.12), Cicero agrees to discuss the &dquo;reasons&dquo; for so doing, &dquo;treating the whole subject in
[38]
accordance with the investigations and discussions of the most learned of the Greek writers&dquo; (III.v.13). Cicero then sketches the history of practically oriented discussions of the legislation concerning magistrates:
[Cicero]: However, I included a great deal of general matter on this subject in my former work [sc. De Re Publica] , as was necessary in an inquiry into the nature of the ideal State; but on this topic of the magistrates there are certain special points which have been investigated first by Theophrastus, and then with greater accuracy by Diogenes the Stoic.
Marcus
Atticus: Do you really
mean to
say that
even
the Stoics have treated these
problems?
M.: None of them except the philosopher I have just mentioned, and, after his time, the eminent and very learned Panaetius. For though the older Stoics also discussed the State, and with keen insight, their discussions were purely theoretical and not intended, as mine is, to be useful to nations and citizens. The other school led by Plato provides most of our present material. After him Aristotle and Heraclides of Pontus, another of Platos pupils, illuminated this whole subject of the constitution of the State by their discussions. And, as you know, Aristotles pupil Theophrastus specialized in such topics. Dicaearchus, another of Aristotles disciples, did not neglect this field of thought and investigation. Later a follower of Theophrastus, Demetrius of Phalerum, whom I mentioned before, had remarkable success in bringing learning out of its shady bowers and scholarly seclusion, not merely into the sunlight and the 24 dust, but even into the very battle-line and center of the conflict.
This passage has been cited at length, with the addition of emphasis, to bring out three major points which are generally ignored in the conventional histories of political thought. First, Cicero treats Aristotle as a member of &dquo;the other school led by Plato&dquo; (as distinct from the Stoics). This view is asserted repeatedly by Cicero, notably in the Offices: &dquo;the older Academicians and... your Peripatetics (who were once the same as the Academicians).&dquo;2Writing before the compilation of Andronicus, and on the basis of manuscripts which had again become available, Cicero thus does not equate the subsequent development of the Peripatetic school with Aristotles own position; on the contrary, Aristotle himself is treated as essentially
Platonic.
Second, and perhaps more relevant, Cicero speaks of Theophrastus as the pupil of Aristotle who &dquo;as you know ... specialized in such topics&dquo; as the legislation concerning magistracies. Before Andronicus compilation, Theophrastus was thus known, in his own right, as a major political
[39]
is led to wonder, therefore, why a Greek thinker known to &dquo;specialized&dquo; in such crucial topics as the laws should have substantially disappeared. In addition to the loss of Aristotles dialogues, we seem to have a case of literary assassination on our hands! Third, and particularly germaine to the authorship of Books IV to VI of our Politics, Cicero flatly asserts that it was Theophrastus who was the &dquo;first&dquo; to investigate &dquo;certain special points&dquo; related to &dquo;magistrates.&dquo; This assertion parallels the argument in De Finibus cited above; while the Laws does not specify that the &dquo;special points&dquo; concern &dquo;the forces and occasions of political change and their control as circumstances demand,&dquo; it suggests that the political writings of Theophrastus on &dquo;the topic of magistrates&dquo; have a greater detail and practical orientation than those of Aristotle. If we turn to Books IV through VI, this impression is sharply confirmed by the text, which extends Aristotles mode of analysis to 7 practical details not covered elsewhere in the Politics. 2 Books I-III, VII, and VIII of the Politics may have been entirely written by Aristotle, or they may constitute Andronicus compilation of lectures by both Aristotle and Theophrastus; as Cicero says, &dquo;each of them taught what sort of man a leader in the state should be,&dquo;28 and &dquo;also wrote at great length to explain what was the best constitution for a state.&dquo;29 But a close reading of Cicero, one of the rare witnesses who explicitly refers to
theorist.2One
have
Aristotles political teaching before Andronicus compilation, suggests that the material now known as Books IV-VI-material which seems to be inserted between Books III and VII-could be by Theophrastus.3 0 While it would be intriguing to try to confirm this hypothesis by a computer analysis of textual style, superficial evidence can be found in a number of otherwise puzzling details.31 Most of the cross-references in the text of Books IV-VI are to other passages in these three books, rather than to material in Books I-III, VII, or VIII. Some of the exceptions explicitly refer to &dquo;our first part,&dquo; and could be attributed to Andronicus as editor.3More concretely, there is a major difficulty in the classification of political systems in the Politics, related to a curious passage which apparently refers to Platos dialogue, The Statesman. At IV.ii.1289a, the Politics refers to the classification of six regimes, three of which are &dquo;good&dquo;-monarchy, aristocracy, and &dquo;polity&dquo;-and three perverted or &dquo;bad&dquo;-tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. 31 Of this classification, the text remarks: &dquo;Tyranny, therefore, is the worst, and at the farthest remove of all the perversions from a true constitution: oligarchy, being as it is far removed from aristocracy, is the next worst:
[40]
our predecessors [Plato, in his has already advanced the same view, but he used a different principle.&dquo;34 The brackets, added by Barker, follow the conventional interpretation that the phrase &dquo;one of our predecessors&dquo; was written by Aristotle himself, and thus refers to Plato; and, indeed, the dialogue known as the Politicus or Statesman does contain a classification of regimes corresponding to that of the Politics. It is curious, however, that elsewhere in the Politics, not only in the criticism of the Republic and the Laws, but in Books IV-VI, Plato is referred to by name.3Moreover, the classification of regimes in the Statesman differs sharply from that in the Republic, where democracy is viewed as a more perverted regime than oligarchy. In contrast, both the Statesman and the Politics view oligarchy as more perverted than democracy in the decisive respect. Both the substantive differences in the classification of regimes, and the oddity of the reference to the author of the Statesman merely as &dquo;one of our predecessors,&dquo; give rise to the following hypothesis. If Theophrastusrather than Aristotle himself-wrote Books IV to VI, then &dquo;one of our predecessors&dquo; (IV.ii.1289b) could have been a reference by Theophrastus (himself Aristotles successor as head of the Lyceum) to Aristotle. 3If so, could the Statesman be one of the supposedly lost dialogues written by Aristotle as a young man at the Academy? Before turning to a discussion of this hypothesis, a further puzzle in Book IV of the Politics needs to be mentioned. In discussing the classification of regimes, not long after the reference to &dquo;one of our predecessors,&dquo; the text reads:
democracy
is the most moderate. One of
dialogue
the
Politicus]
There
are
still two forms of constitution left, besides democracy and
oligarchy. One of these is usually reckoned, and has indeed already been mentioned, as one of the four main forms of constitution, which are counted as being kingship, oligarchy, democracy, and the form called aristocracy.
There is, however, a fifth form, in addition to these four. It is called by the generic name common to all the forms-the name of &dquo;constitution&dquo; or &dquo;polity&dquo;-but being of rare occurrence it has not been noticed by the writers who attempt to classify the different forms of constitution; and they usually 7 limit themselves, as Plato does, to an enumeration of only four forms.... ~ ~
Here we are flatly told that Plato did not recognize the regime which Aristotle called a &dquo;polity,&dquo; using the generic name for all regimes (politeia) as the specific name for a good form of democracy. But the Statesman, traditionally attributed to Plato, admits the existence of such a form of
[41]
that, so shortly after the reference to &dquo;one of which supposedly confirms that Plato wrote the predecessors,&dquo; Statesman, a passage refers to Plato by name in a way contradicting his authorship of the same dialogue?
not curious
our
government. Is it
IV. Who Wrote the Statesman and the Sophist?

While some nineteenth century scholars argued that the Statesman was written by Aristotle, this interpretation has been conventionally rejected on the grounds that the Statesman, Theaetatus, and Sophist form a trilogy, which was apparently to be followed by a dialogue called The Philosopher. Attribution of one of these dialogues to the young Aristotle would thus seem to entail his authorship of all three, or at least of bpth the Sophist 8 and Statesman. 3 It is generally recognized, however, that the Theaetatus was written before the Sophist and Statesman (or the supposed fourth dialogue on the Philosopher): &dquo;It does not appear that at the time of writing the Theaetetus, Plato had distinctly planned the other three.&dquo;39 Moreover, the style at the end of the Theaetetus seems to shift markedly toward a very different manner of writing, which also characterizes the Sophist and Statesman .4 0 Hence, one could admit that the Theaetatus-except perhaps for its conclusion-is an authentic work of Plato without proving that he wrote the entire trilogy. Both the Sophist and the Statesman, in which the main speaker is an &dquo;Eleatic Stranger&dquo; rather than Socrates, are unambiguously attributed to 1 Plato by Diogenes Laertius.41 But Diogenes Laertius also attributes to Plato a number of writings now generally thought spurious, such as the Alcibiades II. And, in his list of the writings of Aristotle, Diogenes includes both &dquo;Of the Statesman, two books&dquo; and &dquo;The Sophist, one book&dquo; as well as &dquo;On Philosophy, three books. ,,41 Moreover, there is good reason to believe that Aristotles Statesman and Sophist were dialogues, since they are listed at the beginning of Diogenes catalogue, which starts with &dquo;dialogues and other exoteric works.&dquo;4From Diogenes Laertius, therefore, we can only learn that by the third century AD the extant Sophist and Statesman were attributed to Plato-even though dialogues of the same titles had been included in old catalogues of Aristotles writings.
[42]
The conventional answer to this puzzle has been that Aristotle refers to the Sophist in his Metaphysics: &dquo;The authenticity of the Sophist is sufficiently attested to by the precise allusions of Aristotle (Met. K, 8.1064b29, N.2.1089a2 and following) and his borrowing (Met. B.1000a9 and following compared to Soph. 243a).&dquo;44 But these passages are not explicit citations of the Sophist, similar to Aristotles specific references to the Republic or Laws. For example, the supposed decisive text in Book K merely says: &dquo;Plato was not wrong when he said that the Sophist spends his time on non-being&dquo; (XI.8.1064b); similarly Metaphysics VI.2.1026b reads: &dquo;And so Plato was in a sense not wrong in ranking Sophistic as dealing with that which is not.>4 Therefore one could interpret these texts to mean that Plato, speaking to his students in the Academy, argued that &dquo;the sophist spends his time on non-being.&dquo; Could Aristotle, as a young man at the Academy, have written a dialogue which makes this point explicit (see Sophist, 237a)? Turning to the text of the Sophist and the Statesman, we find several peculiarities, since they seem much closer to Aristotle than to other Platonic dialogues. As Campbell admits, the dialogues &dquo;in which an Eleatic stranger is the chief spokesman&dquo;-i.e., the Sophist and Statesman-&dquo;may still be Platos, although they seem pervaded by a pedantic consciousness of method not found in others. ,,46In addition to the classification of regimes, which has already been mentioned, there are numerous substan7 tive similarities between the Statesman and Aristotles political teaching 4 The Sophist, which criticizes the &dquo;Friends of the Forms&dquo; (248a-249d) and qualifies the doctrine of the &dquo;Forms&dquo; or &dquo;ideas&dquo; in the Republic, has been interpreted as Platos criticism of the extreme interpretation of his teaching by his own students.4Yet Cicero-the authority in antiquity who consulted and explicitly cited Aristotle before Andronicus compilation-denies that Plato was the author of the earliest qualification of the doctrine of the &dquo;Ideas&dquo;: &dquo;Aristotle, then, was the first to undermine the doctrine of species [I,e., Ideas], which I have just now mentioned, and which Plato had embraced in wonderful manner; so that he even affirmed that there was something divine in it. But Theophrastus, a man of very delightful eloquence, and of such purity of morals that his probity and integrity were notorious to all men, broke down more vigorously still the authority of the old school; for he stripped virtue of its beauty, and made it powerless, by denying that to live happily depended solely on it.&dquo;4In other words, Cicero tells us that Aristotle diverged from Plato, but that it
explicitly
[43]
Theophrastus who completed the shift in the direction usually 0 attributed to Aristotle. 5 as the Statesman seems closer to Aristotles Politics than to Platos Just Republic-or at least intermediate between them, so the Sophist attributed to Plato seems intermediate between the Platonic doctrine of the &dquo;Ideas&dquo; and the metaphysical doctrines attributed to the Aristotle of Andronicus compilation. Moreover, the Statesman and Sophist represent a sharp stylistic break from the other Platonic dialogues. Of the many words which appear in the Statesman and Sophist, but in no other Platonic dialogue, quite a few also appear in the Aristotelian corpus.51 To be sure, demonstration of authorship would only be convincing if computer analysis of common words, stylistic traits, and sentence length shows affinities of the Statesman and Sophist with known writings by Aristotle, as well as divergences of these dialogues with the Platonic corpus. All that has been suggested here, therefore# is a plausible hypothesis that might be considered a useful basis for future research.
was
V. The Politics of Aristotles Political Teaching

Two related hypotheses have been proposed: first, that Books IV to VI of the Politics were originally the lectures of Theophrastus; second, as a consequence, that several of Aristotles dialogues in the Platonic style, supposedly lost, were merely attributed to Plato himself. But why might one wish to verify such a reattribution of authorship? If scholars have not felt the need to clarify the puzzles discussed to this point for some two millennia, is there any point-beyond pedantic trivia-in future analysis of the texts in question? In the introductory remarks, it was pointed out that biblical scholarship has focused on the historical origins of the Old and New Testaments. Such research has greatly deepened our understanding of early Hebrew religion and the evolution of Christianity. At the same time, the emergence of the sociology of knowledge has led to a greater appreciation of the significance of political and social factors in the history of science.sWould we learn anything about Aristotles political teaching, therefore, if the canons of biblical scholarship and computer analysis of authorship were applied to Aristotles Politics as well as the dialogues now known as Platos Statesman and Sophist?
[44]
research were to confirm one or both of the hypotheses it would follow that Aristotle himself was substantially closer to Plato than now appears from the Aristotelian corpus. Both in metaphysics and in political philosophy, the views conventionally attributed to Aristotle seem-at least in part-those of Theophrastus and subsequent Peripatetic thinkers. Since Cicero provides evidence for such an interpretation, the divergences now presumed to exist between Plato and Aristotle may have been substantially exaggerated by Andronicus of Rhodes when he edited the original scrolls to create the Aristotelian 3 corpus that was transmitted to modem times.~ ~ But why should Andronicus have modified the substance of Aristotles position and obliterated the independent authorship of Theophrastus when he edited the manuscripts that had been brought to Rome by Sulla? In any investigation of missing or stolen property, not to mention assassinations (even if only literary), it is well to discover a plausible motive. Without such an explanation, there is no reason to devote substantial resources to the case; after all, if changes in the attribution and content of the texts of classical philosophers were entirely due to chance, there can be but little reason to consider these details as matters for serious research. It is, however, not too hard to conjecture why Andronicus might have exaggerated the differences between Plato and Aristotle when restructuring the scrolls inherited from the Peripatetic school. The importation of Greek rhetoric and philosophy had long been a political issue in Republican Rome.5With the civil wars and the end of the Republic, new means of education became necessary-especially insofar as the republican &dquo;cursus honorem&dquo; was no longer relevant for the training and selection of imperial bureaucrats. Andronicus reconstitution of the Peripatetic school in Rome, between 40 and 20 BC, must be seen in this political context. His edited version of the works attributed to Aristotle provided the basic curriculum for educating a specific clientele. And, it could be argued, the more &dquo;Platonic&dquo; and idealistic overtones of the early works of Aristotle would have been less well suited to the training of leaders during and after the &dquo;revolution&dquo; which destroyed the Republic in favor of the incipient Roman Empire. The doctrines which Cicero attributes to Theophrastus, in contrast, would have been more appropriate for the elite in which the traditional nobility was replaced by a coalition of men of wealth, soldiers, and adminisIf subsequent proposed above,
*5 traitors. 5
[45]
One need not presume conscious dishonesty on the part of Andronicus; sufficient, for the hypothesis presented here, that his compilation was guided in part by the social and political exigencies of Rome in the first century BC. As the sociology of knowledge has shown, such constraints could account for the tendency to select-as the work of Aristotle-those writings which were the farthest from Plato and emphasized &dquo;the forces and occasions of political change, and their control as circumstances demand&dquo; (as Cicero put it). In the period of the fall of the Roman Republic, Theophrastus denial of the Platonic teaching-to wit, that &dquo;to live happily depended solely&dquo; on virtue-would be consistent with the 6 likely attitudes of the future men of affairs taught by Andronicus.5
it is
VI. The Problem of Empire in Aristotles Politics

way the above In so doing, it should be strongly emphasized that the historical circumstances surrounding the transmission of this text do not undermine its importance in the Western political tradition. On the contrary, it can be argued that the Aristotle of Andronicus compilation provides, in the work known as the Politics, one of the fundamental approaches to political thought in the Wests Indeed, contemporary research in the biological sciences even suggests that this position may be superior to that of other theorists, 8 especially in modern times.5 Precisely because Aristotles thought appears to be serious and relevant, however, it is important to understand it as fully as we can. In other words, the principal reason for pursuing the hypothesis set forth above is that, in any serious consideration of political philosophy, one must be open to the possibility that Aristotles understanding of human life is substantially true. In such an endeavor the usual practice has been to assume that the text of the Politics now in our possession was simply 9 written by Aristotle himself Does the hypothesis that Andronicus combined lectures by Aristotle and Theophrastus therefore have a substantive effect on ones reading of the Politics? It has often been noted that Aristotles emphasis on the Greek polis is somewhat anachronistic. During the period of Aristotles teaching at the Lyceum, when he is conventionally said to have written the Politics, Greek
It is probably well to give interpretation might influence
concrete
our
example of the reading of the Politics.
[46]
cities were progressively losing their autonomy. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king who had been Aristotles own student, was in the process of conquering an immense-albeit temporary-empire. Nor was Aristotle unaware of these events. Quite the contrary, Aristotles nephew Callisthenes accompanied Alexander, sending biological specimens from Asia to be studied at Aristotles school. Moreover, when Aristotle returned to Athens around 335 BC to found the Lyceum, he must necessarily have been aware of the rise of the Macedonian empire: &dquo;The Athens to which he returned was still, in form, a free city; but it was not the old free city which he had left in 347. The battle of Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, had made Greece a Macedonian protectorate, with its city-states associated under the protecting power in the League of Corinth. The dominant figure in Greece, for the rest of Aristotles life, was the Macedonian Antipater, who had been left by Alexander to govern Macedonia and supervise Greek affairs.... Antipaters ideas and policies have some bearing on Aristotles life, and may even have affected the development of his political views and theories. The two men had already become close friends in Macedonia: they kept in touch, and in correspondence, during all the last period of Aristotles life.... &dquo;60 Needless to add, if the Politics was in part written by Theophrastus, the anomalous tendency to treat the Greek polis as the best form of society is even more striking. By the time of the compilation of Aristotles corpus by Andronicus of Rhodes (c. 40 to 20 BC), there could no longer have been any question of the ability of empires to conquer the small-scale cities of Greece. Yet in Book V of the Politics, the exhaustive discussion of the causes of political change simply ignores foreign conquest-even though this way of establishing new regimes should have been clear from the experience of Athens itself, not to mention the rise of Macedonia (or the subsequent emergence of the Roman empire). We are thus led to conclude that the author or authors of the Politics were fully conscious that a study of political life which presents the Greek polis as the &dquo;best&dquo; regime was paradoxical. When the text is reread on the assumption that this apparent bias is quite intentional, we are struck by a number of things. First, the references to empires are actually rather frequent, though in no case is there a special discussion of empire as such.61 Second, the argument against a large-scale monarchy or empire is explicitly based on the vulnerability of such regimes to violent overthrow. Having cited such examples as the assassination of Xerxes, Sardanapalus of
[47]
Assyria,
and the Persian satrap Ariobarzanes, as well as attacks on several Macedonian rulers (V.x.1311b ; ed. Barker, pp. 238-239, 242-243), the text concludes: &dquo;The less the area of his prerogative, the longer will the authority of a king last unimpaired: he will himself be less of a master and behave more like an equal, and his subjects, on their side, will envy him
less&dquo; (V.xi.1313a; p. 243).

Third, and more important, Aristotle repeatedly emphasizes the importance of a small political community on its own grounds. In developing his conception of the &dquo;best&dquo; regime, Aristotle explicitly rejects the equation of &dquo;greatness&dquo; with size of population or territory (VII Jv. 1325b-v.1327a; pp. 290-293). In good part, this argument rests on
Aristotles notion of the natural limitations on human action: &dquo;states [i.e., cities-poleis], like all other things (animals, plants, and inanimate instruments), have a definite measure of size. Any object will lose its power of performing its function if it is either small or of an excessive size.... We may take the example of a ship. A ship which is only 6 inches in length, or is as much as 1,200 feet long, will not be a ship at all, and even a ship of more moderate size may still cause difficulties of navigation, either because it is not large enough or because it is unwieldily large&dquo;
(VII iv. 1326a-b; p. 291).62

For Aristotle, natural limits of the size of a viable human community explain why empires, though possible, are defective and undesirable: &dquo;Most men are believers in the cause of empire, on the ground that empire leads to a large accession of material prosperity&dquo; (VII.xiv.1333b; p. 318). The difficulty of such empires is that they necessarily rest on conquest, and can only be maintained by military force. The only alternative would be the rule of a single man who was so outstanding that his control over masses of subjects could be justified by ability or merit. But while Aristotle knew of empires in which the ruler claimed such preeminence, he denies that an all powerful or Godlike emperor is truly natural: &dquo;we have nothing in actual life like the gulf between kings and subjects which the writer Scylax describes as existing in India&dquo; (VII.xiv.1332b; p. 315). Ultimately, Aristotle is far more critical of elitism than is usually supposed: &dquo;We may therefore draw the conclusion, which can be defended on many grounds, that all should share alike in a system of government under which they rule and are ruled by turns&dquo; (ibid.). Far from contradicting the hypothesis presented here, the treatment of empire in the text of the Politics corresponds roughly to the interests and
perspectives of the Roman elite
in the first
century BC. Sons of the old
[48]
could find solace in the criticism of unlimited personal power, while future imperial bureaucrats had every reason to seek to strengthen the element of law as a restraint on the Caesar himself. After Augustus stabilized his rule as &dquo;Princeps,&dquo; ruling through the forms of the Republican constitution in order to &dquo;establish continuity with a legitimate government,&dquo;6the teaching of the Politics was all the more suitable for the education of Roman gentlemen. It is probably no accident, for example, that an Imperial administrator like Tacitus indicates a personal nostalgia for republican principles, and accepts the constraints of his epoch as a necessary evil .14 As one recent editor has put it: &dquo;That is perhaps the most important word the Politics brings us today-to face things as they are and to do our best to correct abuses. This is realism-not 5 in the narrow platonic sense-but as we ordinarily use the word.&dquo;6
nobility
VII. Conclusion
It is, of course, not traditional to apply the sociology of knowledge and the canons of biblical exegesis to the texts of classical philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. But it is surprising that the approach of biblical criticism, which has led to an awareness of the historical character of our text of the Old Testament, has not been applied to Aristotle-despite the evidence that his works were transformed by the editorial compilation of Andronicus. And when we place the work of Andronicus in its historical context, we find plausible reasons for his inclusion of Theophrastus lectures in the Politics-and for attributing the Sophist and Statesman to
Plato.
Such an explanation is also aesthetically pleasing, since it has been difficult to understand why none of Aristotles early dialogues had survived, even though they are so explicitly cited in the Politics: &dquo;It is easy enough to distinguish the various kinds of rule or authority of which men commonly speak; and indeed we have often had occasion to define them ourselves in works intended for the general public&dquo; (III.Vi.1278b); &dquo;The nature of the best life is a theme which has already been treated by us in works intended for the general public&dquo; (VII.i.1323a).66 Note that both of these explicit references to &dquo;exoteric discourses&dquo; occur in parts of the Politics that, on the above hypothesis, were principally written by Aristotle himself-and that the subjects would have been included in the Statesman and Sophist.
[49]
The two hypotheses that Theophrastus wrote Books IV-VI of the Politics, and that Aristotle is the author of the Platonic dialogues known as the Sophist and Statesman, thus clarify many anomalies. If one or both are confirmed, however, the consequence would merely be an interesting footnote to Western intellectual history; whether Aristotle himself wrote only Books I-III, VII, and VIII of the Politics, all of it, or none of it, the resulting work sets forth a cogent orientation to political life which 7 dominated Western thought for centuries.6 the intellectual power and status of classical philosophy Like the Bible, is only confirmed by an open-minded and scholarly analysis of its origins. Such a procedure is all the more justified by Aristotles own method, which combines study of the &dquo;growth&dquo; of a thing with emphasis on its &dquo;end&dquo; or &dquo;perfection&dquo; as something transcending material causation. It would perhaps be fitting, therefore, if future studies of the history of classical texts were to show that the thought of Aristgtle himself was surprisingly close to that of his master, Plato.
NOTES
1. Jacob Klein, "Aristotle, An Introduction," in Joseph Cropsey (ed.), Ancients and Moderns (N.Y., Basic Books, 1964), p. 50. 2. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, V.22-27; ed. R. D. Hicks (Loeb Classical Library; Heinemann, 1925), I, 464-475. Writing in the second or third century AD, Diogenes Laertius speaks of Aristotles "remarkable" output, "as is shown by the catalogue of his writings given above, which come to nearly 400 in number, i.e., counting those only the genuineness of which is not disputed. For many other written works... are attributed to him." Ibid., V.34 (pp. 480-481), italics added. Two other catalogues of Aristotles works have survived, one published
by Hesychius and the other by Ptolemy the Philosopher; see Ingemar Durings definitive Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition (Goteborg, Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensi, V, 1957). On Aristotles "exoteric works"-notably the —see Protrepticus and the dialogues Eudemus and On Philosophy Werner Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development (Oxford, Clarendon, 1934), ch. iii, iv, vi; and Anton-Hermann Chroust, "A Brief Account of the Reconstruction of Aristotles Protrepticus," Classical Philology, LX (October 1965), 229-239. For a summary of scholarship on the dialogues of Aristotle, see Alben Lesky, A History of Greek Literature (London, Methuen, 1966), pp. 552-556. 3. For the history of the Aristotelian manuscripts, see the famous edition of the Politics of Aristotle by W. L. Newman (Oxford, Clarendon, 1887), II, i-lxvii; George Grote, Aristotle, ed. Bain and Robertson (London, John Murray, 1872), I, ch. ii; Aristotles Ethics and Politics, ed. John Gillies (London, Cadell & Davies, 1804), I, 37-55; and the classical authors cited (notably Strabo, whose Geography was
[50]
probably completed between 17 and 23 AD). According to the will of Theophrastus, "The whole of my library I give to Neleus. The garden and the walk and the houses adjoining the garden, all and sundry, I give and bequeath to such of my friends
hereinafter named as may wish to study literature there in common.... Let the community consist of Hipparchus, Neleus, Strato, Callinus, Demotimus, Demaratus, Callisthenes, Melantes, Pancreon, Nicippus." Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent
Philosophers, V.ii.52 (ed. Hicks, I, 504-505).

4. During, Aristotle, pp. 324, 392-395, 412-425. On the Lyceums organization and history, see John Patrick Lynch, Aristotles School (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972). Note the impact of "academic politics": Theophrastus will, presumably designed to assure the election Neleus—the son of Coriscus, an old colleague (see note 56)-proved disastrous when Strato was elected instead. 5. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, II.iv. 65-66 (ed. Hicks, I, 518-519). For Stratos will, see ibid., II.iii.61-62 (pp. 514-515): "I leave the school to Lyco, since of the rest some are too old and others too busy. But it would be well if the others would cooperate with him. I also give and bequeath to him all my books, except those of which I am the author, and all the furniture in the dining hall, the cushions and the drinking cups." After Lyco, Diogenes Laertius history contains only the lives of Demetrius Phalerius and Heraclides of Pontus-i.e., two Peripatetics earlier than Strato and Lyco. 6. On the difference between Platos works, whose transmission was assured by the Academy in Athens, and the Aristotelian texts, see George Grote, Plato (London, John Murray, 1865), I, ch. iv-v, esp. p. 140. On the great library at Alexandria, founded by Demetrius Phalerius for King Ptolemy Soter between 307 and 285 BC, see Edward Alexander Parsons, The Alexandrian Library (Amsterdam, Elsevier, 1952); P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, Clarendon, 1972), ch. vi; and Robert W. Smith, The Art of Rhetoric in Alexandria (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1974). Although "we know very little about the functioning of the library and the works which might be found there" (Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, I, 330), it can be assumed that some works by Aristotle and Theophrastus were among the 200,000 books Demetrius Phalerius apparently secured for Ptolemy (Parsons, The Alexandrian Library, p. 137). But did Demetrius get copies of the "esoteric" writings (i.e., lecture notes), or merely the "exoteric" or published works, like Aristotles dialogues and Protrepticus? After the death of Theophrastus (287 BC), Neleus sold much of the Lyceums library to King Ptolemy Philadelphus, but Parsons concludes that the sale consisted primarily of the vast collection assembled by Aristotle and his successor, with Neleus retaining "many of the personal manuscripts of Aristotle and Theophrastus." Ibid., pp. 12-15, 163. Strabos account, according to which the lecture notes were buried in Skepsis and generally unavailable before the first century, is thus not contradicted by the evidence concerning the library at Alexandria-which is hardly surprising since Strabo himself visited that library, and might have known if the "esoteric" writings were there. Ibid. pp. 61-63, 376. It is, of course, possible that some of the lecture notes of Aristotle and Theophrastus circulated in Greece or Alexandria after Neleus left the Lyceum (Lynch, Aristotles School, pp. 146-149; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, II, 474). But despite Aristotles fame and indirect influence, his "scholarly treatises and opinions were little known
[51]
outside the inner circle of the Peripatos"; "we have very few direct references to Aristotles writings from the Hellenistic period before the edition of Andronicus" (During, Aristotle, pp. 324, 365). 7. See the passage of Porphyrys Life of Plotinus, ch. xxiv, cited by Newman, The Politics of Aristotle, I, iv. On the edition of Andronicus, see During, Aristotle, ch. xviii. 8. Newman, The Politics of Aristotle, I, xiv-xx. 9. Aristotles Politics, ed. Ernest Barker (Oxford, Clarendon, 1946), pp. 152, 278. 10. Ibid., pp. 152-153. 11. Jaeger, Aristotle, ch. x, esp. pp. 267-268. 12. For a review of the literature, see Barkers edition of the Politics, pp. xxxvii-xlvi. 13. Felix Grayeff, Aristotle and His School (N.Y., Barnes & Noble, 1974), pp. 9-10, 77. See also Grayeffs "The Problem of the Genesis of Aristotles Text," Phronesis, I (May 1956), 105-122; Chauncey E. Finch, "A Non-Aristotelian Simile in Metaphysics 2.1," Classical Philology, LXV (Jan. 1970), 44-47. 14. See Newmans Politics, II, i-xx, xxxii-xxxv, as well as the edition of Franz Sisemuhl and R. D. Hicks (London, Macmillan, 1894), pp. 14-15. It should be added that Grayeff makes some extreme assumptions that one need not share. Writing in 1956, Grayeff argued that the history of Aristotles manuscripts followed above was an attempt by Strabo to discredit Andronicus edition ("The Problem of the Genesis of Aristotles Text," p. 106-107). But Grayeff presents no evidence of hostility between Strabo and Andronicus, and his speculation ("It is not unlikely ... I suggest ... Presumably ... ") is based on three unexamined assumptions: first, the library of Neleus was not the only source of the Aristotelian texts edited by Andronicus; second, copies of virtually all of Aristotles works existed at the Peripatetic schools of Athens, Rhodes, and Alexandria; and third, at each of these schools, Peripatetics continually added to Aristotles lectures. As a result, Grayeff argues that Andronicus compilation included passages from numerous scholars in three different Peripatetic schools. These hypotheses contradict the only contemporary evidence we have, namely Ciceros writings. Cicero was a contemporary—and according to some accounts friend—of Tyrannion, the scholar who first procured the library of Neleus from Sulla and transmitted it to Andronicus; hence, Ciceros comments on the Peripatetic school provide our most reliable information on the materials available to Andronicus. In Ciceros De Finibus, V.iv.9ff., Piso presents the teachings of the Peripatetics; after indicating the differences between Aristotle and Theophrastus (esp. V.v.12), he adds: "let us then limit ourselves to these authorities. Their successors are indeed in my opinion superior to the philosophers of any other school, but are so unworthy of their ancestry that one might imagine them to have been their own teachers." V.v.12, ed. H. Rackham (Loeb Classical Library; London, Heinemann, 1931), pp. 404-405, italics added. Piso then makes it clear that each scholar wrote his own works, rather than merely adding to Aristotles lecture notes (as Grayeff assumes). These inferences from Cicero are amply confirmed by Diogenes Laertius, whose catalogues of Aristotle and Theophrastus include "compendia" or "epitomes" of earlier writings as well as works with titles identical to those of their
[52]
predecessors (Lives, V.i.22,24-26 (ed. Hicks, 1,464-467) and V.ii.43-44,49 (pp. 491, 499)); we find no such titles, which presuppose the use of a library, in the catalogues of Strato (ibid., V.iii.59-60; pp. 511-513) or Demetrius Phalerius (ibid., V.v.80-81; pp. 533-535), not to mention Lyco. Grayeffs speculations are also inconsistent with scholarship on Theophrastus Metaphysics, said to have been unknown to Hermippus (c. 200 BC) and probably edited by Tyrannion in the first century BC; the first explicit mention and attribution of this text is by Nicolaus of Damascus in 25 BC: W. D. Ross and F. H. Fobes, Theophrastus Metaphysics (Oxford, Clarendon, 1929), pp. ix, xxiv. There is thus considerable evidence in favor of Strabos account; as Lesky puts it (History of Greek Literature, pp. 578-579), "there is no room for doubt" on this score. See also Durings explicit critique of Grayeff (Aristotle, pp. 393-395, 462). Perhaps aware of these contradictions, Grayeff developed an entirely new hypothesis in Aristotle and His School (1974): since the Peripatetic school declined upon the death of Lyco in 225 BC, Grayeff argues that the "Peripatetic lecture records, all or some of those given to Neleus, were probably kept at Pergamum" (p. 72). Now, we are told, the tale of the burial of Neleus library was a fiction to legitimize the sale of scrolls acquired from the plunder of the Pergamum library or destined to be sent there (pp. 72-74). But this account is also questionable. First, Grayeff strangely changes the will of Theophrastus, making it appear that he specifically named Strato "as his heir" (p. 53); compare the text in note 3. Grayeff thus obscures the possible conflict between Neleus and Strato, which provides a plausible motive for Neleus to take Theophrastus library from the Lyceum. Similarly, Grayeff ignores the relation of Demetrius Phalerius to the founding of the library at Alexandria (note 6), instead speculating on the possible links between Lyco and the King of Pergamum. Finally, the creation of the Pergamene library occurred after the death of Theophrastus-and hence could not be used to disprove Strabos story (Parsons, The Alexandria Library, ch. iii). The most likely hypothesis, particularly with reference to the Politics, is therefore that Andronicus combined lectures by Aristotle and Theophrastus. It is not excluded, however, that Theophrastus himself began the process of inserting his own material in Aristotles lectures; the evidence is too meagre to permit more than conjectures. 15. Ed. Hicks, I. 469, 493-503. 16. The Jerusalem Bible (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1971), p. 3. 17. Ibid. Although studies of the historical origins and transmission of the Biblical texts are often called the "higher criticism," it would be wrong to assume that such research can prove or disprove the truth or divinity of any work. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that this level of study, while perhaps "lower" in dignity than other approaches, may sometimes be necessary to clarify difficulties that
cannot otherwise be decided.
18. Although this characterization of "higher criticism" in classical scholarship as ahistorical may seem harsh and inaccuratè, for evidence see Harold Cherniss, The Riddle of the Early Academy (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1945) and Aristotles Criticism of Plato and the Academy (N.Y., Russell & Russell, 1944). For a recent example, consider James Jerome Walsh, Aristotles Conception of Moral Weakness (N.Y., Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 186, n. 11. To be sure, there are exceptions-but they tend to prove the rule. On Grayeff s use of historical evidence, see note 14 above. Similarly, compare Jaeger, Aristotle, p. 5 with pp. 168,
[53]
176, and esp. 274, n. 3. Could it be that classicists have never unravelled the riddle of Aristotles text because it didnt occur to specialists in Greek that part of the answer lies in Ciceros Latin works? 19. Politics, ed. Barker, pp. 152-153. 20. Cf. Politics, ed. Sisemuhl and Hicks, p. 14, n. 4 and p. 15, n. 1. 21. De Finibus, V,iv.11 (ed. Rackam, pp. 402-403), italics added. For another version of this crucial phrase, see the translation of C. D. Young (London, Henry Behn, 1853), p. 246. Although During speculates that the work of Theophrastus to which Cicero refers is entitled Politikon pros tous kairous "A Political Treatise -i.e., dealing with Important Crises" (Aristotle, p. 428), there is no reason to assume that only this work is involved; Ciceros phrase might also refer to other works in the catalogue of Diogenes Laertius (see above). 22. Cf. Academic Questions, Lix (cited below at n. 48); Offices, I.i; II.xvi, xviii; De Finibus, V.v.12 (ed. Rackham, pp. 402-405); Laws, I.xiii.38; III.v.12-vi.14 (cited below, at n.23). Note especially the difference between Aristotle and Theophrastus explicitly described in Offices, II.xvi.56-57(trans. Walter Miller; Loeb Classical Library; London, Heinemann, 1913), pp. 227-229. 23. "But we, since we are providing a system of law for free nations and have presented our conception of the ideal State in our six earlier books [i.e., De Re ], Publica shall now propose laws appropriate to the kind of State there described, which we consider best. Accordingly we must have magistrates, for without their prudence and watchful care a State cannot exist. In fact the whole character of a republic is determined by its arrangements in regard to magistrates." Laws, III.ii.4-5 (trans. Clinton Walker Keyes; Loeb Classical Library; London, Heinemann, 1928), p. 461. Cf. the last sentence of this passage with Aristotles definition of the regime or constitution: "A constitution (or polity) may be defined as the organization of a polis in respect of its offices generally, but especially in respect of that particular office which is sovereign on all issues. The civic body is everywhere the sovereign of the state; in fact the civic body is the polity (or constitution) itself." Politics, III.vi.1278b (ed. Barker, p. 110). Cf. note 27. 24. Laws, III.v-vi.12-14 (ed. Keyes, pp. 473-475), italics added. Need it be remarked that Ciceros Laws takes place in the "shade" (I.iv.14 and v.15)? Elsewhere, Cicero says of Demetrius Phalerius-who will be recalled as the founder of the library at Alexandria (note 6)-that he was "unjustly banished from his country" (Athens) and, when with King Ptolemy, "he employed the leisure afforded by his disaster in composing a number of excellent treatises ... " De Finibus, V.xix.54 (ed. Rackham, pp. 454-455). Cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, V.v.75 (ed. Hicks, I, 526-529) and note 56 below: could it be that Cicero modeled his own career on Demetrius Phalerius? 25. Offices, III.iv.20 (ed. Miller, p. 287). Cf. also Laws, I.xxi.55: "Xenocrates, Aristotle, and the whole Platonic school" (ed. Keyes, p. 359). 26. The same impression arises from other citations of Theophrastus by Cicero: e.g., Laws, I.xiii.38 (ed. Keyes, p. 338); II.xvi.15 (p. 389); Offices, II.xvi.56 (ed. Miller, pp. 227-229). Cf. Quintilian, Institutions, III.i.14-15; III.vii.1; IX.iv.87-88 (similarities of Theophrastus and Aristotle); IV.i.32; VIII.i.2 (citing Theophrastus); and esp. III.viii. 62 ("as a rule" Theophrastus "is not afraid to differ from" Aristotle): ed. H. E. Butler, 4 vols. (Loeb Classical Library; London, Heinemann, 1920), I, 511.
[54]
27. Cf. Politics IV.i.1289a (ed. Barker pp. 156-157): "the student of politics should also learn to distinguish the laws which are absolutely best from those which are appropriate to each constitution. We use the phrase, appropriate to each constitution, because laws ought to be made to suit constitutions (as indeed in practice they always are), and not constitutions made to suit laws. The reason is this. A constitution may be defined as an organization of offices in a state, by which the method of their distribution is fixed, the sovereign authority is determined, and the nature of the end to be pursued by the association and all its members is prescribed. Laws, as distinct from the frame of the constitution, are the rules by which the magistrates should exercise their powers, and should watch and check transgressors.... If we assume that there is not a single form of democracy, or a single form of oligarchy, but a number of varieties of either, the same laws cannot possibly be equally beneficial to all oligarchies or to all democracies." Cf. the definition of the "constitution" cited in note 23. Although Aristotle describes the different kinds of monarchy in III.xiv.1285a, he focuses sharply on the problem posed by absolute monarchy, and does not enter into practical details concerning the different forms. Cf. the practical discussion in IV.xii.1296b ff. with note 47 below. 28. Cf. Politics, III.xiv-xvii.1284b-1288a (ed. Barker, pp. 137-151). 29. Cf. Politics, VII-VIII. 30. Cf. Politics, ed. Newman, II, i-xxxv. One of the major arguments that Books IV to VI were written by Aristotle is usually drawn from the conclusion of the Nicomachean Ethics (X.ix.1181b), which sets forth a plan for the Politics including these books: "First of all, then, let us try to review any discussion of merit contributed by our predecessors on some particular aspect; and then, on the basis of our collection of constitutions, let us study what sort of thing preserves and what destroys states, what preserves and destroys each particular kind of constitution, and what the causes are that make some states well administered and others not. Once we have studied this, we shall perhaps also gain a more comprehensive view of the best form of constitution, of the way in which each is organized, and what laws and customs are current in each." Trans. Martin Ostwald (Library of Liberal Arts; Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1962), p. 302. Since our Politics roughly follows this plan, it has appeared to commentators that Aristotle wrote the entire work. But once we recognize that Andronicus compiled both the Ethics and the Politics, it could just as readily follow that this transitional conclusion to the Ethics was an editorial addition. Such a reading might be confirmed by the correspondence between the words used in the Ethics to describe Books IV-VI of the Politics ("what sort of thing preserves and what destroys states, what preserves and destroys each particular kind of constitution") and Ciceros description of the subjects that Theophrastus was the "first" to discuss "more fully" ("the forces and occasions of political change, and their control as circumstances demand"— Finibus, V.iv.11). The phrase concluding De this part of the plan in the Ethics ("what the causes are that make some states well administered and others not") reminds one of the work entitled "How States Can Best Be Governed" in Diogenes catalogue of Theophrastus (quoted above). Finally, this interpretation clarifies the peculiar phrasing of the immediately preceding words in the Nicomachean Ethics. Just before the plan of the Politics just citied, the text reads: "Since previous writers have left the subject of legislation unexamined, it is perhaps best if we ourselves investigate it and the general problem of the constitution
[55]
a state, in order to complete as best we can our philosophy of human affairs." .) (trans. Ostwald, loc. cit As commentators have not failed to note, a literal reading of this phrase would imply that its author was either unaware of Platos discussion of "the subject of legislation" (e.g., Laws) or that he completely denied its relevance. But if, by the "subject of legislation," the text means what Cicero describes as legislation on the "topic of magistrates," on which "certain special points ... have been investigated first by Theophrastus" (Laws, III.v.13, cited above), the passage becomes comprehensible. Hence, if the conclusion of the Nicomachean Ethics is attributed to Andronicus of Rhodes-or to Theophrastus himself-it would support
of
rather than contradict the fundamental hypothesis presented here. 31. E.g., Barkers note 2, p. 157; note 3, p. 161; note 1, p. 163; note note 2, p. 174; note UU, pp. 241-242; note 1, p. 253.
1, p. 172;
E.g., IV.vii.1293b (ed. Barker, p. 173) and IV.x.1295a (p. 179). Ed. Barker, p. 157. IV.ii.1289b (ed. Barker, p. 158). II.i-vi.1260b-1266a (ed. Barker, pp. 39-62); V.xii.1316b (p. 253); and-above all-the references in note 37. 36. "It was customary for Greek philosophers to refer to ancient rather than to recent or contemporary thinkers, and to attribute doctrines emanating from a school to the founder of that school, ... When contemporaries are referred to it is done anonymously." Grayeff, Aristotle and His School, p. 61. Cf. the reference to "previous writers" in Nicomachean Ethics, X.ix.1181b (cited in note 30). 37. Politics, IV.vii.1293a35-bl (Jowett trans.). I have cited the Jowett translation to emphasize a curious error by Barker, who renders the last phrase as follows: "they usually limit themselves, as Plato does in the Republic to an enumeration of only four forms ..." (ed. Barker, p. 172). If Barkers reading were accurate, IV.vii would not contradict Platos authorship of the Statesman. Curiously enough, the Greek text refers to Platos writings on regimes IN THE PLURAL, rather than to the Republic in the singular "Πλατων ∈ν ταιζ Π&ogr;λιτεταιζ": hence, Congreave reads the phrase "(Plato) in his treatises on Politics." Richard Congreve, The Politics of Aristotle (London, Longmans Green, 1874), p. 274. Nor is it typical for references to Plato to take this plural form; only pages before in the Politics, IV.iv.1291a11, the text refers to the Republic in the singular: "εν τη &Igr;&ogr;λιτεια" (ibid., p. 264). In other words, Barker—along with some other translators-converts the plural of IV.vii into a singular, so that the text appears to refer to Platos Republic rather than to all Platos writings on "the regimes." Needless to say, if the latter reading is correct, Plato could not have written the Statesman, at least for the author of Politics, IV.vii. The plot
32. 33. 34. 35.
thickens. 38. The oldest explicit attribution of the Sophist and Statesman to Plato is apparently the division of Platonic dialogues in triads by Aristophanes of Byzantium, who was librarian at Alexandria between 204 and 184 BC. Although Grote assumes the genuineness of all Platonic works mentioned in this classification (Grote, Plato, I, 141-143, 164-168), subsequent scholars have not agreed (Lesky, History of Greek
Literature,
pp.
511-512).
39. Lewis Campbell, ed., The Theaetatus of Plato (Oxford, Clarendon, 1883), p. Iv. At the outset of the Sophist, Socrates tells Theodorus that he wants to ask the Stranger how his countrymen use three "names": "Sophist, statesman, philosopher"
[56]
(217a). At the beginning of our Statesman, after Socrates indicates his indebtedness for the introduction to the Eleatic Stranger and Theaetatus, Theodorus replies: "Good, but you are likely to be three times as much in my debt, Socrates, when they have done their task and defined the statesman and the philosopher as well as the Sophist for you" (257a). Since Theodorus ignores any debt due to Socrates discussion with Theaetatus in the dialogue bearing the latters name (cf. Theaetatus, 187b-c), presumably there was a projected trilogy consisting of dialogues entitled the Sophist, Statesman, and Philosopher (cf. note 42). This trilogy is not simply a continuation of the Theaetatus, even though the Sophist appears to take place on the following day: cf. Theaetatus, 210d with Sophist, 216a. The Theaetatus is a "narrated" dialogue (142a-143d), whereas the Sophist and Statesman are "performed" ; nothing in the introduction to the former suggests a sequel, let alone two or three. Cf. Lesky, History of Greek Literature, p. 534. 40. Francis Macdonald Cornford, Platos Theory of Knowledge (N.Y., Harcourt
Brace, 1935), p. 1, 41. Lives, III.50-52 (ed. Hicks, I, 320-323). Similarly, Quintilian attributes the Sophist to Plato: III.iv.10 (ed. Butler, I, 395). 42. Lives, V.22 (ed. Hicks, I, 464-465). Surprisingly little attention has been directed to this listing in Diogenes catalogue of Aristotle. Although Diogenes lists a Sophist and a Statesman by both Plato and Aristotle, there is evidence for treating our dialogues with these titles as part of a trilogy originally completed by a dialogue on the Philosopher (note 39). Such a dialogue by Plato is not known, whereas Aristotle did write a dialogue On Philosophy. Moreover, whereas Jaeger discovered detailed evidence of Aristoles dialogue with this title (Aristotle, ch. vi), with the exception of one fragment (ibid., p. 87), Jaeger found little trace of Aristotles Sophist and Statesman. On the basis of circumstantial evidence, one could link our
Sophist and Statesman with either Platos Theaetatus or with Aristotles On Philosophy. 43. Politics, ed. Newman, II, vi; Jaeger, Aristotle, pp. 29-31; Grote, Aristotle, I,
n. b. 44. August Dies, ed., Le Sophiste, in Plato, Oeuvres Completes, VIII-3 (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1925), p. 1. Cf. Lewis Campbell, The Sophistes and Politicus of Plato (Oxford, Clarendon, 1867), p. xiii. 45. The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (N.Y., Random House, 1941), pp. 862, 780. Book XIV (N) does not even mention Plato by name, merely presenting a criticism of Parmenides like that of Sophist, 237a-240a. 46. The Theaetatus, p. xxxvii. 47. E.g., Politics, ed. Sisemuhl and Hicks, p. 448-50; and August Dies, ed., Le
40,
in Plato, Oeuvres Completes, IX-1 (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1935), p. xxix, xxxvii-xli. The most important parallel would seem to be the emphasis on the rule of law, except in the extremely rare case of a truly philosophic ruler: cf. Statesman , 293b-301a with Politics, III.xv.1285b-xvii.1288a (ed. Barker, pp. 141-151). 48. Campbell explains this aspect of the Sophist by offering his "own opinion that Plato at a late period of his course directs this argument against those amongst his disciples in the Academy who, resting in their imperfect realization of an earlier phase of his own teaching and reverting to Pythagorean and Eleatic elements, held the doctrine of ideas in the form in which it is often controverted by Aristotle. That
Politique,
[57]
Aristotle should not have observed this divergence between the master and the school inexplicable, but not more so than his silence about the Parmenides," The Sophistes and Politicus, p. lxxv. Cf. Cornford, Platos Theory of Knowledge, pp. 242-248. Why Campbell assumes both a shift by Plato and exceptional ignorance of this change by Aristotle, without referring to the contrary testimony of Cicero (next note) is perhaps "inexplicable." Recent interpretations of the Sophist are often bewildering: e.g., A. L. Peck, "Platos Sophist," Phronesis, VII (1962), 46-66. On the similarity of the Sophist with Aristotle, see J. M. Rist, "Parmenides and Platos Parmenides" Classical Quarterly, XX (Nov. 1970), 221-222 and William Windelband, A History of Philosophy (N.Y., Harper, 1958), I, 122. 49. Academic Questions, I.ix (trans. C. D. Younge; London, Henry Bohn, 1853), pp. 16-17, italics added. There is good reason to believe that the young Aristotle accepted the Platonic teaching of the Ideas, as Jaeger shows (Aristotle, ch. ii-iii); cf. W. D. Ross, Aristotelis Fragmenta Selecta (Oxford, Clarendon, 1955), pp. 26-56; Lesky, History of Greek Literature, pp. 553-554, 575; and, for the contrary view, During, Aristotle, esp. p. 442. Yet, as Plutarch says, "As for the ideas ... Aristotle, who everywhere assails them and brings up against them every sort of objection in his treatises on ethics and on natural philosophy and in his popular dialogues, was held by some to be more contentious than philosophical in his attitudes to this doctrine and bent on undermining Platos philosophy—so far was he from following them." Reply to Colotes, 14.1115b, in Moralia, XIV, ed. Benedict Einarson and Phillip H. DeLacy (Loeb Classical Library; London, Heinemann, 1957), p. 236-237. Thus, for Plutarch, Aristotle is one of the prime examples of a philosopher who abandoned "some of the dogmas" he "previously held." "On Moral Virtue," vii. 447-448, in Moralia, VI, ed. W. C. Helbold (Loeb Classical Library; London, Heinemann, 1939), pp. 58-59. Instead of assuming a major shift by Plato, is it not more reasonable to follow the classic sources, who attribute the change to Aristotle and his successors? 50. Ciceros account of Plato might seem to be in error, insofar as Plato himself argues that material goods are necessary but not sufficient for happiness (e.g., Republic, I.329e-331b). Is Cicero therefore a poor witness in this case? I would suggest that, in the passage cited, Cicero refers to a different issue, namely whether justice and the virtues are "good in themselves" or only for their "consequences": cf. Plato, Republic, II.357b-358d, 367a-e; IX.580b-c, 583a, 586e, and Aristotle, Politics, VII.i.1323a-iii.1325b. In contrast to the Sophists, for whom the only standard of goodness or happiness is related to the consequences of actions for individual pleasure, the Socratic tradition rejects moral relativism and emphasizes the sense in which ethical ends are good "in themselves"; hence, for Plato and Aristotle, virtue has not only "beauty" but a certain "power." Cf. Republic, I.338a-354c; IX.588a-592b and Nicomachean Ethics, I.viii.1099a. 51. Hence, of 56 words in the Sophist not appearing elsewhere in Plato, 10 are used in our Aristotle; of 79 words in the Statesman not found in other Platonic dialogues, 17 are in our Aristotle. Campbell, Sophistes and Politicus, pp. xxv-xxvi. Of the fragments attributed to Aristotles Sophist and Statesman by Ross (Aristoteles Fragmenta Selecta), only one refers explicitly by name to Aristotle as the author of the Sophist: "Aristotle in his Sophist calls Empedocles the inventor of rhetoric as Zeno of dialectic." Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VIII.ii.57 (ed. Hicks, II, 372-373), repeated at IX.v.25. Since this passage does not occur in our version of Platos
may be
[58]
Sophist it is the strongest evidence against this hypothesis. (On this fragment, cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric, I.i.1354a). On the other hand, Jaeger cites only one fragment of Aristotles Statesman as worthy of mention: "the good is the most exact measure" (Aristotle, p. 87); this passage could be taken as a paraphrase of our versions of Platos Statesman, 284a-286d, where the central issue is the "measure" of "due reason" as a "standard" based on the "mean" (284e). Given the meager textual references—and the tendency to extrapolate from coincidences (e.g., emphasis on the "mean" in the Statesman and Nicomachean Ethics), the most one can say is that there is evidence on both sides (cf. note 42). 52. E.G., Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (N.Y., Harcourt, Brace, 1965); Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970). 53. It may be objected that Aristotles criticism of Platos ideas is being underestimated (cf. note 49). But we know that, even within the Platonic Academy, the theory of Ideas was not held by all (Cherniss, The Riddle of the Ancient Academy, esp. ch. iii). The essential issue in classical thought-as Cicero never tires of
in the Offices and De Finibus the existence of a "natural" -concerns basis for virtue and morality. In other words, the crucial question for the ancients was whether the Sophists were correct in denying the existence of any natural good beyond individual pleasure: e.g., Antiphon the Sophist, On Truth, in Ernest Barker, Greek Political Theory (N. Y., Barnes & Noble, 1960), pp. 95-98, and the fragments by Sophists in Philip Wheelwright, ed., The Presocratics (N.Y., Odyssey, 1966). The grounds for the Sophist view were apparently first stated explicitly by Archelaus: "right and wrong exist only by convention, not by nature." G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, University Press, 1957), Frag. 545, p. 399. This relativist view of morals can be traced to Heraclitus, who said: "To god all things are beautiful and good and just, but men have supposed some things to be just, others unjust" (ibid., Frag. 209, p. 193). On the Sophists and their relationship to the Ionian cosmologists, see W.K.C. Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, University Press, 1965), II, 351-354, 417, and III, esp. ch. iv. On this issue, Plato and Aristotle agree: cf. such dialogues as the Gorgias, Republic, or Protagoras with Nicomachean Ethics, V.vii.1134b-1135a; X.ix.1181a; or Metaphysics, VI.ii.1026b; XI.vii.1064b (note 45 above). 54. See H. I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (N.Y., Sheed & Ward, 1956), Part III, ch. 2; M. L. Clarke, Higher Education in the Ancient World (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1971), pp. 71-77. 55. On this period, see Lily Ross Taylor, Party Politics in the Age of Caesar (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1949); Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (London, Oxford, 1960); note 8 above. As Grayeff points out, the Stoic school had long been dominant in Rome, "but had also aroused a great deal of jealousy and animosity"-especially since "the two most famous statesmen of the republican era, which had come to an end, Cato and Brutus, had been known to be Stoics" (Aristotle and His School, p. 77). 56. It should be added that the Peripatetic school was, from its origins, engaged in the training of political leaders. When Plato died in 347 BC, Aristotle left the Academy with Xenocrates (later to return as its head) and Theophrastus (cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, III.i.45; V.ii.36); for Jaeger, this "departure was a
emphasizing
[59]
secession" (Aristotle, p. 111). The scholars went to Asia minor, where two former students from the Academy (Coriscus and Erastus) had set up a school under the protection of Hermias, ruler of Atarneus. According to Didymus, Hermias "made expeditions, and he made friends of Coriscus and Erastus and Aristotle and afterwards ... he listened to Xenocrates; hence all these men lived with Hermias them ... he gave them gifts ... he actually changed the tyranny to a milder rule; therefore he also came to rule over all the neighbouring country as far as Assos, and then being exceedingly pleased with the said philosophers, he allotted them the city of Assos. He accepted Aristotle most of all of them, and was very intimate with him" (Jaeger, Aristotle, pp. 114-115, n. 2). In short, Aristotle and his colleagues apparently achieved the goal which had eluded Plato in Sicily. Aristotle married Hermias adopted daughter and niece. Whether he went to the court of Hermias as an emissary of King Phillip (Grayeff, Aristotle, pp. 26-30), or to the court of Macedon as an emissary of Hermias (Jaeger, Aristotle, pp. 119-123; Lesky, History of Greek Literature, pp. 549-550), Aristotle was closely involved in the political relations arising from a secret treaty between the two rulers. Alexander the Great was thus not the first, but the second ruler taught by Aristotle. And although Aristotle was less successful with his second princely pupil, the tradition of training rulers remained strong among the Peripatetics. Since Theophrastus was received by King Casander of Macedonia, presumably his To Casander on Kingship was advice comparable to Aristotles Alexander, or a Plea for Colonies (Diogenes Laertius, Lives, V.ii.36 and 47; ed. Hicks, I, 483; 497). During Theophrastus tenure as head of the Lyceum, his student Demetrius of Phalerum was the most powerful man in Athens, having been appointed governor by Casander (317-307 BC). One can assume that the Lyceum was politically influential at this time, especially since Theophrastus lectures drew as many as 2000 pupils; "so highly was he valued at Athens that, when Agnonides ventured to prosecute him for impiety, the prosecutor himself narrowly escaped punishment" (ibid., V.ii.37-39; pp. 482-487). With the establishment of Hellenistic cities throughout Alexanders Empire, "the sons of the Hellenistic ruling class were educated at the Peripatetic school ... [which] adapted its political and social attitudes to suit the needs of the colonial upper class" (Grayeff, Aristotle, p. 41). Although Theophrastus declined an invitation from King Ptolemy of Egypt, Demetrius went to his court after falling from power; other Peripatetics including Strato, who tutored the young Ptolemy before becoming third Scholarch of the Lyceum, also spent time in Alexandria. Hence, in addition to the intellectual role of Demetrius (notes 6 and 24), it is "highly probable that the civil code of Alexandria was bestowed by the first Ptolemy in terms which were suggested to him by the Peripatetic philosophers around him." Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, I. 114. On the intimacy of Demetrius and Ptolemy, see also Parsons, The Alexandrian Library, pp. 132-138. Cicero, who sent his son to study with the Peripatetic Cratippus in Athens (Clarke, Higher Education in the Ancient World, pp. 76-77), may have been representative of the Roman reaction to the political pragmatism of the newly discovered and published writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus. It would have been consistent with a long tradition, therefore, if Andronicus compilation of the Politics was studied by the young Octavius (note 8). 57. Roger D. Masters, "Nature, Human Nature, and Political Thought," in Roland Pennock and John Chapman, eds., Human Nature and Politics, Nomos XVII (N.Y., Aldine-Atherton, in press)
...
[60]
58. Roger D. Masters, "Politics as a Biological Phenomenon," Social Science Information, XVI (April 1975), 7-63. 59. E.G., Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago, Rand McNally, 1964), ch. i. 60. Barker, "Introduction," Politics, pp. xix-xx. Cf. Aristotles correspondence with Antipator (ibid., pp. 388-389), who was apparently the executor of Aristotles estate (Diogenes Laertius, Lives, V.12; ed. Hicks, I, 455). On the possibility that Aristotle returned to Athens in 355 BC and established his school for political
reasons-i.e., the desire of Alexander to weaken the anti-Macedonian faction, see Aristotle, Grayeff, pp. 32-37. 61. E.G., Babylon: II.vi.1254a and III.iii.1276a (ed. Barker, pp. 57, 98); Egypt: V.xi.1313b and VII.x.1329b (pp. 245, 304); Persia: III.xiii.1284a-b and V.x.1310b-1312a (pp. 135, 238-239).
62. Today, of course, super-tankers are often more than 1200 feet long, although such large vessels are not without problems; Noel Mostert, Supership (N.Y., Knopf,
1974).
63. Syme, The Roman Revolution, p. 317. Cf. the description of Pollio, "the partisan of Caesar and of Antonius" and author of a lost History of the Civil Wars, as "a pessimistic Republican and an honest man" (ibid., p. 6). 64. E.g., On Oratory, in Moses Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Tacitus (N.Y.,
Modern Library, 1942). 65. Lincoln Diamant, "Introduction," Aristotles Politics and Poetics Viking, 1957), p. xi. Cf. note 56. 66. Ed. Barker, pp. 111 and 297. 67. See again the references in notes 1, 57, and 59.
(N.Y.,
Roger D. Masters is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.

Aristotle's Missing Dialogues. Who Wrote The Sophist, The Statesman, and The Politics

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Political Theory

THE CASE OF ARISTOTLES

the Statesman, and the Politics?

Sage Publications, Inc.

History of Aristotles Writings

Aristotle, Theophrastus, and

Atticus: Do you really

the Stoics have treated these

is the most moderate. One of

still two forms of constitution left, besides democracy and

IV. Who Wrote the Statesman and the Sophist?

V. The Politics of Aristotles Political Teaching

VI. The Problem of Empire in Aristotles Politics

It is probably well to give interpretation might influence

example of the reading of the Politics.

less&dquo; (V.xi.1313a; p. 243).

(VII iv. 1326a-b; p. 291).62

perspectives of the Roman elite

century BC. Sons of the old

Philosophers, V.ii.52 (ed. Hicks, I, 504-505).

Roger D. Masters is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.

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