by Aristotle
66 · When all the courts are full, two ballot boxes are placed in the first court, and a number of bronze dice, bearing the colours of the several courts, and other dice inscribed with the names of the presiding magistrates. Then two of the Thesmothetae, selected by lot, severally throw the dice with the colours into one box, and those with the magistrates’ names into the other. The magistrate whose name is first drawn is thereupon proclaimed by the crier as assigned for duty in the court which is first drawn, and the second in the second, and similarly with the rest. The object of this procedure is that no one may know which court he will have, but that each may take the court assigned to him by lot.
When the jurors have come in, and have been assigned to their respective courts, the presiding magistrate in each court draws one ticket out of each chest (making ten in all, one out of each tribe), and throws them into another empty chest. He then draws out five of them, and assigns one to the superintendence of the water-clock, and the other four to the telling of the votes. This is to prevent any tampering beforehand with either the superintendent of the clock or the tellers of the votes, and to secure that there is no malpractice in these respects. The five who have not been selected for these duties receive from them a statement of the order in which the jurors shall receive their fees, and of the places where the several tribes shall respectively gather in the court for this purpose when their duties are completed; the object being that the jurors may be broken up into small groups for the reception of their pay, and not all crowd together and impede one another.
67 · These preliminaries being concluded, the cases are called on. If it is a day for private cases, the private litigants are called. Four cases are taken in each of the categories defined in the law, and the litigants swear to confine their speeches to the point at issue. If it is a day for public causes, the public litigants are called, and only one case is tried. Water-clocks are provided, having small supply-tubes, into which the water is poured by which the length of the pleadings is regulated. Ten gallons are allowed for a case in which an amount of more than five thousand drachmas is involved, and three for the second speech on each side. When the amount is between one and five thousand drachmas, seven gallons are allowed for the first speech and two for the second; when it is less than one thousand, five and two. Six gallons are allowed for arbitrations between rival claimants, in which there is no second speech. The official chosen by lot to superintend the water-clock places his hand on the supply-tube whenever the clerk is about to read a resolution or law or affidavit or treaty. When, however, a case is conducted according to a set measurement of the day, he does not stop the supply, but each party receives an equal allowance of water. The standard of measurement is the length of the days in the month Poseideon6 .. . . The measured day is employed in cases when imprisonment, death, exile, loss of civil rights, or confiscation of goods is assigned as the penalty.
68 · Most of the courts consist of 500 members . . .;7 and when it is necessary to bring public cases before a jury of 1,000 members, two courts combine for the purpose,. . .8 The ballot balls are made of bronze with stems running through the centre, half of them having the stem pierced and the other half solid. When the speeches are concluded, the officials assigned to the taking of the votes give each juror two ballot balls, one pierced and one solid. This is done in full view of the rival litigants, to secure that no one shall receive two pierced or two solid balls. Then the official designated for the purpose takes away the jurors’ staves, in return for which each one as he records his vote receives a brass voucher marked with the numeral 3 (because he gets three obols when he gives it up). This is to ensure that all shall vote; for no one can get a voucher unless he votes. Two urns, one of bronze and the other of wood, stand in the court, in distinct spots so that no one may surreptitiously insert ballot balls; in these the jurors record their votes. The bronze urn is for effective votes, the wooden for unused votes; and the bronze urn has a lid pierced so as to take only one ballot ball, in order that no one may put in two at a time.
When the jurors are about to vote, the crier demands first whether the litigants enter a protest against any of the evidence; for no protest can be received after the voting has begun. Then he proclaims again, ‘The pierced ballot for the plaintiff, the solid for the defendant’; and the juror, taking his two ballot balls from the stand, with his hand closed over the stem so as not to show either the pierced or the solid ballot to the litigants, casts the one which is to count into the bronze urn, and the other into the wooden urn.
69 · When all the jurors have voted, the attendants take the urn containing the effective votes and discharge them on to a reckoning board having as many cavities as there are ballot balls, so that the effective votes, whether pierced or solid, may be plainly displayed and easily counted. Then the officials assigned to the taking of the votes tell them off on the board, the solid in one place and the pierced in another, and the crier announces the numbers of the votes, the pierced ballots being for the prosecutor and the solid for the defendant. Whichever has the majority is victorious; but if the votes are equal the verdict is for the defendant. Then, if damages have to be awarded, they vote again in the same way, first returning their pay-vouchers and receiving back their staves. Half a gallon of water is allowed to each party for the discussion of the damages. Finally, when all has been completed in accordance with the law, the jurors receive their pay in the order assigned by the lot.
**TEXT: F. G. Kenyon, OCT, Oxford, 1920
1Sc. the Alcmeonidae. The papyrus begins in the middle of a sentence.
2‘Removal of burdens’.
3The text is uncertain.
4Kenyon obelizes this sentence.
5Reading ἀριθμῷ πέντε.
6The next ten lines in the papyrus are mutilated.
7The papyrus is mutilated at this point.
8The papyrus is mutilated here.
FRAGMENTS
Selected and translated by
Jonathan Barnes and Gavin Lawrence
CONTENTS
Preface
Catalogue of Aristotle’s Writings
I.
Dialogues
II.
Logic
III.
Rhetoric and Poetics
IV.
Ethics
V.
Philosophical Works
VI.
Physics
VII.
Biology
VIII.
Historical Works
IX.
Letters
X.
Poems
Aristotle’s Will
PREFACE
In the twelfth volume of the Oxford Translation, Sir David Ross published a selection of fragments from Aristotle’s lost works. Ross limited his attention to passages bearing upon Aristotle’s dialogues and upon his logical and philosophical writings. He presented those passages at generous length, including large amounts of context and often transcribing several variants of the same report.
Like Ross, we have attempted to give a fairly full collection of the fragments of Aristotle’s juvenilia, which have occupied much scholarly attention in the past five decades, and also of the texts relating to the more philosophically interesting of his lost works. But we have been less generous than Ross in matters of context, repetitious variants, and dubiously valuable reports.
Unlike Ross, we have paid some attention to the fragments of Aristotle’s other lost works—fragments which account for some two thirds of our total information about the lost writings. Here we have, for want of space, been highly selective: our aim has been to give a fair sample of the range of Aristotle’s intellectual concerns, as it is exhibited in the fragments, and at the same time to illustrate those parts of his work which are less well represented in the surviving treatises.
We have prefaced the selection with a translation of the Catalogue of Aristotle’s works; and we have closed it with versions of his letters and of his poems.
We present the passages in the order in which they occur in Rose’s third edition of the Fragmenta (Teubner, Leipzig, 1886). “F I R3” thus refers to fragment one in this edition. The few passages not occurring there have been interpolated at the most appropriate points. We have retained Rose’s division of the fragments into ten categories. Rose’s arrangement is not ideal; but we felt that, on balance, any fresh arrangement would have caused more inconvenience than it produced enlightenment.
Finally, a few words of caution. Most of the passages we print are not, in the strict sense, fragments of Aristotle’s lost works: most of the passages do not purport to quote Aristotle’s actual words. Rather, they offer paraphrases or summaries of his opinions and arguments; and in many cases they are little more than casual allusions to his views. Some of the passages we quote refer to works which were in all probability not written by Aristotle at all; several of the passages may plausibly be construed as relaxed allusions to the extant treatises rather than as close paraphrases of lost works; and in some cases—and those not the least celebrated—we ourselves are not convinced that any genuinely Aristotelian matter is conserved.
J.B.
G.L.
CATALOGUE OF ARISTOTLE’S WRITINGS
(Diogenes Laertius, V 22–27)
He wrote a vast number of books, which I have thought it appropriate to list because of the man’s excellence in all fields of enquiry:—
On Justice, 4 books
On Poets, 3 books
On Philosophy, 3 books
On the Statesman, 2 books
On Rhetoric, or Grylus, 1 book
Nerinthus, 1 book
Sophist, 1 book
Menexenus, 1 book
Eroticus, 1 book
Symposium, 1 book
On Wealth, 1 book
Protrepticus, 1 book
On the Soul, 1 book
On Prayer, 1 book
On Good Birth, 1 book
On Pleasure, 1 book
Alexander, or On behalf of Colonies, 1 book
On Kingship, 1 book
On Education, 1 book
On the Good, 3 books
Excerpts from Plato’s Laws, 3 books
Excerpts from Plato’s Republic, 2 books
Economics, 1 book
On Friendship, 1 book
On being affected or having been affected, 1 book
On the Sciences, 2 books
On Eristics, 2 books
Eristical Solutions, 4 books
Sophistical Divisions, 4 books
On Contraries, 1 book
On Genera and Species, 1 book
On Properties, 1 book
Notes on Arguments, 3 books
Propositions on Excellence, 3 books
Objections, 1 book
On things spoken of in many ways or by addition, 1 book
On Feelings or On Anger, 1 book
Ethics, 5 books
On Elements, 3 books
On Knowledge, 1 book
On Principles, 1 book
Divisions, 16 books
Division, 1 book
On Question and Answer, 2 books
On Motion, 2 books
Propositions, 1 book
Eristical Propositions, 4 books
Deductions, 1 book
Prior Analytics, 9 books
Great Posterior Analytics, 2 books
On Problems, 1 book
Methodics, 8 books
On what is better, 1 book
On the Idea, 1 book
Definitions prior to the Topics, 1 book
Topics, 7 books
Deductions, 2 books
Deduction and Definitions, 1 book
On the desirable and on accidents, 1 book
Pre-topics, 1 book
Topics aimed at definitions, 2 books
Feelings, 1 book
Division, 1 book
Mathematics, 1 book
Definitions, 13 books
Arguments, 2 books
On Pleasure, 1 book
Propositions, 1 book
On the Voluntary, 1 book
On the Noble, 1 book
Argumentative theses, 25 books
Theses on love, 4 books
Theses on friendship, 2 books
Theses on the soul, 1 book
Politics, 2 books
Lectures on Politics (like those of Theophrastus), 8 books
On Just Acts, 2 books
Collection of Arts, 2 books
Art of Rhetoric, 2 books
Art, 1 book
Art (another work), 2 books
Methodics, 1 book
Collection of the Art of Theodectes, 1 book
Treatise on the Art of Poetry, 2 books
Rhetorical Enthymemes, 1 book
On Magnitude, 1 book
Divisions of Enthymemes, 1 book
On Diction, 2 books
On Advice, 1 book
Collection, 2 books
On Nature, 3 books
Nature, 1 book
On the Philosophy of Archytas, 3 books
On the Philosophy of Speusippus and Xenocrates, 1 book
Excerpts from the Timaeus and from the works of Archytas, 1 book
Against Melissus, 1 book
Against Alcmaeon, 1 book
Against the Pythagoreans, 1 book
Against Gorgias, 1 book
Against Xenophanes, 1 book
Against Zeno, 1 book
On the Pythagoreans, 1 book
On Animals, 9 books
Dissections, 8 books
Selection of Dissections, 1 book
On Composite Animals, 1 book
On Mythological Animals, 1 book
On Sterility, 1 book
On Plants, 2 books
Physiognomonics, 1 book
Medicine, 2 books
On Units, 1 book
Storm Signs, 1 book
Astronomy, 1 book
Optics, 1 book
On Motion, 1 book
On Music, 1 book
Memory, 1 book
Homeric Problems, 6 books
Poetics, 1 book
Physics (alphabetically ordered), 38 books
Additional Problems,1 2 books
Standard Problems, 2 books
Mechanics, 1 book
Problems from Democritus, 2 books
On the Magnet, 1 book
Conjunctions of Stars, 1 book
Miscellaneous, 12 books
Explanations2 (arranged by subject), 14 books
Claims, 1 book
Olympic Victors, 1 book
Pythian Victors in Music,3 1 book
On Pytho, 1 book
Lists of Pythian Victors, 1 book
Victories at the Dionysia, 1 book
On Tragedies, 1 book
Didascaliae, 1 book
Proverbs, 1 book
Rules for Messing, 1 book
Laws, 4 books
Categories, 1 book
On Interpretation, 1 book
Constitutions of 158 States (arranged by type: democratic, oligarchical, tyrannical, aristocratic)
Letters to Philip
Letters about the Selymbrians4
Letters to Alexander (4), to Antipater (9), to Mentor (1), to Ariston (1), to Olympias (1), to Hephaestion (1), to Themistagoras (1), to Philoxenus (1), to Democritus (1)
Poems, beginning: “Holy one, most honoured of the gods, far-shooting …”
Elegies, beginning: “Daughter of a mother of fair children …”
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Appendix:
(A) Titles found in the Vita Menagiana but not in Diogenes:
Peplos
Hesiodic Problems,5 1 book
Metaphysics, 10 books
Cycle on Poets, 3 books
Sophistical Refutations or On Eristics
Prior Analytics, 2 books
Messing Problems, 3 books
On Blessedness, or Why did Homer invent the cattle of the sun?
Problems from Archilochus, Euripides, Choerilus, 3 books
Poetical Problems, 1 book
Poetical Explanations
Lectures on Physics, 16 books
On Generation and Destruction, 2 books
Meteorologica, 4 books
On the Soul, 3 books
History of Animals, 10 books
Movement of Animals, 3 books
Parts of Animals, 3 books
Generation of Animals, 3 books
On the Rising of the Nile
On Substance in Mathematics
On Reputation
On Voice
On the Common Life of Husband and Wife
Laws for Man and Wife
On Time
On Vision, 2 books
Nicomachean Ethics
Art of Eulogy
On Marvellous Things heard
Eulogies or Hymns
On Differentia
On the Nature of Man
On the Generation of the World
Customs of the Romans
Collection of Foreign Customs
(B) Titles in the Life of Ptolemy but neither in Diogenes nor in the Vita Menagiana:
On Indivisible Lines, 3 books
On Spirit, 3 books
On Hibernation, 1 book