by Aristotle
F 637 R3 (Scholiast to Aristides, Panathenaicus 189.4):
The order of the festivals according to Aristotle is this: first, the Eleusinia, because of the harvest of Demeter; second, the Panathenaea, for Aster the giant who was killed by Athena;1 third, the festival founded in Argos by Danaus because of the marriage of his daughters; fourth, the one founded in Arcadia by Lycaon and called the Lycaea; fifth, the one at Iolcus, begun by Acastus2 for his father Pelias; sixth, the one at the Isthmus, introduced by Sisyphus for Melicertes; seventh, the Olympic festival, introduced by Hercules for Pelops; eighth, the one at Nemea, which the Seven against Thebes founded for Archemorus;3 ninth, the one at Troy which Achilles instituted for Patroclus; tenth, the Pythian festival which the Amphictyons founded for the death of Pytho. This is the order of the old and ancient festivals set out by Aristotle who composed the Peploi.
IX • LETTERS
F 645–670 R3
F 645 R3 (Athenaeus, 697A):
And Aristotle himself, in his defence against the charge of impiety (if the speech is not a forgery) says: ‘If I had decided to sacrifice to Hermeias as an immortal I would not have prepared a memorial to him as a mortal, and if I had wished to immortalise his nature I would not have adorned his body with burial honours’.
F 646 R3 (Vita Aristotelis Marciana 94–96 Gigon):
In order to confer a benefit on all mankind, he [sc. Aristotle] wrote a book to Alexander on kingship, instructing him on how to rule.
F 647 R3 (Themistius, orationes 107CD):
We should do honour to Aristotle, who slightly altered Plato’s words and made his thesis truer. He said that it was not merely unnecessary for a king to be a philosopher, but actually a disadvantage; rather, a king should be attentive and obedient to true philosophers, since then he would fill his reign with good deeds not with words.
F 651 R3 (Harpocration, s.v. ὅτι ξένoυς):
. . . Aristotle, in one of his letters to Philip, says that he [sc. Philip] released the daughters of Apollophanes to Satyrus the actor.
F 652 R3 (Vita Aristotelis Marciana 34–40 Gigon):
When he [sc. Aristotle] was seventeen, he received an oracle from the Pythian god to become a philosopher in Athens. There he attended on Socrates, and stayed with him for the short time that remained before the latter’s death; after him, he attended on Plato and stayed with him too until death, a period of some twenty years as he himself says in a letter to Philip.
F 654 R3 (Vita Aristotelis Marciana 121–27 Gigon):
. . . and he can be seen in his letters expressing his admiration for Plato and recommending to the kings those connected to Plato by birth.
F 655 R3 (Vita Aristotelis Marciana 73–80 Gigon):
He [sc. Aristotle] was so valued by Philip and Olympias that they set up a statue of him with themselves; and the philosopher, being such a considerable part of the kingdom,1 through his philosophy used his power as an instrument for benefaction, doing good both to individuals and to entire cities and to all men at one and the same time. For the benefits he bestowed on individuals are revealed in the letters which he wrote on various subjects to the royal couple.. . .
F 656 R3 (Demetrius, de elocutione 233):
Aristotle, however, actually uses demonstrations in his letters; for example, wishing to get it across that one should benefit large and small states alike, he says: ‘For the gods in both are equal; hence, since the Graces are goddesses, equal grace will accrue to you from both’.
F 657 R3 (Dio Chrysostom, XLVII 9–11):
I used sometimes to congratulate Aristotle, who, coming from Stagira (a small town in Olynthia), after the fall of Olynthus managed through his intimacy with Alexander and Philip to secure the refounding of the site; and I used to say that he was the only man to have had the good fortune to be the founder of his own country. Now the other day I chanced on a letter in which Aristotle is repenting and lamenting and saying that some of the people in question were trying to destroy the king and the governors he had sent, so that no good had come of it nor had the city been established at all. But if it pained some men that, having been stateless fugitives, they should acquire a country and live in freedom according to the laws, and if they preferred to live in villages like barbarians rather than have the form and name of a state, why should we be amazed if anything else pains men? Aristotle writes in his letter that he has given up the business—for he says that he is putting his hands up.
F 658 R3 (Plutarch, de Alexandri fortuna 329B):
He [sc. Alexander] did not do as Aristotle advised—act towards Greeks as their leader, towards foreigners as their master, treating the former as friends and kinsmen and the latter as animals or plants—and so fill his reign with many wars and banishments and festering factions.
F 659 R3 (Aelian, Varia Historia xii 54):
Aristotle, wishing to pacify Alexander’s rage and to put a stop to his anger with so many people, wrote to him as follows: ‘Anger and rage are directed not against lesser men but against greater; and you have no equal’.
F 660 R3 (Stobaeus, Anthologium III xx 55):
Just as smoke stings our eyes and prevents us from seeing what is under our feet, so anger, once aroused, clouds our reason and does not allow our mind to anticipate the absurdity which will result from it.
F 661 R3 (Stobaeus, Anthologium III xx 46):
Or do you not see that when anything is done in rage our reason goes abroad, fleeing anger as a harsh tyrant?
F 663 R3 (Aristocles, frag. 2 Heiland = Eusebius. Praeparatio Evangelica XV ii 14):
. . . as for his [sc. Aristotle’s] marriage to Pythias, he himself has given a full enough defence in his letters to Antipater. For he married her on Hermeias’ death because of his regard for Hermeias: she was a modest and good woman, and in unfortunate circumstances because of the disasters that had overtaken her brother.
F 664 R3 (Plutarch, de tranquilizate animi 472E):
Aristotle in writing to Antipater said: ‘It is not just Alexander who has good reason to be proud because he has power over many men: pride is no less appropriate on the part of those who possess correct beliefs about the gods’.
F 665 R3 (Demetrius, de elocutione 225):
Who would speak to a friend as Aristotle does to Antipater in a letter on behalf of some exile who was an old man? He says: ‘If this man has journeyed as an exile in every land without ever returning home, clearly no reproach attaches to men who wish to return home to Hades’.
F 666 R3 (Aelian, Varia Historia xiv 1):
Aristotle . . . wrote to Antipater when someone deprived him of the honours voted him at Delphi, commenting thus: ‘As to what was voted me at Delphi and of which I have been deprived, my present attitude is neither one of great concern nor yet one of complete indifference’.
F 667 R3 (Vita Aristotelis Marciana 184–91 Gigon):
When the Athenians rose against him, he withdrew to Chalcis, hinting at his reasons: ‘I will not allow the Athenians to wrong philosophy twice.’ And, since citizens and foreigners did not have the same duties to the state of Athens, he writes in a letter to Antipater: ‘Life at Athens is difficult—for pear grows old on pear and fig on fig,’ punning on the succession of informers.1
F 668 R3 (Demetrius, de elocutione 144):
Elegance comes both from colloquial words, as when Aristotle says ‘For the more I am a loner the more fond of stories have I become,’ and also from coined words, as for example the same author in the same passage: ‘For the more I am a selfer and a loner, the more fond of stories have I become’ (the word ‘loner’ is of somewhat colloquial usage, while ‘selfer’ is coined from ‘self’).
F 669 R3 (Demetrius, de elocutione 29):
However, they [sc. homoeoteleuta] are sometimes useful, as when Aristotle says: ‘I came to Athens from Stagira because of the great king, from Stagira to Athens because of the great winter’.
F 670 R3 (Demetrius, de elocutione 230):
Aristotle, who has a high reputati
on as a letter-writer, says: ‘I am not writing to you on this matter; for it is not suitable for a letter’.
(Ptolemy, Life of Aristotle p. 214 Düring):
Thereupon, one of the priests which are called hierophants, by name Eurymedon, came forward with the purpose of denouncing him. He indicted him for impiety, claiming that Aristotle did not hold the gods in honour. He was prompted by a grudge which he bore to him in his heart, and Aristotle speaks of this in a letter to Antipater.
(Ptolemy, Life of Aristotle p. 215 Düring):
With what zest he practised goodness and strove to do good services to his fellow men is apparent from his open letters and his books and from what the reader can gather in these writings concerning the numerous interviews he had with contemporary kings and individuals, by which negotiations he promoted their affairs and proved useful to them.
X • POEMS
F 671–675 R3
F 650 R3. F 673 R3 (Olympiodorus, Commentarius in Gorgiam 41.9):
That Aristotle actually honours him [sc. Plato] as his teacher is clear from the fact that he wrote a whole speech in praise of him; for he narrates his biography and lavishes praise upon him. And it is not just in the encomium that he praises him: in the elegy addressed to Eudemus he praises Plato himself in the following lines:
Coming to the fair land of Cecropia
he piously founded an altar of holy friendship
for a man whom the wicked may not properly even praise;
he, alone or the first of mortals, showed clearly
by his own life and by the courses of his arguments
that a man becomes good and happy at the same time:
but now none can grasp this any more.1
F 675 R3 (Diogenes Laertius, V 7; Athenaeus, 696BE; Didymus, in Demosthenem col. 6):
Excellence, greatly striven for by mankind,
noblest quarry in life,
for your form, maiden,
to die is an enviable fate in Greece
and to endure violent untiring labours.
Such is the fruit you cast into the mind,
immortal, better than gold
and parents and the soft rays of sleep.
For your sake Hercules, son of Zeus, and the children of Leda underwent much, with their deeds
hunting your power.
From desire for you Achilles and Ajax went to the house of Hades.
For the sake of your dear form the nursling of Atarneus forsook the rays of the sun.
Therefore, celebrated for his deeds and immortal, the Muses will magnify him,
daughters of Memory, magnifying the honour of Zeus, god of guests, and the reward of steadfast friendship.1
ARISTOTLE’S WILL
(Diogenes Laertius, V 11–16):
It will be well; but if anything should happen, Aristotle has made the following provisions:
Antipater is to be executor in all matters and in perpetuity; but until Nicanor arrives, Aristomenes, Timarchus, Hipparchus, Dioteles, and Theophrastus (if he is willing and able) are to take care of the children and of Herpyllis and of the estate.
And when my daughter comes of age, they are to marry her to Nicanor; and should anything happen to her—may it not, nor will it—before her marriage or after she has married but before there are children, Nicanor is to be responsible for administering the affairs of my son and the others in a fashion worthy both of himself and of us. Let Nicanor take care of both my daughter and my son Nicomachus in whatever way he judges appropriate to their affairs, as though he were both father and brother to them.
If anything should previously happen to Nicanor—may it not—either before he has taken my daughter or after he has taken her but before there are children, then if he has made arrangements let these take effect. If Theophrastus wishes to live with my daughter, let the same provisions stand as with Nicanor; if he does not, the executors, after consultation with Antipater, are to administer the affairs both of my daughter and of my son in whatever way they think best.
The executors and Nicanor are to remember me in taking care also of Herpyllis (for she was good to me) in all respects, and in particular, if she wants to take a husband, they are to see to it that she is given away in a fashion not unworthy of us. And in addition to what she has previously been given, they are to give her also a talent of silver from the estate and three woman servants, if she wishes, and the maidservant which she has, and the slave from Pyrrha. And if she wants to live in Chalcis, she is to have the guest-house by the garden, if in Stagira the family house; and whichever of these she wants, the executors are to furnish with whatever seems both proper to them and satisfactory to Herpyllis.
Nicanor is also to take care of the slave Murmex, so that he is conveyed in a fashion worthy of us to his own people, together with those of his belongings which we received. They are to free Ambracis and to give her on the marriage of my daughter five hundred drachmae and the maidservant which she has. They are also to give to Thale, in addition to the maidservant which she has (the one who was purchased), a thousand drachmae and a maidservant. As for Simo, apart from the money which has earlier been given him for another slave, they are either to buy him a slave or to give him money. Tacho is to be freed on the marriage of my daughter, as are Philo and Olympius and his child. Do not sell any of the slaves who served me, but employ them; and when they come of age, send them away free men as they deserve.
They are to take care too that the statues which I commissioned from Gryllio are completed and set up—both the one of Nicanor and the one of Proxenus (which I intended to commission), and the one of Nicanor’s mother; as for the one of Arimnestus which is already completed, set it up as a memorial to him since he died childless. They are to dedicate the statue of my mother to Demeter in Nemea or wherever seems best. Wherever they make my grave they are to take and deposit there Pythias’ bones too, just as she instructed. And Nicanor, if he is preserved (which is a prayer I have offered on his behalf) is to set up statues in stone four cubits in height to Zeus Saviour and Athena Saviouress at Stagira.
1Reading ἐπιτεθειμένων.
2Text uncertain.
3Reading Πυθιoνῖκαι μoυσικῆς ά.
4Reading περἰ Σηλυμβριανῶν.
5Reading ‘Hσιoδεἱων for θεἱων.
1Pohlenz marks a lacuna.
1Omitting τῆς φὑσεως.
1Euripides, frag. 836 Nauck.
1Reading τἀγαθόν.
1These signs refer to the fragments in Düring’s edition.
2Understanding’ and its cognates here, and throughout the Protrepticus fragments, translate φρόνησις and its cognates.
1Text uncertain.
2Reading ὥστε for ὅτι.
3Text corrupt.
1Text corrupt.
1Reading πoλὑ τε.
1Reading oὐχ εἷ ς for oὐχ ᾖ.
1Retaining μεγἱστην.
2Text corrupt.
1The text of the last clause is disputed.
1Perhaps read Nηρἱνθῳ.
1Meton was Empedocles’ father.
1Reading ἐμμέτρoυς ὄντας τoὑς.
2Reading πρότερoν for πρῶτoν.
3Reading διαλόγoυς for λόγoυς.
1Reading ait enim for at ii.
1Text uncertain.
2Reading τἱνι τoῦτo ἔνι πoτέ.
1Reading ὄντες ἀγαθoί.
2There is a lacuna in the text.
1Reading μόνoν for μόνoι.
1Reading έτερότης.
1Reading ἐπεἰ δἡ, and placing a comma before ὅταν.
2Comma after γένηται, no comma after ἀπoλειπόμενoν.
3Omitting τρἱτoν.
4Text uncertain.
5Adding καἰ δ’.
1There is a lacuna here.
2Text uncertain.
1There is a lacuna in the t
ext.
1Reading εἶπoν.
1Reading ἤδη for ᾔδει.
1There is a lacuna in the text.
1There is a lacuna in the text here.
1Reading ὑπò ’Aθηνᾶς ἀναιρεθέντι.
2Reading ’Aκάστoυ.
3Reading ’Aρχεμόρῳ.
1Reading βασιλεἱας for φιλoσoφἱας.
1Fig = σῦκoς, informer = συκoφάντης.
1Text uncertain.
1Text often uncertain.
INDEXES
REFERENCES give Bekker page-, column-, and approximate line-numbers: these numbers are to be found in the margins of the present translation. References of the form “CA n” give section-numbers in the Constitution of Athens. References to the fragments are all of the form “p. n” and give page-numbers of the present translation.
The Index of Names is largely confined to writers or thinkers mentioned by Aristotle. It does not include historical figures who occur mainly in the Politics. A few historical figures—and also a few geographical locations—are given in the General Index.
For reasons of space, the General Index is highly selective, both in its headings and (for all but the major items) in the passages it cites. Entries are not analytical. The reader who requires more detailed information must consult Bonitz’s Index Aristotelicus (Greek) or Organ’s Index to Aristotle (English)—or else turn to the indexes in the several volumes of the original Oxford translation.
INDEX OF NAMES
Aeschines, 1417b1
Aeschylus, 342b36, 343a27, 633a19, 1111a10, 1388a7, 1449a16, 1456a17, 1458b20, 1458b22
Aesion, 1411a25
Aesop, 356b11, 1393a13, 1393b10, 1393b23
Agathon, 1139b9, 1140a 19, 1229b40, 1232b8, 1392b7, 1402a9, 1451b21, 1454b14, 1456a18, 1456a24, 1456a30
Alcaeus, 1285a37, 1367a9
Alcidamus, 1373b18, 1398b10, 1406a1, 1406b11
Alcmaeon, 405a29, 492a 14, 581a16, 916a34, 986a26, 1110a28, 1397b3
Alcman, 557a2