aristotle's missing dialogues. who wrote the sophist, the statesman, and the politics

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Political Theory

DOI: 10.1177/009059177700500103 1977; 5; 31 Political Theory

Roger D. Masters Sophist, the Statesman, and the Politics?

The Case of Aristotle's Missing Dialogues: Who Wrote the

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[31]

THE CASE OF ARISTOTLE’S

MISSING DIALOGUES

Who Wrote the Sophist,the Statesman, and

the Politics?

ROGER D. MASTERSDartmouth College

Many, many years ago, I attended a series of lectures onAristotle’s philosophy. The lecturer began his expositionas follows: &dquo;As regards Aristotle himself, as regards thecircumstances and the course of his life, suffice it to say:Aristotle was born, spent his life in philosophizing, anddied. &dquo; This beginning seemed to me then most appropri-ate, for Aristotle means to us, indeed, nothing but whatwe know of him, or fancy we know of him, as of a manengaged in that extravagant enterprise which, sincePythagoras (according to the tradition), has borne thename 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 anotherman who was his teacher and bore the name of Plato.There is no alternative; we have to face that peculiarcircumstance in Aristotle’s life.

-Jacob Klein’ 1

One of the most puzzling questions that can be posed in history of&dquo;classical&dquo; thought concerns the apparent disappearance of Aristotle’searly writings. Of course, many works that were well known in antiquityhave not survived to modem times. But some of these lacunae are moredifficult to explain than others. Of particular interest are the dialogueswhich were written by Aristotle as a young man, while at Plato’s

Academy.

POLITICAL THEORY, Vol. 5 No. 1, February 1977© 1977 Sage Publications, Inc.




[32]

Given Aristotle’s subsequent fame, it is interesting to wonder why theseworks should not have been preserved. If dialogues were even fabricated sothat they could be attributed to Plato and Aristotle, why did those whichAristotle actually wrote come to disappear? This puzzle is all the moreworth 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 libraries-such as the one reproduced by Diogenes Laertius-apparently containreferences to these dialogues.2

In other words, Aristotle presents us with the paradox of an authorwhose works directed to a public audience-the so-called &dquo;exoteric&dquo;

dialogues for use outside the Lyceum-have disappeared, whereas thelectures destined for his students (and called &dquo;esoteric&dquo; for this reason)have survived. Moreover, the now lost, public writings were well known toexist in antiquity, because they are mentioned both in the survivinglectures and in literary histories.

Why, then, should dialogues written for a general audience by a thinkeras famous as Aristotle have simply disappeared? To answer this question, abroader issue must be posed. How were the writings of Aristotle

transmitted to us? And, in particular, to what extent does the existingcorpus 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 betraced. The authorship of the Politics, one of Aristotle’s best knowntreatises on a subject touched upon in the lost &dquo;exoteric&dquo; discourses, willthen be discussed. As we shall see, this problem-while in itself vexed

enough to be the subject of considerable scholarly controversy in thenineteenth century-perhaps offers a key to the fate of the works Aristotledestined to a general public.

I. The History of Aristotle’s Writings

As is generally known, the texts of classical antiquity were written onscrolls which were costly to produce and difficult to preserve. After hisdeath in 322 BC, Aristotle’s writings were inherited by Theophrastus, hissuccessor as head of the Lyceum. Theophrastus, however, willed his libraryto Neleus, whereas the Lyceum itself became the property of the

community of scholars, headed by a physicist named Strato. Thus, afterthe death of Theophrastus in 287 BC, the lecture notes and published




[33]

writings of Aristotle left the Peripatetic school and-along with Theo-phrastus’ own works-became the private property of the family ofNeleus.3

The loss of Theophrastus’ library, which also contained a vast collectionof other writings collected by the school, thus condemned his successors inthe Lyceum to a repetition of the known doctrines of Aristotle withoutaccess to most of his lecture notes.4 Although Strato himself was an ablescientist, his will indicates a sense of fatalism concerning the decline of thePeripatetic school in Athens; Lyco, who followed as its head, is describedby Diogenes Laertius as &dquo;a master of expression and of the foremost rankin the education of boys.... But in writing he fell off sadly.&dquo;5 After

Lyco’s death in 225 BC, it is even unclear to what extent the Peripateticschool continued to function as an institution for research and scholarship.

These circumstances are of great importance, for they explain therelative absence of written references to Aristotle in the second and thirdcenturies BC. According to most sources, the manuscripts of Aristotle andTheophrastus were taken to Skepsis (a city in the region of Troas) byNeleus, whose heirs stored the collection to keep it from being seized bythe King of Pergamum for his library. Although some traditions claim thatcopies of many if not all the texts were gathered in the great library ofAlexandria, there is little evidence of their general diffusion prior to thefirst century BC.~

6

A rich book-collector named Apellicon of Athens apparently acquiredthe manuscripts of Aristotle and Theophrastus-or copies thereof-around100 BC, only to have them seized by Sulla, the Roman general whoconquered Athens in 86 BC. This collection was in turn procured by acontemporary of Cicero’s named Tyrannion, and communicated to a

philosopher named Andronicus of Rhodes. Andronicus, who reconstitutedthe Peripatetic school in Rome, edited the Aristotelian manuscriptsbetween 40 and 20 BC. In so doing, it is known that Andronicus changedthe organization of the original scrolls, and arranged them according tovarious topics in the form now known to us.’

Under the Roman Empire, there are indications that many writers wereacquainted with the Aristotelian works compiled by Andronicus-and,indeed, it is possible that the Politics was used by the teacher of theEmperor Augustus.8 8 Throughout the earlier middle ages, however,Aristotle’s writings were little known in the Christian West (with theexception of the Organon), though they continued to be studied by thegreat Islamic philosophers. Finally, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,




[34]

Latin translations of Aristotle, along with the monumental integration ofhis philosophy with Christian doctrine by Albertus Magnus, St. ThomasAquinas, and their followers, assured the transmission of the Aristoteliancorpus to modern times.

As this brief historical sketch indicates, we apparently do not haveAristotle’s writings in their original form. Far from being an obstacle,however, recognition of this fact is perhaps the first step toward a betterunderstanding of Aristotelian thought. Whereas we can be relatively surethat Platonic dialogues like the Republic and the Symposium have come tous in roughly the same form in which they were written, Aristotle’s worksare compilations of lectures and other materials originally used within theLyceum.

Whatever the difficulties of establishing the best manuscript reading ofPlatonic dialogues, therefore, the texts of Aristotle pose an additional

problem. Not only does one have to consider variants due to the errors ofcopying, as successive scribes reproduced the works of classical antiquityover the generations. In the case of Aristotle, there is the additional

question of the extent to which they were modified when Andronicus ofRhodes compiled and edited them in the first century BC.

II. The Authorship of the Politics

The difficulty of Aristotle’s texts has long puzzled interpreters. Inaddition to the complexity of the argument, the existing manuscriptsoften have paradoxical and repetitive features. To cite but one crucial

example, Book III of the Politics ends with a passage that is repeated atthe 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 Politicsshould be changed, and Book VII should be made to follow immediatelyon 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 byno means clear.... &dquo;’ In his well-known interpretation of Aristotle,Jaeger argued that the Politics originally included only Books I-III, VII,and VIII; in this view, Books IV-VI were subsequently added by Aristotlelater in his career. 11 Other scholars, however, have rejected Jaeger’sinterpretation. 1 2

Perhaps the most interesting and plausible hypothesis is also the mostradical. Although it is usually assumed that the best-known &dquo;Aristoteliantreatises ... are the work of Aristotle himself,&dquo; there is strong evidence




[35]

that they were written by &dquo;some of the outstanding members of hisschool&dquo; over a long period; in this view, Andronicus of Rhodes combinedthe lectures of many leading Aristotelians and attributed the result toAristotle. 1 With reference to the Politics, there is general agreement thatparts of the text are by Aristotle himself; the question, therefore, is

whether the existing work is entirely by Aristotle or a composite ofAristotle’s lectures with those of Theophrastus (or others from his

school).14Writing in the first century BC, before Andronicus of Rhodes assembled

the Aristotelian corpus in its present form, Cicero refers to the similaritiesand differences between the political thought of Aristotle and that ofTheophrastus, Aristotle’s successor as head of the Lyceum (see De Finibus,V.iv-v and Laws, IIl.iv-v-cited below). When Andronicus acquired themanuscripts of Aristotle, it was as part of a collection containing writingsof both Aristotle and Theophrastus. Moreover, catalogues of the originalscrolls from which Andronicus compiled Aristotle’s writings were ulti-mately reproduced by historians, the best known being that of DiogenesLaertius.

In the chapter of Lives of the Eminent Philosophers devoted to

Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius includes among the scrolls written byAristotle: &dquo;Politics, two books&dquo; and &dquo;Eight books of a course of lectureson 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, onebook; ... On Kingship, two books; ... How states can best be governed,one book; ... Concerning politics, two books&dquo; (V.45-50).1 s

Diogenes Laertius, therefore, provides us with evidence that bothAristotle and Theophrastus had written extensively on politics. Even moreperplexing, he cites an early catalogue describing the scrolls most akin toour present Politics, in eight books, as being somehow related to thelectures of Theophrastus. Given the origins of the Aristotelian corpus as acomposite edited by Andronicus, and a number of peculiarities discussedbelow in Section III, it seems plausible to hypothesize that the book nowknown as The Politics combines Aristotle’s 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 thework of one man, for most purposes it is probably appropriate to treatAristotle’s Politics in the traditional manner. Compared to other philo-




[36]

sophical positions, therefore, one can speak of &dquo;Aristotle’s politicalthought&dquo; as a unity, even though it may historically represent Andronicusof Rhodes’ synthesis of the Peripatetic School of thought.

This is precisely the procedure used in contemporary biblical scholar-ship : &dquo;The first five books of the Bible make up a group which was knownto the Jews as ’The Law’ and for many centuries all five of the books wereattributed to Moses as the sole or principle author. However, modernstudy of the texts has revealed a variety of styles, a lack of sequence andsuch repetitions and variations in narrative that it is impossible to ascribethe whole group to a single author; four distinct literary ’traditions’ can beidentified and found side by side in the Pentateuch.&dquo;16 Despite thishistorical origin, one can speak of &dquo;the Mosaic religion&dquo; and &dquo;the Mosaic

law&dquo;; although &dquo;the modifications required by changing conditions oversome seven centuries were presented as interpretations of the mind ofMoses and invested themselves with his authority,&dquo; discovery of thecomplex evolution of the Pentateuch does not necessarily challenge its

divine origin. ~ ~ 7The example of Biblical scholarship thus shows the possibility of

analyzing the historical origins and development of the major texts in theWestern tradition. Moreover, this example indicates that the structuralunity of a religious or philosophic position need not be denied merelybecause the texts in our possession have been subjected to historical

analysis. This parallel does, however, suggest an interesting paradox in thehistory of science: why have classical scholars generally failed to apply thecanons of Biblical exegesis to the secular works like Aristotle’s Politics?Why should the supposedly &dquo;sacred&dquo; texts have been scrutinized to

discover the human conditions of their origins, whereas the nontheologicalor human writings of Aristotle are treated as if such a historical analysiswould &dquo;profane&dquo; the classics?&dquo; 8

III. Aristotle, Theophrastus, and the Politics

It is not possible here to engage in a detailed analysis of the entire textof the Politics, in the hopes of disentangling the possible contributions ofAristotle, Theophrastus, or other Peripetetics. While detailed stylisticanalysis might conceivably be used to this end, for preliminary purposes itis 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 ofBook 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 scrollhad been tom or broken to insert new material). 1 9

The relation of Books IV-VI to the remainder of the Politics istherefore an obvious problem, which has been discussed even by scholarswho presumed that Aristotle himself wrote the entire work. In part, thisquestion can be addressed in terms of the content of the various Books ofthe Politics. Books IV through VI specify the consequences which flowfrom the presence or predominance of varied economic interests andgroups in a society, and contain a detailed analysis of how regimes changeas well as how statesmen can preserve even defective constitutions. BooksIV through VI thus differ markedly from Books I to III, VII, and VIII,which generally analyze political problems and classify forms of govern-ment in relation to the &dquo;best regime.&dquo;

In the light of the argument presented in Section II, one plausibleexplanation is that Books IV, V, and VI of the traditional text of thePolitics contain lectures by Theophrastus, and were inserted in Aristotle’slectures by Andronicus of Rhodes.2 Evidence for this interpretationmight be found in Cicero’s comparison between Aristotle and Theo-phrastus. Describing their political writings prior to Andronicus’ compila-tion, Cicero says: &dquo;From Aristotle we learn the manners, customs and

institutions, and from Theophrastus the laws also, of nearly all the statesnot only of Greece but of the barbarians as well. Both described the

proper qualifications of a statesman, both moreover wrote lengthytreatises 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 thispassage by Cicero seems to describe the contents of Books IV-VI of thePolitics. Yet for Cicero, who apparently had access to the original works ofboth Aristotle and Theophrastus,2 the study of &dquo;the forces and occasionsof political change, and their control as circumstances demand&dquo; were onlyfound in the writings of Theophrastus.

Lest this one citation seem insufficient, careful study of another

passage in which Cicero compares Aristotle and Theophrastus seeminglyconfirms this hypothesis. In Book III of his Laws, Cicero turns to thelegislation for the best state with respect to magistracies.2 3 After

presenting specific legal provisions which Quintus describes as &dquo;practicallythe same as those of our own State [i.e., Rome] &dquo; (III.v.12), Cicero agreesto 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 ofthe Greek writers&dquo; (III.v.13).

Cicero then sketches the history of practically oriented discussions ofthe legislation concerning magistrates:

Marcus [Cicero]: However, I included a great deal of general matter on thissubject in my former work [sc. De Re Publica] , as was necessary in an inquiryinto the nature of the ideal State; but on this topic of the magistrates there arecertain special points which have been investigated first by Theophrastus, andthen with greater accuracy by Diogenes the Stoic.

Atticus: Do you really mean to say that even the Stoics have treated theseproblems?

M.: None of them except the philosopher I have just mentioned, and, after histime, the eminent and very learned Panaetius. For though the older Stoics alsodiscussed the State, and with keen insight, their discussions were purelytheoretical 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 himAristotle and Heraclides of Pontus, another of Plato’s pupils, illuminated thiswhole subject of the constitution of the State by their discussions. And, asyou know, Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus specialized in such topics. Dicaea-rchus, another of Aristotle’s disciples, did not neglect this field of thought andinvestigation. Later a follower of Theophrastus, Demetrius of Phalerum, whomI mentioned before, had remarkable success in bringing learning out of itsshady bowers and scholarly seclusion, not merely into the sunlight and thedust, but even into the very battle-line and center of the conflict.

24

This passage has been cited at length, with the addition of emphasis, tobring 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 byCicero, notably in the Offices: &dquo;the older Academicians and... yourPeripatetics (who were once the same as the Academicians).&dquo;2 Writingbefore the compilation of Andronicus, and on the basis of manuscriptswhich had again become available, Cicero thus does not equate the

subsequent development of the Peripatetic school with Aristotle’s ownposition; on the contrary, Aristotle himself is treated as essentiallyPlatonic.

Second, and perhaps more relevant, Cicero speaks of Theophrastus asthe pupil of Aristotle who &dquo;as you know ... specialized in such topics&dquo; asthe legislation concerning magistracies. Before Andronicus’ compilation,Theophrastus was thus known, in his own right, as a major political




[39]

theorist.2 One is led to wonder, therefore, why a Greek thinker known tohave &dquo;specialized&dquo; in such crucial topics as the laws should have

substantially disappeared. In addition to the loss of Aristotle’s 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 ofour 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; Thisassertion parallels the argument in De Finibus cited above; while the Lawsdoes not specify that the &dquo;special points&dquo; concern &dquo;the forces andoccasions of political change and their control as circumstances demand,&dquo;it suggests that the political writings of Theophrastus on &dquo;the topic ofmagistrates&dquo; have a greater detail and practical orientation than those ofAristotle. If we turn to Books IV through VI, this impression is sharplyconfirmed by the text, which extends Aristotle’s mode of analysis topractical details not covered elsewhere in the Politics. 2 7

Books I-III, VII, and VIII of the Politics may have been entirely writtenby Aristotle, or they may constitute Andronicus’ compilation of lecturesby both Aristotle and Theophrastus; as Cicero says, &dquo;each of them taughtwhat 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 aclose reading of Cicero, one of the rare witnesses who explicitly refers toAristotle’s political teaching before Andronicus’ compilation, suggests thatthe material now known as Books IV-VI-material which seems to beinserted between Books III and VII-could be by Theophrastus.3 0

While it would be intriguing to try to confirm this hypothesis by acomputer analysis of textual style, superficial evidence can be found in anumber of otherwise puzzling details.31 Most of the cross-references in thetext of Books IV-VI are to other passages in these three books, rather thanto material in Books I-III, VII, or VIII. Some of the exceptions explicitlyrefer to &dquo;our first part,&dquo; and could be attributed to Andronicus as

editor.3 More concretely, there is a major difficulty in the classificationof political systems in the Politics, related to a curious passage which

apparently refers to Plato’s 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;-andthree perverted or &dquo;bad&dquo;-tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. 31 Of thisclassification, the text remarks: &dquo;Tyranny, therefore, is the worst, and atthe farthest remove of all the perversions from a true constitution:

oligarchy, being as it is far removed from aristocracy, is the next worst:




[40]

democracy is the most moderate. One of our predecessors [Plato, in hisdialogue the Politicus] has already advanced the same view, but he used adifferent principle.&dquo;34 The brackets, added by Barker, follow the

conventional interpretation that the phrase &dquo;one of our predecessors&dquo; waswritten by Aristotle himself, and thus refers to Plato; and, indeed, thedialogue known as the Politicus or Statesman does contain a classificationof regimes corresponding to that of the Politics.

It is curious, however, that elsewhere in the Politics, not only in thecriticism of the Republic and the Laws, but in Books IV-VI, Plato is

referred to by name.3 Moreover, the classification of regimes in theStatesman differs sharply from that in the Republic, where democracy isviewed as a more perverted regime than oligarchy. In contrast, both theStatesman 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 ofour predecessors,&dquo; give rise to the following hypothesis. If Theophrastus-rather 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 Aristotle’s successor as head of the Lyceum) to Aristotle. 3 If so,could the Statesman be one of the supposedly lost dialogues written byAristotle as a young man at the Academy?

Before turning to a discussion of this hypothesis, a further puzzle inBook 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:

There are still two forms of constitution left, besides democracy and

oligarchy. One of these is usually reckoned, and has indeed already beenmentioned, as one of the four main forms of constitution, which are countedas being kingship, oligarchy, democracy, and the form called aristocracy.There is, however, a fifth form, in addition to these four. It is called by thegeneric 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 writerswho attempt to classify the different forms of constitution; and they usuallylimit themselves, as Plato does, to an enumeration of only four forms.... ~ ~ 7

Here we are flatly told that Plato did not recognize the regime whichAristotle 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]

government. Is it not curious that, so shortly after the reference to &dquo;one ofour predecessors,&dquo; which supposedly confirms that Plato wrote the

Statesman, a passage refers to Plato by name in a way contradicting hisauthorship of the same dialogue?

IV. Who Wrote the Statesmanand the Sophist?

While some nineteenth century scholars argued that the Statesman waswritten by Aristotle, this interpretation has been conventionally rejectedon 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 thusseem to entail his authorship of all three, or at least of bpth the Sophistand Statesman. 3 8

It is generally recognized, however, that the Theaetatus was writtenbefore the Sophist and Statesman (or the supposed fourth dialogue on thePhilosopher): &dquo;It does not appear that at the time of writing the

Theaetetus, Plato had distinctly planned the other three.&dquo;39 Moreover, thestyle at the end of the Theaetetus seems to shift markedly toward a verydifferent manner of writing, which also characterizes the Sophist andStatesman .4 0 Hence, one could admit that the Theaetatus-except perhapsfor its conclusion-is an authentic work of Plato without proving that hewrote 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 toPlato by Diogenes Laertius.41 1 But Diogenes Laertius also attributes toPlato a number of writings now generally thought spurious, such as theAlcibiades II. And, in his list of the writings of Aristotle, Diogenes includesboth &dquo;Of the Statesman, two books&dquo; and &dquo;The Sophist, one book&dquo; as wellas &dquo;On Philosophy, three books. ,,41 Moreover, there is good reason tobelieve that Aristotle’s Statesman and Sophist were dialogues, since theyare listed at the beginning of Diogenes’ catalogue, which starts with&dquo;dialogues and other exoteric works.&dquo;4 From Diogenes Laertius, there-fore, we can only learn that by the third century AD the extant Sophistand Statesman were attributed to Plato-even though dialogues of thesame titles had been included in old catalogues of Aristotle’s writings.




[42]

The conventional answer to this puzzle has been that Aristotle

explicitly refers to the Sophist in his Metaphysics: &dquo;The authenticity ofthe 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 passagesare not explicit citations of the Sophist, similar to Aristotle’s specificreferences to the Republic or Laws. For example, the supposed decisivetext 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 MetaphysicsVI.2.1026b reads: &dquo;And so Plato was in a sense not wrong in rankingSophistic as dealing with that which is not.’>4 Therefore one couldinterpret these texts to mean that Plato, speaking to his students in theAcademy, argued that &dquo;the sophist spends his time on non-being.&dquo; CouldAristotle, as a young man at the Academy, have written a dialogue whichmakes this point explicit (see Sophist, 237a)?

Turning to the text of the Sophist and the Statesman, we find severalpeculiarities, since they seem much closer to Aristotle than to otherPlatonic dialogues. As Campbell admits, the dialogues &dquo;in which an Eleatic

stranger is the chief spokesman&dquo;-i.e., the Sophist and Statesman-&dquo;maystill be Plato’s, although they seem pervaded by a pedantic consciousnessof method not found in others. ,,46 In addition to the classification of

regimes, which has already been mentioned, there are numerous substan-tive similarities between the Statesman and Aristotle’s political teaching 4’ 7

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, hasbeen interpreted as Plato’s criticism of the extreme interpretation of histeaching by his own students.4 Yet Cicero-the authority in antiquitywho consulted and explicitly cited Aristotle before Andronicus’ compila-tion-denies that Plato was the author of the earliest qualification of thedoctrine of the &dquo;Ideas&dquo;: &dquo;Aristotle, then, was the first to undermine thedoctrine of species [I,e., Ideas], which I have just now mentioned, andwhich Plato had embraced in wonderful manner; so that he even affirmedthat there was something divine in it. But Theophrastus, a man of verydelightful eloquence, and of such purity of morals that his probity andintegrity were notorious to all men, broke down more vigorously still theauthority of the old school; for he stripped virtue of its beauty, and madeit powerless, by denying that to live happily depended solely on it.&dquo;4 Inother words, Cicero tells us that Aristotle diverged from Plato, but that it




[43]

was Theophrastus who completed the shift in the direction usuallyattributed to Aristotle. 5 0

Just as the Statesman seems closer to Aristotle’s Politics than to Plato’s

Republic-or at least intermediate between them, so the Sophist attributedto 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 sharpstylistic break from the other Platonic dialogues. Of the many wordswhich appear in the Statesman and Sophist, but in no other Platonic

dialogue, quite a few also appear in the Aristotelian corpus.51To be sure, demonstration of authorship would only be convincing if

computer analysis of common words, stylistic traits, and sentence lengthshows affinities of the Statesman and Sophist with known writings byAristotle, as well as divergences of these dialogues with the Platoniccorpus. All that has been suggested here, therefore# is a plausiblehypothesis that might be considered a useful basis for future research.

V. The Politics of Aristotle’sPolitical Teaching

Two related hypotheses have been proposed: first, that Books IV to VIof the Politics were originally the lectures of Theophrastus; second, as aconsequence, that several of Aristotle’s dialogues in the Platonic style,supposedly lost, were merely attributed to Plato himself. But why mightone wish to verify such a reattribution of authorship? If scholars have notfelt the need to clarify the puzzles discussed to this point for some twomillennia, is there any point-beyond pedantic trivia-in future analysis ofthe texts in question?

In the introductory remarks, it was pointed out that biblical scholarshiphas focused on the historical origins of the Old and New Testaments. Suchresearch has greatly deepened our understanding of early Hebrew religionand the evolution of Christianity. At the same time, the emergence of thesociology of knowledge has led to a greater appreciation of the significanceof political and social factors in the history of science.s Would we learnanything about Aristotle’s political teaching, therefore, if the canons ofbiblical scholarship and computer analysis of authorship were applied toAristotle’s Politics as well as the dialogues now known as Plato’s Statesmanand Sophist?




[44]

If subsequent research were to confirm one or both of the hypothesesproposed above, it would follow that Aristotle himself was substantiallycloser to Plato than now appears from the Aristotelian corpus. Both in

metaphysics and in political philosophy, the views conventionally at-

tributed to Aristotle seem-at least in part-those of Theophrastus andsubsequent Peripatetic thinkers. Since Cicero provides evidence for such aninterpretation, the divergences now presumed to exist between Plato andAristotle may have been substantially exaggerated by Andronicus ofRhodes when he edited the original scrolls to create the Aristotelian

corpus that was transmitted to modem times.~ ~ 3

But why should Andronicus have modified the substance of Aristotle’sposition and obliterated the independent authorship of Theophrastuswhen 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 plausiblemotive. Without such an explanation, there is no reason to devote

substantial resources to the case; after all, if changes in the attribution andcontent 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 restructur-ing the scrolls inherited from the Peripatetic school. The importation ofGreek rhetoric and philosophy had long been a political issue in

Republican Rome.5 With the civil wars and the end of the Republic, newmeans of education became necessary-especially insofar as the republican&dquo;cursus honorem&dquo; was no longer relevant for the training and selection ofimperial bureaucrats.

Andronicus’ reconstitution of the Peripatetic school in Rome, between40 and 20 BC, must be seen in this political context. His edited version ofthe 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 beenless 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, wouldhave been more appropriate for the elite in which the traditional nobilitywas replaced by a coalition of men of wealth, soldiers, and adminis-traitors. 5 *5




[45]

One need not presume conscious dishonesty on the part of Andronicus;it is sufficient, for the hypothesis presented here, that his compilation wasguided in part by the social and political exigencies of Rome in the firstcentury BC. As the sociology of knowledge has shown, such constraintscould account for the tendency to select-as the work of Aristotle-thosewritings which were the farthest from Plato and emphasized &dquo;the forcesand 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 thelikely attitudes of the future men of affairs taught by Andronicus.5

6

VI. The Problem of Empire inAristotle’s Politics

It is probably well to give a concrete example of the way the aboveinterpretation might influence our reading of the Politics. In so doing, itshould be strongly emphasized that the historical circumstances surround-ing the transmission of this text do not undermine its importance in theWestern political tradition. On the contrary, it can be argued that theAristotle of Andronicus’ compilation provides, in the work known as thePolitics, one of the fundamental approaches to political thought in theWests Indeed, contemporary research in the biological sciences evensuggests that this position may be superior to that of other theorists,especially in modern times.5 8

Precisely because Aristotle’s thought appears to be serious and relevant,however, it is important to understand it as fully as we can. In otherwords, the principal reason for pursuing the hypothesis set forth above isthat, in any serious consideration of political philosophy, one must beopen to the possibility that Aristotle’s understanding of human life is

substantially true. In such an endeavor the usual practice has been toassume that the text of the Politics now in our possession was simplywritten by Aristotle himself 9 Does the hypothesis that Andronicuscombined lectures by Aristotle and Theophrastus therefore have a

substantive effect on one’s reading of the Politics?It has often been noted that Aristotle’s emphasis on the Greek polis is

somewhat anachronistic. During the period of Aristotle’s teaching at theLyceum, when he is conventionally said to have written the Politics, Greek




[46]

cities were progressively losing their autonomy. Alexander the Great, theMacedonian king who had been Aristotle’s own student, was in the processof conquering an immense-albeit temporary-empire. Nor was Aristotleunaware of these events. Quite the contrary, Aristotle’s nephew Cal-listhenes accompanied Alexander, sending biological specimens from Asiato be studied at Aristotle’s school.

Moreover, when Aristotle returned to Athens around 335 BC to foundthe 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. Thebattle of Chaeronea, ’fatal to liberty’, had made Greece a Macedonianprotectorate, with its city-states associated under the protecting power inthe League of Corinth. The dominant figure in Greece, for the rest ofAristotle’s life, was the Macedonian Antipater, who had been left byAlexander to govern Macedonia and supervise Greek affairs.... Anti-

pater’s ideas and policies have some bearing on Aristotle’s life, and mayeven have affected the development of his political views and theories. Thetwo men had already become close friends in Macedonia: they kept intouch, and in correspondence, during all the last period of Aristotle’slife.... &dquo;6 0

Needless to add, if the Politics was in part written by Theophrastus, theanomalous tendency to treat the Greek polis as the best form of society iseven more striking. By the time of the compilation of Aristotle’s corpus byAndronicus of Rhodes (c. 40 to 20 BC), there could no longer have beenany question of the ability of empires to conquer the small-scale cities ofGreece. Yet in Book V of the Politics, the exhaustive discussion of thecauses of political change simply ignores foreign conquest-even thoughthis way of establishing new regimes should have been clear from theexperience of Athens itself, not to mention the rise of Macedonia (or thesubsequent 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 Greekpolis as the &dquo;best&dquo; regime was paradoxical. When the text is reread on theassumption that this apparent bias is quite intentional, we are struck by anumber of things. First, the references to empires are actually rather

frequent, though in no case is there a special discussion of empire assuch.61 Second, the argument against a large-scale monarchy or empire isexplicitly 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 severalMacedonian rulers (V.x.1311b ; ed. Barker, pp. 238-239, 242-243), thetext concludes: &dquo;The less the area of his prerogative, the longer will theauthority of a king last unimpaired: he will himself be less of a master andbehave more like an equal, and his subjects, on their side, will envy himless&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 rejectsthe 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

Aristotle’s 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 inchesin length, or is as much as 1,200 feet long, will not be a ship at all, andeven 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 communityexplain why empires, though possible, are defective and undesirable:&dquo;Most men are believers in the cause of empire, on the ground that empireleads 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 wouldbe the rule of a single man who was so outstanding that his control overmasses of subjects could be justified by ability or merit. But whileAristotle knew of empires in which the ruler claimed such preeminence, hedenies 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 thewriter Scylax describes as existing in India&dquo; (VII.xiv.1332b; p. 315).

Ultimately, Aristotle is far more critical of elitism than is usuallysupposed: &dquo;We may therefore draw the conclusion, which can be defendedon many grounds, that all should share alike in a system of governmentunder which they rule and are ruled by turns&dquo; (ibid.). Far from

contradicting the hypothesis presented here, the treatment of empire inthe 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]

nobility could find solace in the criticism of unlimited personal power,while future imperial bureaucrats had every reason to seek to strengthenthe element of law as a restraint on the Caesar himself.

After Augustus stabilized his rule as &dquo;Princeps,&dquo; ruling through theforms of the Republican constitution in order to &dquo;establish continuitywith a legitimate government,&dquo;6 the teaching of the Politics was all themore suitable for the education of Roman gentlemen. It is probably noaccident, for example, that an Imperial administrator like Tacitus indicatesa personal nostalgia for republican principles, and accepts the constraintsof 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 facethings as they are and to do our best to correct abuses. This is realism-notin the narrow platonic sense-but as we ordinarily use the word.&dquo;6

5

VII. Conclusion

It is, of course, not traditional to apply the sociology of knowledge andthe canons of biblical exegesis to the texts of classical philosophers likePlato and Aristotle. But it is surprising that the approach of biblicalcriticism, which has led to an awareness of the historical character of ourtext of the Old Testament, has not been applied to Aristotle-despite theevidence that his works were transformed by the editorial compilation ofAndronicus. And when we place the work of Andronicus in its historicalcontext, we find plausible reasons for his inclusion of Theophrastus’lectures in the Politics-and for attributing the Sophist and Statesman toPlato.

Such an explanation is also aesthetically pleasing, since it has beendifficult to understand why none of Aristotle’s early dialogues hadsurvived, even though they are so explicitly cited in the Politics: &dquo;It is easyenough to distinguish the various kinds of rule or authority of which mencommonly speak; and indeed we have often had occasion to define themourselves in works intended for the general public&dquo; (III.Vi.1278b); &dquo;Thenature of the best life is a theme which has already been treated by us inworks intended for the general public&dquo; (VII.i.1323a).66 Note that both ofthese explicit references to &dquo;exoteric discourses&dquo; occur in parts of thePolitics that, on the above hypothesis, were principally written byAristotle himself-and that the subjects would have been included in theStatesman and Sophist.




[49]

The two hypotheses that Theophrastus wrote Books IV-VI of thePolitics, and that Aristotle is the author of the Platonic dialogues known asthe Sophist and Statesman, thus clarify many anomalies. If one or both areconfirmed, however, the consequence would merely be an interestingfootnote to Western intellectual history; whether Aristotle himself wroteonly 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

dominated Western thought for centuries.6’ 7

Like the Bible, the intellectual power and status of classical philosophyis only confirmed by an open-minded and scholarly analysis of its origins.Such a procedure is all the more justified by Aristotle’s 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 ofclassical texts were to show that the thought of Aristgtle himself wassurprisingly close to that of his master, Plato.

NOTES

1. Jacob Klein, "Aristotle, An Introduction," in Joseph Cropsey (ed.), Ancientsand 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 secondor third century AD, Diogenes Laertius speaks of Aristotle’s "remarkable" output,"as is shown by the catalogue of his writings given above, which come to nearly 400in number, i.e., counting those only the genuineness of which is not disputed. Formany other written works... are attributed to him." Ibid., V.34 (pp. 480-481),italics added. Two other catalogues of Aristotle’s works have survived, one publishedby Hesychius and the other by Ptolemy the Philosopher; see Ingemar During’sdefinitive Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition (Goteborg, Studia Graeca etLatina Gothoburgensi, V, 1957). On Aristotle’s "exoteric works"-notably the

Protrepticus and the dialogues Eudemus and On Philosophy—see 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 Aristotle’s 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; GeorgeGrote, Aristotle, ed. Bain and Robertson (London, John Murray, 1872), I, ch. ii;Aristotle’s 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 housesadjoining the garden, all and sundry, I give and bequeath to such of my friendshereinafter named as may wish to study literature there in common.... Let thecommunity consist of Hipparchus, Neleus, Strato, Callinus, Demotimus, Demaratus,Callisthenes, Melantes, Pancreon, Nicippus." Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the EminentPhilosophers, V.ii.52 (ed. Hicks, I, 504-505).

4. During, Aristotle, pp. 324, 392-395, 412-425. On the Lyceum’s organizationand history, see John Patrick Lynch, Aristotle’s School (Berkeley, University ofCalifornia Press, 1972). Note the impact of "academic politics": Theophrastus’ will,presumably designed to assure the election Neleus—the son of Coriscus, an oldcolleague (see note 56)-proved disastrous when Strato was elected instead.

5. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, II.iv. 65-66 (ed. Hicks, I, 518-519). For Strato’s will,see ibid., II.iii.61-62 (pp. 514-515): "I leave the school to Lyco, since of the restsome 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 ofwhich I am the author, and all the furniture in the dining hall, the cushions and thedrinking cups." After Lyco, Diogenes Laertius’ history contains only the lives ofDemetrius Phalerius and Heraclides of Pontus-i.e., two Peripatetics earlier thanStrato and Lyco.

6. On the difference between Plato’s works, whose transmission was assured bythe 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; andRobert 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 workswhich might be found there" (Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, I, 330), it can beassumed that some works by Aristotle and Theophrastus were among the 200,000books Demetrius Phalerius apparently secured for Ptolemy (Parsons, The AlexandrianLibrary, p. 137). But did Demetrius get copies of the "esoteric" writings (i.e., lecturenotes), or merely the "exoteric" or published works, like Aristotle’s dialogues andProtrepticus? After the death of Theophrastus (287 BC), Neleus sold much of theLyceum’s library to King Ptolemy Philadelphus, but Parsons concludes that the saleconsisted 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. Strabo’s account, according to which thelecture 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, andmight have known if the "esoteric" writings were there. Ibid. pp. 61-63, 376. It is, ofcourse, possible that some of the lecture notes of Aristotle and Theophrastuscirculated in Greece or Alexandria after Neleus left the Lyceum (Lynch, Aristotle’sSchool, pp. 146-149; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, II, 474). But despite Aristotle’sfame 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 toAristotle’s writings from the Hellenistic period before the edition of Andronicus"(During, Aristotle, pp. 324, 365).

7. See the passage of Porphyry’s 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. Aristotle’s 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 Barker’s 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 Grayeff’s "The Problem of the Genesis of Aristotle’s Text,"Phronesis, I (May 1956), 105-122; Chauncey E. Finch, "A Non-Aristotelian Simile inMetaphysics 2.1," Classical Philology, LXV (Jan. 1970), 44-47.

14. See Newman’s Politics, II, i-xx, xxxii-xxxv, as well as the edition of FranzSisemuhl and R. D. Hicks (London, Macmillan, 1894), pp. 14-15. It should be addedthat Grayeff makes some extreme assumptions that one need not share. Writing in1956, Grayeff argued that the history of Aristotle’s manuscripts followed above wasan attempt by Strabo to discredit Andronicus’ edition ("The Problem of the Genesisof Aristotle’s Text," p. 106-107). But Grayeff presents no evidence of hostilitybetween Strabo and Andronicus, and his speculation ("It is not unlikely ... Isuggest ... Presumably ... ") is based on three unexamined assumptions: first, thelibrary of Neleus was not the only source of the Aristotelian texts edited byAndronicus; second, copies of virtually all of Aristotle’s works existed at the

Peripatetic schools of Athens, Rhodes, and Alexandria; and third, at each of theseschools, Peripatetics continually added to Aristotle’s lectures. As a result, Grayeffargues that Andronicus’ compilation included passages from numerous scholars inthree different Peripatetic schools. These hypotheses contradict the only contempo-rary evidence we have, namely Cicero’s writings. Cicero was a contemporary—andaccording to some accounts friend—of Tyrannion, the scholar who first procured thelibrary of Neleus from Sulla and transmitted it to Andronicus; hence, Cicero’scomments on the Peripatetic school provide our most reliable information on thematerials available to Andronicus. In Cicero’s De Finibus, V.iv.9ff., Piso presents theteachings of the Peripatetics; after indicating the differences between Aristotle andTheophrastus (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 otherschool, but are so unworthy of their ancestry that one might imagine them to havebeen 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 eachscholar wrote his own works, rather than merely adding to Aristotle’s lecture notes(as Grayeff assumes). These inferences from Cicero are amply confirmed by DiogenesLaertius, 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 cataloguesof Strato (ibid., V.iii.59-60; pp. 511-513) or Demetrius Phalerius (ibid., V.v.80-81;pp. 533-535), not to mention Lyco. Grayeff’s speculations are also inconsistent withscholarship 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 Strabo’s account; as Leskyputs it (History of Greek Literature, pp. 578-579), "there is no room for doubt" onthis score. See also During’s explicit critique of Grayeff (Aristotle, pp. 393-395, 462).Perhaps aware of these contradictions, Grayeff developed an entirely new hypothesisin Aristotle and His School (1974): since the Peripatetic school declined upon thedeath of Lyco in 225 BC, Grayeff argues that the "Peripatetic lecture records, all orsome of those given to Neleus, were probably kept at Pergamum" (p. 72). Now, weare told, the tale of the burial of Neleus’ library was a fiction to legitimize the sale ofscrolls acquired from the plunder of the Pergamum library or destined to be sentthere (pp. 72-74). But this account is also questionable. First, Grayeff strangelychanges 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 possibleconflict between Neleus and Strato, which provides a plausible motive for Neleus totake Theophrastus’ library from the Lyceum. Similarly, Grayeff ignores the relationof Demetrius Phalerius to the founding of the library at Alexandria (note 6), insteadspeculating on the possible links between Lyco and the King of Pergamum. Finally,the creation of the Pergamene library occurred after the death of Theophrastus-andhence could not be used to disprove Strabo’s 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 notexcluded, however, that Theophrastus himself began the process of inserting his ownmaterial in Aristotle’s lectures; the evidence is too meagre to permit more thanconjectures.

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 assumethat such research can prove or disprove the truth or divinity of any work. Indeed, itwould be more accurate to say that this level of study, while perhaps "lower" indignity than other approaches, may sometimes be necessary to clarify difficulties thatcannot otherwise be decided.

18. Although this characterization of "higher criticism" in classical scholarship asahistorical may seem harsh and inaccuratè, for evidence see Harold Cherniss, TheRiddle of the Early Academy (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1945) andAristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy (N.Y., Russell & Russell, 1944). For arecent example, consider James Jerome Walsh, Aristotle’s Conception of MoralWeakness (N.Y., Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 186, n. 11. To be sure, thereare exceptions-but they tend to prove the rule. On Grayeff s use of historicalevidence, 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 ofAristotle’s text because it didn’t occur to specialists in Greek that part of the answerlies in Cicero’s 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, HenryBehn, 1853), p. 246. Although During speculates that the work of Theophrastus towhich Cicero refers is entitled Politikon pros tous kairous-i.e., "A Political Treatisedealing with Important Crises" (Aristotle, p. 428), there is no reason to assume thatonly this work is involved; Cicero’s phrase might also refer to other works in thecatalogue 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; LoebClassical Library; London, Heinemann, 1913), pp. 227-229.

23. "But we, since we are providing a system of law for free nations and havepresented our conception of the ideal State in our six earlier books [i.e., De RePublica], shall now propose laws appropriate to the kind of State there described,which we consider best. Accordingly we must have magistrates, for without theirprudence and watchful care a State cannot exist. In fact the whole character of arepublic 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 Aristotle’s definition of the regime orconstitution: "A constitution (or polity) may be defined as ’the organization of apolis in respect of its offices generally, but especially in respect of that particularoffice which is sovereign on all issues. The civic body is everywhere the sovereign ofthe 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 beremarked that Cicero’s 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 libraryat 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 incomposing 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 note56 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 politicsshould also learn to distinguish the laws which are absolutely best from those whichare 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 themethod of their distribution is fixed, the sovereign authority is determined, and thenature 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 themagistrates should exercise their powers, and should watch and check trans-

gressors.... If we assume that there is not a single form of democracy, or a singleform of oligarchy, but a number of varieties of either, the same laws cannot possiblybe 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 ofmonarchy in III.xiv.1285a, he focuses sharply on the problem posed by absolutemonarchy, 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 theNicomachean Ethics (X.ix.1181b), which sets forth a plan for the Politics includingthese 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 ofour collection of constitutions, let us study what sort of thing preserves and whatdestroys states, what preserves and destroys each particular kind of constitution, andwhat the causes are that make some states well administered and others not. Once wehave studied this, we shall perhaps also gain a more comprehensive view of the bestform of constitution, of the way in which each is organized, and what laws andcustoms are current in each." Trans. Martin Ostwald (Library of Liberal Arts;Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1962), p. 302. Since our Politics roughly follows thisplan, it has appeared to commentators that Aristotle wrote the entire work. But oncewe recognize that Andronicus compiled both the Ethics and the Politics, it could justas readily follow that this transitional conclusion to the Ethics was an editorialaddition. Such a reading might be confirmed by the correspondence between thewords used in the Ethics to describe Books IV-VI of the Politics ("what sort of thingpreserves and what destroys states, what preserves and destroys each particular kindof constitution") and Cicero’s description of the subjects that Theophrastus was the"first" to discuss "more fully" ("the forces and occasions of political change, andtheir control as circumstances demand"—De Finibus, V.iv.11). The phrase concludingthis part of the plan in the Ethics ("what the causes are that make some states welladministered and others not") reminds one of the work entitled "How States CanBest Be Governed" in Diogenes’ catalogue of Theophrastus (quoted above). Finally,this interpretation clarifies the peculiar phrasing of the immediately preceding wordsin the Nicomachean Ethics. Just before the plan of the Politics just citied, the textreads: "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




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of 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 readingof this phrase would imply that its author was either unaware of Plato’s 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 aslegislation on the "topic of magistrates," on which "certain special points ... havebeen investigated first by Theophrastus" (Laws, III.v.13, cited above), the passagebecomes comprehensible. Hence, if the conclusion of the Nicomachean Ethics isattributed to Andronicus of Rhodes-or to Theophrastus himself-it would supportrather than contradict the fundamental hypothesis presented here.

31. E.g., Barker’s note 2, p. 157; note 3, p. 161; note 1, p. 163; note 1, p. 172;note 2, p. 174; note UU, pp. 241-242; note 1, p. 253.

32. E.g., IV.vii.1293b (ed. Barker, p. 173) and IV.x.1295a (p. 179).33. Ed. Barker, p. 157.34. IV.ii.1289b (ed. Barker, p. 158).35. 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 schoolto 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: "theyusually limit themselves, as Plato does in the Republic to an enumeration of onlyfour forms ..." (ed. Barker, p. 172). If Barker’s reading were accurate, IV.vii wouldnot contradict Plato’s authorship of the Statesman. Curiously enough, the Greek textrefers to Plato’s writings on regimes IN THE PLURAL, rather than to the Republic inthe 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 totake this plural form; only pages before in the Politics, IV.iv.1291a11, the text refersto 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 Plato’s Republic rather than to all Plato’swritings on "the regimes." Needless to say, if the latter reading is correct, Plato couldnot have written the Statesman, at least for the author of Politics, IV.vii. The plotthickens.

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 assumesthe genuineness of all Platonic works mentioned in this classification (Grote, Plato, I,141-143, 164-168), subsequent scholars have not agreed (Lesky, History of GreekLiterature, 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 theStranger how his countrymen use three "names": "Sophist, statesman, philosopher"




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(217a). At the beginning of our Statesman, after Socrates indicates his indebtednessfor 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 theyhave done their task and defined the statesman and the philosopher as well as theSophist for you" (257a). Since Theodorus ignores any debt due to Socrates’discussion with Theaetatus in the dialogue bearing the latter’s name (cf. Theaetatus,187b-c), presumably there was a projected trilogy consisting of dialogues entitled theSophist, Statesman, and Philosopher (cf. note 42). This trilogy is not simply acontinuation of the Theaetatus, even though the Sophist appears to take place on thefollowing day: cf. Theaetatus, 210d with Sophist, 216a. The Theaetatus is a

"narrated" dialogue (142a-143d), whereas the Sophist and Statesman are "per-formed" ; nothing in the introduction to the former suggests a sequel, let alone two orthree. Cf. Lesky, History of Greek Literature, p. 534.

40. Francis Macdonald Cornford, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge (N.Y., HarcourtBrace, 1935), p. 1,

41. Lives, III.50-52 (ed. Hicks, I, 320-323). Similarly, Quintilian attributes theSophist to Plato: III.iv.10 (ed. Butler, I, 395).

42. Lives, V.22 (ed. Hicks, I, 464-465). Surprisingly little attention has beendirected to this listing in Diogenes’ catalogue of Aristotle. Although Diogenes lists aSophist and a Statesman by both Plato and Aristotle, there is evidence for treatingour dialogues with these titles as part of a trilogy originally completed by a dialogueon the Philosopher (note 39). Such a dialogue by Plato is not known, whereasAristotle did write a dialogue On Philosophy. Moreover, whereas Jaeger discovereddetailed evidence of Aristole’s dialogue with this title (Aristotle, ch. vi), with theexception of one fragment (ibid., p. 87), Jaeger found little trace of Aristotle’s

Sophist and Statesman. On the basis of circumstantial evidence, one could link ourSophist and Statesman with either Plato’s Theaetatus or with Aristotle’s On

Philosophy.43. Politics, ed. Newman, II, vi; Jaeger, Aristotle, pp. 29-31; Grote, Aristotle, I,

40, 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, merelypresenting 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

Politique, 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 oflaw, 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 opinionthat Plato at a late period of his course directs this argument against those amongsthis disciples in the Academy who, resting in their imperfect realization of an earlierphase of his own teaching and reverting to Pythagorean and Eleatic elements, heldthe doctrine of ideas in the form in which it is often controverted by Aristotle. That




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Aristotle should not have observed this divergence between the master and the schoolmay be inexplicable, but not more so than his silence about the Parmenides," TheSophistes and Politicus, p. lxxv. Cf. Cornford, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge, pp.242-248. Why Campbell assumes both a shift by Plato and exceptional ignorance ofthis change by Aristotle, without referring to the contrary testimony of Cicero (nextnote) is perhaps "inexplicable." Recent interpretations of the Sophist are oftenbewildering: e.g., A. L. Peck, "Plato’s Sophist," Phronesis, VII (1962), 46-66. On thesimilarity of the Sophist with Aristotle, see J. M. Rist, "Parmenides and Plato’sParmenides" 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 Aristotleaccepted 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 histreatises on ethics and on natural philosophy and in his popular dialogues, was heldby some to be more contentious than philosophical in his attitudes to this doctrineand bent on undermining Plato’s 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, forPlutarch, 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, inMoralia, 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 tofollow the classic sources, who attribute the change to Aristotle and his successors?

50. Cicero’s account of Plato might seem to be in error, insofar as Plato himselfargues 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 whetherjustice 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 ofgoodness or happiness is related to the consequences of actions for individual

pleasure, the Socratic tradition rejects moral relativism and emphasizes the sense inwhich ethical ends are good "in themselves"; hence, for Plato and Aristotle, virtuehas 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 areused in our Aristotle; of 79 words in the Statesman not found in other Platonicdialogues, 17 are in our Aristotle. Campbell, Sophistes and Politicus, pp. xxv-xxvi. Ofthe fragments attributed to Aristotle’s Sophist and Statesman by Ross (AristotelesFragmenta Selecta), only one refers explicitly by name to Aristotle as the author ofthe Sophist: "Aristotle in his Sophist calls Empedocles the inventor of rhetoric asZeno 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 Plato’s




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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 ofAristotle’s 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 ofPlato’s Statesman, 284a-286d, where the central issue is the "measure" of "duereason" as a "standard" based on the "mean" (284e). Given the meager textualreferences—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 thatthere 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 ofChicago Press, 1970).

53. It may be objected that Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s ideas is beingunderestimated (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 AncientAcademy, esp. ch. iii). The essential issue in classical thought-as Cicero never tires ofemphasizing in the Offices and De Finibus-concerns the existence of a "natural"

basis for virtue and morality. In other words, the crucial question for the ancientswas whether the Sophists were correct in denying the existence of any natural goodbeyond 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 fragmentsby Sophists in Philip Wheelwright, ed., The Presocratics (N.Y., Odyssey, 1966). Thegrounds 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 godall things are beautiful and good and just, but men have supposed some things to bejust, others unjust" (ibid., Frag. 209, p. 193). On the Sophists and their relationshipto 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 thisissue, Plato and Aristotle agree: cf. such dialogues as the Gorgias, Republic, or

Protagoras with Nicomachean Ethics, V.vii.1134b-1135a; X.ix.1181a; or Meta-

physics, 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 Stoicschool 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 therepublican era, which had come to an end, Cato and Brutus, had been known to beStoics" (Aristotle and His School, p. 77).

56. It should be added that the Peripatetic school was, from its origins, engagedin the training of political leaders. When Plato died in 347 BC, Aristotle left theAcademy 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




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secession" (Aristotle, p. 111). The scholars went to Asia minor, where two formerstudents from the Academy (Coriscus and Erastus) had set up a school under theprotection of Hermias, ruler of Atarneus. According to Didymus, Hermias "madeexpeditions, and he made friends of Coriscus and Erastus and Aristotle and

Xenocrates; hence all these men lived with Hermias ... afterwards ... he listened tothem ... 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, andthen being exceedingly pleased with the said philosophers, he allotted them the cityof 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 apparentlyachieved 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 emissaryof King Phillip (Grayeff, Aristotle, pp. 26-30), or to the court of Macedon as anemissary of Hermias (Jaeger, Aristotle, pp. 119-123; Lesky, History of GreekLiterature, pp. 549-550), Aristotle was closely involved in the political relationsarising from a secret treaty between the two rulers. Alexander the Great was thus notthe first, but the second ruler taught by Aristotle. And although Aristotle was lesssuccessful with his second princely pupil, the tradition of training rulers remainedstrong among the Peripatetics. Since Theophrastus was received by King Casander ofMacedonia, presumably his To Casander on Kingship was advice comparable toAristotle’s Alexander, or a Plea for Colonies (Diogenes Laertius, Lives, V.ii.36 and47; ed. Hicks, I, 483; 497). During Theophrastus’ tenure as head of the Lyceum, hisstudent Demetrius of Phalerum was the most powerful man in Athens, having beenappointed governor by Casander (317-307 BC). One can assume that the Lyceum waspolitically influential at this time, especially since Theophrastus’ lectures drew asmany as 2000 pupils; "so highly was he valued at Athens that, when Agnonidesventured to prosecute him for impiety, the prosecutor himself narrowly escapedpunishment" (ibid., V.ii.37-39; pp. 482-487). With the establishment of Hellenisticcities throughout Alexander’s Empire, "the sons of the Hellenistic ruling class wereeducated 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 includingStrato, who tutored the young Ptolemy before becoming third Scholarch of theLyceum, also spent time in Alexandria. Hence, in addition to the intellectual role ofDemetrius (notes 6 and 24), it is "highly probable that the civil code of Alexandriawas bestowed by the first Ptolemy in terms which were suggested to him by thePeripatetic 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 newlydiscovered and published writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus. It would have beenconsistent with a long tradition, therefore, if Andronicus’ compilation of the Politicswas 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)




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58. Roger D. Masters, "Politics as a Biological Phenomenon," Social ScienceInformation, 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. Aristotle’s correspondencewith Antipator (ibid., pp. 388-389), who was apparently the executor of Aristotle’sestate (Diogenes Laertius, Lives, V.12; ed. Hicks, I, 455). On the possibility thatAristotle returned to Athens in 355 BC and established his school for politicalreasons-i.e., the desire of Alexander to weaken the anti-Macedonian faction, see

Grayeff, Aristotle, 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," Aristotle’s Politics and Poetics (N.Y.,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.

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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