The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  (Philodemus, de oeconomia XXI 28–35):

  . . . which happened to Aristotle in respect of the argument in the work On Wealth1 to show that the good man is also a good money-maker and the bad man a bad money-maker (as Metrodorus proved).

  F 91 R3 (Stobaeus, Anthologium IV xxix A 24):

  From Aristotle On Good Birth. ‘In short, with regard to good birth, I for my part am at a loss to say whom one should call well-born.’

  ‘Your difficulty’, I said, ‘is quite reasonable; for among the many and even more among the wise there is division of opinion and obscurity of statement, particularly about its value. What I mean is this: is it a valuable and good thing, or, as Lycophron the sophist wrote, something altogether empty? For, comparing it with other goods, he says the nobility of good birth is obscure, and its dignity a matter of words—the preference for it is a matter of opinion, and in truth there is no difference between the low-born and the well-born.’

  F 92 R3 (Stobaeus, Anthologium IV xxix A 25):

  In the same book. ‘Just as it is disputed what height is good, so it is disputed who those are who ought to be called well-born. Some think it is those born of good ancestors, which was the view of Socrates; he said that because Aristides was good his daughter was nobly born. They say that Simonides, when asked who it is that are well-born, said “those whose family has long been rich”; but at that rate Theognis’ reprimand is wrong, and so is that of the poet who wrote “Mortals honour good birth, but marry rather with the rich”. Good heavens, is not a man who is rich himself preferable to one who had a rich great-grandfather or some other rich ancestor, but is himself poor?’

  ‘Surely’, he said.

  ‘And one ought to marry with the rich rather than with the well-born; for it is people who were once rich who are well-born, but people who are now rich who are more powerful. Is it not much the same, then, if one supposes that it is not those born into a once rich family but those born into a once good family who are well-born? One would suppose that recent goodness is better than ancient, that a man has more in common with his father than with his great-grandfather, and that it is more desirable to be good oneself than to have a great-grandfather or some other ancestor who was good.’

  ‘You are right’, he said.

  ‘Well, then, since we see that good birth does not consist in either of these things, should we not look elsewhere to see what it consists in?’2

  ‘We should’, he said.

  ‘ “Good (τὀ εὖ)” means, I suppose, something praiseworthy and excellent; e.g. having a good face or good eyes means, on this showing, something good or fine.’ ‘

  ‘Certainly’, he said.

  ‘Well then, having a good face is having the excellence proper to a face, and having good eyes is having the excellence proper to eyes, is it not?’

  ‘Yes’, he said.

  ‘But one family (γένoς) is good, another bad and not good.’

  ‘Certainly’, he said.

  ‘And we say each thing is good in virtue of the excellence proper to it, so that a family is good in the same way.’

  ‘Yes’, he said.

  ‘Clearly, then’, I said, ‘good birth (εὐγένεια) is excellence of family.’

  F 93 R3 (Diogenes Laertius, II 26):

  Aristotle says that he [sc. Socrates] had two wives, first Xanthippe from whom he had Lamprocles, and secondly Myrto, the daughter of Aristides the Just, whom he took without a dowry and from whom he had Sophroniscus and Menexenus.

  F 93 R3 (Plutarch, Aristides 335CD):

  Demetrius of Phaleron, Hieronymus of Rhodes, Aristoxenus the writer on music, and Aristotle (if the work On Good Birth is to be reckoned among his genuine works) relate that Myrto, grand-daughter of Aristides, lived with the sage Socrates, who was married to another woman but took Myrto under his protection when she was widowed because she was poor and lacking in the necessities of life.

  F 94 R3 (Stobaeus, Anthologium IV xxix C 52):

  From Aristotle’s work On Good Birth: ‘It is evident, then’, I said, ‘on the subject which has for so long puzzled us, why those born into once rich or once good families are thought to be better born than those whose possession of these advantages is recent. For a man’s own goodness is nearer to him than that of a grandfather, and on that basis it would be the good man who is well born. And some have said this, claiming by this deduction to argue against good birth: Euripides, for example, says that good birth belongs not to those whose ancestors have long been good, but to a man who is himself good, simply. That is not so; those are right who give preference to ancient excellence. Let us state the reasons for this. Good birth is excellence of family, and excellence is good; and a good family is one in which there have been many good men. Now this happens when the family has had a good origin; for an origin has the power of producing many products like itself: this is the function of an origin—to produce many results like itself. When, then, there has been one man of this kind in the family, a man so good that many generations inherit his goodness, the family is bound to be good. There will be many good men if the family is human, many good horses if it is equine, and so too with the other animals. Thus it is reasonable that not rich men nor good men but those born into once rich or once good families should be well born. The argument has its eye on the truth: the origin counts more than anything else. Yet not even those born of good ancestors are in every case well born, but only those who have among their ancestors originators who are good.1 When a man is good himself but has not the natural power to beget many like him, the origin has not in such a case the power we have ascribed to it. . .2 People are well born if they come of such a family—not if their father is well born but if the originator of the family is so. For it is not by himself that a father begets a good man, but because he came of such a family.’

  F 96 R3 (Athenaeus, 564B):

  Aristotle said that lovers look to no other part of the bodies of their beloved than their eyes, in which modesty dwells.

  F 97 R3 (Plutarch, Pelopidas 287D):

  It is said also that Iolaus, who was the beloved of Hercules, shares in the contests of the Thebans and fights alongside them. Aristotle says that even in his day lovers and their beloved still pledged their troth on the tomb of Iolaus.

  F 98 R3 (Plutarch, Amatorius 761 A):

  Aristotle says that Cleomachus died in a different way, after defeating the Eretrians in battle, and that the man embraced by his lover was one of the Chalcidians from Thrace who had been sent to help the Chalcidians in Euboea—hence the Chalcidian song, ‘O children. . .’.

  (al-Dailami, cod. Tubingen Weisweiler 81):

  It is said in a certain book of the ancients that the pupils of Aristotle assembled before him one day. And Aristotle said to them: ‘While I was standing on a hill I saw a youth who stood on a terrace roof and recited a poem, the meaning of which was this: whoever dies of passionate love, let him die in this manner—there is no good in love without death’. Then said his pupil Issos: ‘O philosopher, inform us concerning the essence of love’. And Aristotle replied: ‘Love is an impulse which is generated in the heart; when it is once generated, it moves and grows; afterwards it becomes mature. When it has become mature it is joined by affections of appetite whenever the lover in the depth of his heart increases in his excitement, his perseverance, his desire, his concentrations, and his wishes. And that brings him to cupidity and urges him to demands, until it brings him to disquieting grief, continuous sleeplessness, and hopeless passion and sadness and destruction of mind’.

  F 101 R3 (Athenaeus, 674F):

  Aristotle in the Symposium says that we offer nothing mutilated to the gods, but only what is perfect and whole; and what is full is perfect; and garlanding signifies a certain sort of filling.

  F 103 R3 (Apollonius, Historiae mirabiles 25):

  Aristotle in his On Drunkenness says that Andron of Argos, though he ate many salty and dry foods, remained all through his life without thirst and without dri
nk. Besides, he twice travelled to Ammon through the desert, eating dry barley-groats but taking no liquid.

  F 104 R3 (Athenaeus, 641 DE):

  Aristotle, in his On Drunkenness, talks of second courses in the same way as we do, thus: ‘We must consider that a sweetmeat differs entirely from a foodstuff, as much as what is eaten differs from what is nibbled (‘nibbles’ was the old Greek word for things served as sweetmeats); so that the first person to speak of ‘second courses’ seems to have been justified—for the eating of sweets is a sort of extra dinner, and the sweetmeats form a second meal’.

  F 105 R3 ([Julian], Letters 391 BC):

  The fig . . . is so useful to mankind that Aristotle actually says that it is an antidote to every poison, and that for precisely that reason it is served at meals both as an hors d’oeuvre and as a dessert—as though it were being wrapped round the iniquities of the food in preference to any other sacred antidote.

  F 106 R3 (Athenaeus, 447AB):

  Aristotle in his work On Drunkenness says . . . : ‘Something peculiar happens in the case of the barley-liquor which they call pinon. Those who are drunk on other intoxicants fall in all directions—to left, to right, face down, face up: those who are drunk on pinon only1 fall backwards and face up’.

  F 107 R3 (Athenaeus, 429CD):

  Aristotle in his work On Drunkenness says: ‘If wine is boiled down slightly, it is less intoxicating when drunk; for when it is boiled down its potency becomes weaker. Older men’, he says, ‘get drunk very quickly because of the scarcity and weakness of the natural heat in them; and very young men get drunk fairly quickly because of the abundance of heat in them—for they are easily overcome by the added heat from the wine. And of the lower animals, pigs get drunk when they are fed on masses of pressed grapes, ravens and dogs when they have eaten the so-called wine-plant, monkeys and elephants when they drink wine. That is why men hunt for monkeys and ravens after getting them drunk on wine or on the wine-plant’.

  F 108 R3 (Plutarch, quaestiones convivales 650A):

  Florus was surprised that Aristotle, having written in his work On Drunkenness that old men are most susceptible to drunkenness and women least so, did not work out the cause, although he does not normally omit such inquiries.

  F 109 R3 (Athenaeus, 429F):

  Aristotle says that a pint and a half of watered Samagorian wine, as they call it, will make more than forty men drunk.

  F 110 R3, F 111 R3 (Athenaeus, 464CD):

  Aristotle in his work On Drunkenness says: ‘The cups they call Rhodian are introduced at drinking-parties both because of their taste and because when heated they make the wine less intoxicating. For they put myrrh, rushes, and other such stuffs into water and bring it to the boil; when this is added to the wine it is less intoxicating’. In another part of the work he says: ‘Rhodian cups are made by boiling together myrrh, rushes, dill, saffron, balsam, cardamom, and cinnamon. The liquor resulting from this is added to the wine and inhibits intoxication to such an extent that, by working on the spirits, it even dispels sexual desire’.

  II • LOGIC

  F 112-124 R3

  F 112 R3 (Alexander, Commentarius in Topica 63.11–13):

  But problems put forward in this way are physical problems, as he [sc. Aristotle] has said in his On Problems; for physical phenomena whose causes are unknown constitute physical problems.

  F 114 R3 (Diogenes Laertius, III 80):

  Plato, Aristotle says, used to divide things in this way: of goods, some are in the soul, some in the body, some external. For example, justice, wisdom, courage, temperance, and the like are in the soul; beauty, good condition, health, and strength in the body; friends, the happiness of one’s country, and wealth fall among external goods.

  F 114 R3 (Diogenes Laertius, III 109):

  Thus of existing things, some exist in their own right, others are relative. And according to Aristotle, he [Plato] used to divide the primary things too in this way.

  F 116 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in Categorias 65.2–10):

  But in which [sc. category] are negations, privations, and the various inflexions of the verb to be placed? This question Aristotle himself answered in his Notes. For in his Methodics, in his Divisions, and in another set of Notes entitled On Language (which, even if it is thought by some not to be a genuine work of Aristotle, is at all events the work of some member of the school)—in all of these, after putting forward the categories, he adds ‘I mean these with their cases’ (i.e. inflexions), and he connects his exposition of them with negations, privations, and indefinite terms.

  F 117 R3 (Ammonius, Commentarius in Categorias 13.20–25):

  It should be known that in the old libraries forty books of Analytics have been found and two of Categories. One began: Of existing things, some are called homonymous, others synonymous’. The other is the one now before us. . . . This version has been preferred as being superior in order and in matter, and as everywhere proclaiming Aristotle as its begetter.

  F 118 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in Categorias 387.17–388.1):

  But now that the language of Aristotle has been clarified, let us see what the more famous interpreters make of the passage. For since the Stoics pride themselves on their working out of logical problems, they are anxious in the matter of contraries—as well as in all other matters—to show that Aristotle furnished the starting point for everything in one book which he called On Opposites, in which there is an immense number of problems set forth. Of these the Stoics have set out a small portion: the rest it would not be reasonable to include in an introduction, but those which the Stoics set out in agreement with Aristotle must be mentioned. There has been laid down an ancient definition of contraries, which we have mentioned previously, viz. that they are the things which differ most from one another within a genus: in his work On Opposites Aristotle subjected this definition to all kinds of tests, and amended it. He asked whether things that differ are contraries, and whether difference can be contrariety, and whether complete divergence is maximum difference, and whether the things that are furthest apart are identical with those that differ most, and what distance is, and how we are to understand maximum distance. Since all this proves to lead to absurdity, something must be added to the genus, so that the definition comes to be ‘the things that are furthest apart in the same genus’. He pointed out the absurdities consequent upon this; he asked whether contrariety is otherness,1 and whether the things that are most different are contraries, and added many other criticisms.. . .[388.13–14] This is only a small part of the difficulties raised by Aristotle in his work On Opposites.

  F 119 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in Categorias 389.5–10):

  He [sc. Aristotle] in his book On Opposites says that justice is contrary to injustice, but that the just man is not said to be contrary, but to be contrarily disposed, to the unjust man. If these too are contraries, he says, ‘contrary’ will be used in two ways: things will be called contraries either in themselves, like excellence and badness, movement and rest, or by virtue of sharing in contraries, e.g. that which moves and that which rests, or the good and the bad.

  F 120 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in Categorias 389.28–390.5):

  This distinction was first drawn by Aristotle, who held that a simple term is not contrary to the definition of its contrary, e.g. that wisdom is not contrary to ignorance of things good, bad and neutral; but that, if there is contrariety here at all, definition is to be opposed to definition, and the definitions should be said to be contrary by being definitions of contrary things. He elaborates further on this by saying that a definition is contrary to a definition if their subjects are contrary in genus or in differentiae or in both; e.g. let the definition of beauty be mutual symmetry of parts; mutual asymmetry of parts is contrary to this, and the contrariety is in respect of the genus; but in other cases it is by virtue of differentiae: e.g. white is colour that pierces the sight, black is colour that compresses it—in these the genus is the same, but there is contra
riety in respect of the differentiae.

  F 121 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in Categorias 390.19–25):

  Aristotle himself in his book On Opposites considered whether if someone who has lost one of two things does not of necessity gain the other, there must be something between the two; or whether this is not in all cases so. For a man who has lost a true opinion does not necessarily acquire a false one, nor does he who has lost a false one necessarily acquire a true—sometimes you pass from one opinion to a complete absence of opinion or else to knowledge. But there is nothing between true and false opinion, if ignorance and knowledge are not.

  F 122 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in Categorias 402.30–403.1):

  Aristotle took his distinction between state and privation not from the realm of custom but from that of nature, where the antithesis of state and privation is properly applied.. . . In his book On Opposites he himself says that some privations are privations of natural states, others of customary states, others of possessions, others of certain other things—blindness a privation of a natural state, nakedness a privation of a customary state, loss of money a privation of something acquired in practice. There are several other types of privation, and some it is impossible some possible to lose.

  F 124 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in Categorias 409.30–410.2):

  In the book On Opposites he added to these types of contrariety also that of things neither good nor bad to things neither good nor bad, saying that it is in this way that white is contrary to black, sweet to bitter, high to low, rest to movement.

  III • RHETORIC AND POETICS

  F 125–179 R3

  F 136 R3 (Cicero, de inventione II ii 6–7):