# Politics *Aristotle's eight books on the polis: what a city is and why it is natural, who counts as a citizen, how constitutions differ, why they fall, and what the best one would look like. It gave us the working vocabulary of monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy and democracy, and it also contains the most famous ancient defence of slavery.* > **What I read.** Benjamin Jowett's public-domain translation (Oxford, 1885), as posted by the MIT Internet Classics Archive, all eight books, skimmed chapter by chapter, with the passages quoted below read in full. The MIT copy of Book V stops partway through chapter 11, so for the end of Book V I used William Ellis's public-domain translation (Project Gutenberg #6762). Quotations are Jowett's unless marked. References give book and chapter (so VII.16 is Book VII, chapter 16); Bekker page numbers are added only where a source I checked gives them. I did not see any of the modern translations. Related in this vault: - [[Book Summaries/Origen/Contra Celsum - Origen|Contra Celsum]] and [[Book Summaries/Holland, Tom/Dominion - Tom Holland|Dominion]], cited in the same Nils Glenn video, which uses the *Politics* as its picture of the pagan moral order that Christianity overturned. - [[Book Summaries/Mill, John Stuart/On Liberty - John Stuart Mill|On Liberty]] and [[Book Summaries/Bentham, Jeremy/An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation - Jeremy Bentham|Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation]], two modern answers to the question Aristotle starts with: what is the state for? - *De Anima* (Aristotle) is further down the queue and will join this author folder. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *Πολιτικά* (*Politika*), Latin *Politica*; English *Politics*. Ellis's version is titled *A Treatise on Government* | | Author | Aristotle of Stagira (384–322 BC) | | Written | At Athens during Aristotle's second stay (from 335), in the Lyceum years. The text mentions the assassination of Philip II of Macedon (V.10; 1311b per Wikipedia), which happened in 336 BC, so at least part was written after that ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle))) | | What kind of text | Not a polished book. Probably lecture material, perhaps assembled from shorter treatises and notes ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle))). It opens by looking back to the *Nicomachean Ethics*, which ends by calling for a study of constitutions | | Structure | Eight books. I: household and slavery; II: ideal and actual constitutions reviewed; III: citizen and constitution; IV–VI: actual constitutions, their kinds, decline and preservation; VII–VIII: the best constitution and education | | Research base | Aristotle's school collected 158 constitutions of Greek cities; only the *Constitution of the Athenians* survives ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle)); the Athenian text's authorship is debated, per [SEP](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/)) | | Reference system | Bekker pages 1252a–1342b | | Public-domain English | **William Ellis** (Everyman's Library, Dent 1912). **Benjamin Jowett** (Clarendon Press 1885; vol. 1 translation, vol. 2 notes). **J. E. C. Welldon** (Macmillan 1883) | | Modern English | **C. D. C. Reeve**, Hackett 1998, 288 pp., ISBN 0-87220-388-3. **Carnes Lord**, Chicago 1984; 2nd ed. 2013, ISBN 978-0-226-92184-6. **T. A. Sinclair**, rev. **Trevor J. Saunders**, Penguin Classics 1981, ISBN 0-14-044421-1. **Ernest Barker**, rev. **R. F. Stalley**, Oxford World's Classics 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-953873-6. **H. Rackham**, Loeb 264 (Greek and English; 1932, OL edition 1944), ISBN 0-674-99291-1. Also Peter L. P. Simpson (UNC 1997) and Joe Sachs (Focus 2012), per Wikipedia | | Cover | [Open Library cover (Reeve, Hackett)](https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/3792124-L.jpg) | **Where it came up.** - Video: Nils Glenn, ["Our Understanding of Jesus Just Changed"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3WGPomiOJs). At [11:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3WGPomiOJs&t=680s) Glenn quotes Aristotle asking "Is not all slavery a violation of nature?" and concluding that some are "by nature free and other slaves", for whom slavery "is both expedient and right"; then, "in the same book", "Let there be a law that no deformed child shall live." The book is not named on mic. Vault note: [[Video Summaries/Nils Glenn/Our Understanding of Jesus Just Changed]]. - Video: Phil0bot, ["We've been reading ancient philosophy backwards."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaQmkxKywBs). From [21:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaQmkxKywBs&t=1286s) the host takes Book I's natural-slavery argument as his example of a bad argument from a great thinker, then at [24:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaQmkxKywBs&t=1441s) notes that Aristotle knew of contemporaries who called slavery "contrary to nature". Vault note: [[Video Summaries/Phil0bot/We've been reading ancient philosophy backwards]]. - Requested by Video Summaries on 2026-11-07. ## 2. Book resources **Reference and catalog pages** - Open Library: work [OL16247898W](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16247898W) (225 editions listed); Reeve, Hackett 1998 [OL698671M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL698671M); Lord, Chicago 2013 [OL26947798M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL26947798M); Sinclair/Saunders, Penguin 1981 [OL7355256M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7355256M); Barker/Stalley, Oxford 2009 [OL23726216M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23726216M); Rackham, Loeb [OL1040273M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1040273M). - Google Books: [search](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=Aristotle+Politics). - WorldCat: [search](https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3Apolitics+au%3Aaristotle). - Publisher pages: I could not reach working pages for the Hackett (Reeve) or Chicago (Lord) editions from here; search [Hackett](https://www.hackettpublishing.com/) or [University of Chicago Press](https://press.uchicago.edu/) for "Aristotle Politics". - [Wikipedia, *Politics (Aristotle)*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle)); [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Aristotle's Political Theory"](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/) (rev. 2022). **Free (legal; the work and the older translations are in the public domain)** - MIT Internet Classics Archive, Jowett translation: [Book I](https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html) (Books II–VIII at the same address, `politics.2.two.html` and so on). The text used here. Its Book V page is cut off near the end of chapter 11. - Project Gutenberg: [#6762, *Politics: A Treatise on Government*](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6762), Ellis translation, complete. - Perseus Digital Library: [Rackham translation](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0058), with the Greek alongside. - Internet Archive, free to read: Jowett, Clarendon 1885, [vol. 1 (introduction and translation)](https://archive.org/details/politicsofaristo01arisuoft) and [vol. 2 (notes)](https://archive.org/details/politicsofaristo02arisuoft); W. L. Newman's Greek text and commentary (Oxford 1887), [vol. 1](https://archive.org/details/thepoliticsofari00arisuoft). - Internet Archive / Open Library lending (free account): [Reeve, Hackett 1998](https://archive.org/details/politics00aris); [Penguin 1981](https://archive.org/details/politicspenguinc00aris); [Lord, Chicago 2013](https://archive.org/details/aristotlespoliti0000aris_m8t6); [Barker/Stalley, Oxford 2009](https://archive.org/details/politics0000aris_d5v5). Borrowing status shown on each page; not checked one by one. - LibriVox, free audio: [*Politics*](https://librivox.org/politics-by-aristotle/), Jowett translation, LibriVox volunteers, 30 sections, 9 h 14 min (catalogued 2008). - Libby/OverDrive: Blackstone audiobook (Jowett translation, read by Bernard Mayes, unabridged, 9 h 54 min, 2005), e.g. [Oregon Library2Go](https://library2go.overdrive.com/media/66667); availability depends on your library. Many public-domain ebook editions are also on OverDrive. - Hoopla: not checked; [search Hoopla](https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?q=aristotle%20politics). **Paid** - Amazon print: [Reeve, Hackett](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0872203883); [Lord, Chicago 2nd ed.](https://www.amazon.com/dp/022692184X); [Penguin Classics](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140444211); [Oxford World's Classics](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199538735); [Loeb (Greek–English)](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674992911). - Kindle: many cheap or free Jowett reprints plus the modern translations; [Kindle search](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=aristotle+politics&i=digital-text). Which modern translations have Kindle editions was not checked. - Audible: [*Politics*, Jowett translation, read by Andrew Cullum](https://www.audible.com/pd/Politics-Audiobook/B07PLHRBYR). Apple Books also lists an unabridged reading by Alastair Cameron (A.R.N. Publications, 2017, 9 h 53 min). I found no audiobook of a modern translation (not checked exhaustively). ## 3. Author biography Aristotle was born in 384 BC at Stagira, a small city in the north of Greece; his father was court physician to the king of Macedon. At about seventeen he went to Athens and spent some twenty years in Plato's Academy, until Plato died in 347. He then worked at Assos in Asia Minor, under the patronage of its ruler Hermias (or Hermeias), and on Lesbos with Theophrastus, where much of his biological research seems to have begun. He married Pythias, Hermias's niece. In 343 Philip II invited him to Pella to tutor the thirteen-year-old Alexander; how long the tutoring lasted is uncertain, and little is known of what it involved. In 335 he returned to Athens as a resident alien and founded his own school in the grounds of the Lyceum; its members were later called Peripatetics. The school collected manuscripts and ran research programs on everything from botany to constitutions. After Alexander's death in 323, anti-Macedonian feeling drove him to Chalcis on Euboea, where he died in 322. Most of his surviving works, the *Politics* among them, appear to be teaching texts rather than finished books for the public. After his partner Pythias died he lived with Herpyllis; whether she was a slave, a freedwoman or a wife is disputed, a detail with a certain irony for the author of Book I. Sources: [SEP, "Aristotle"](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/), §1; [SEP, "Aristotle's Political Theory"](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/); [Wikipedia, *Politics (Aristotle)*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle)). ## 4. Author interviews and talks Aristotle gave no interviews that survive. Here instead are his own framing and the best talks about the book that I could find: - **Aristotle's own framing.** *Nicomachean Ethics* X.9 ends by proposing a study of collected constitutions, what preserves and destroys cities, and which constitution is best: the programme of the *Politics*. *Politics* I.1–2 then states the thesis that the city exists by nature for the good life. - **[BBC Radio 4, *In Our Time*, "Aristotle's Politics"](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00f8530)** (6 November 2008, 45 min). Melvyn Bragg with Angie Hobbs (Warwick), Paul Cartledge (Cambridge) and Annabel Brett (Cambridge) on the classification of constitutions, wealth and law, women and slaves, and later readers from Aquinas to Rousseau. - **[Open Yale Courses, PLSC 114, Steven B. Smith](https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114)** (recorded Fall 2006; video, audio and transcript). [Lecture 7](https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114/lecture-7): Books I and III, the political animal and natural slavery. [Lecture 8](https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114/lecture-8): Book IV and the idea of the regime. [Lecture 9](https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114/lecture-9): polity and faction, which Smith reads as anticipating Madison. - **[LibriVox reading](https://librivox.org/politics-by-aristotle/)** of the Jowett translation. A reading, not commentary. - **The source videos.** Nils Glenn (11:20) uses Books I and VII as a picture of the ancient moral order; Phil0bot (21:26–24:30) uses Book I to show how to explain an argument without excusing it. ## 5. Summary ### Thesis "Man is by nature a political animal" (I.2). The city (*polis*) grows out of the household and the village, "originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life" (I.2). Because human beings complete their nature only in a city, the city is prior to the individual, and anyone who can live without one "must be either a beast or a god" (I.2). Politics is therefore the master science of the human good, and a constitution is judged by whether it serves the common interest or the interest of the rulers (III.7). From there the book runs two inquiries side by side. One is empirical: which constitutions exist, what kinds of democracy and oligarchy there are, why they fall and how they can be kept. The other is ideal: what is the best constitution "for those who are most able to realize their ideal of life" (II.1), and how should its citizens be bred and educated. The practical answer is a mixed regime with a large middle class (IV.11); the ideal answer is a small city of leisured, educated citizens (VII–VIII), supported by farmers and slaves who are not citizens. ### Outline **Book I (13 chapters): the household, slavery and wealth.** - I.1–2: Every community aims at some good; the city aims at the highest. Household, village, city: the city exists by nature and is prior to the individual. Speech marks humans as political; "the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war". - I.3–7: The household's parts are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children. Some say mastery is "contrary to nature" and slavery a matter of law only (I.3). Aristotle answers that a slave is a "living possession", an instrument for action, and would not be needed only "if... the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them" (I.4). The natural slave is one who "participates in rational principle enough to apprehend, but not to have" it (I.5); for such people slavery "is both expedient and right" (I.5). I.6 concedes there is also slavery by mere law (captives of war) and that the opponents "have in a certain way right on their side". I.7: mastery is not political rule. - I.8–11: Acquiring wealth. Natural acquisition (farming, herding, hunting) has a limit set by the needs of the household. Trade for profit has none, and it is "justly censured"; "the most hated sort... is usury", money breeding money (I.10). I.11: practical notes on money-making, Thales' olive presses. - I.12–13: Rule over wife is "constitutional", over children "royal". "The slave has no deliberative faculty at all; the woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is immature" (I.13). **Book II (12 chapters): proposed and admired constitutions, and what is wrong with them.** - II.1–5: Plato's *Republic*. Too much unity destroys a city; shared wives and children dilute affection, and common property breeds quarrels and neglect. Property should be private in ownership and common in use. - II.6: Plato's *Laws*: too large a citizen body, and a mixture that leans to oligarchy. - II.7: Phaleas of Chalcedon's equalization of property; the trouble is desire, not only need. - II.8: Hippodamus of Miletus, "who invented the art of planning cities" and laid out the Piraeus, and his three-class scheme. Should laws be changed whenever a better one appears? Change weakens the habit of obedience. - II.9–11: Sparta (helots, licence of the women, "nearly two-fifths of the whole country are held by women", ephors, common meals), Crete, and Carthage. All three praised by others, all faulted by Aristotle. - II.12: Lawgivers and framers of constitutions: Lycurgus and Solon, Zaleucus, Charondas, Philolaus of Corinth and others. **Book III (18 chapters): citizen, constitution and who should rule.** - III.1–5: A citizen "in the strictest sense" shares "in the administration of justice, and in offices" (III.1). Whether the virtue of a good man and a good citizen is the same (III.4): only in the best city, and only for those who rule. Should mechanics be citizens (III.5)? Not in the best city. - III.6–8: The six constitutions: rule by one, few or many, for the common interest (kingship, aristocracy, polity) or for the rulers' own (tyranny, oligarchy, democracy) (III.7). Oligarchy and democracy are really rule by the rich and by the poor (III.8). - III.9–13: Justice as proportional equality. The city exists "for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship" (III.9). The wisdom of the many: "a feast to which many contribute is better than a dinner provided out of a single purse" (III.11). Rival claims to rule by wealth, birth, virtue, numbers; ostracism as democracy's tool against the outstanding (III.13). - III.14–18: Five kinds of kingship. Should the best man or the best laws rule? "He who bids the law rule may be deemed to bid God and Reason alone rule, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast" (III.16). Absolute kingship only for a person of godlike excellence (III.17–18). **Book IV (16 chapters): the constitutions that actually exist.** - IV.1–2: Political science must study the best constitution, the best for given conditions, and the best for most cities. Ranking of the perversions: tyranny worst, democracy most tolerable. - IV.3–6: Why there are many constitutions: cities have many parts (farmers, artisans, traders, labourers, soldiers, the rich, officials). Kinds of democracy and oligarchy, down to the "extreme" democracy in which decrees overrule law (IV.4). - IV.7–10: Aristocracy, polity as a blend of oligarchy and democracy, and tyranny. - IV.11–13: The best constitution for most cities: rule by the middle class. "Those states are likely to be well-administered in which the middle class is large" (IV.11). Constitutions must suit their peoples; the devices by which oligarchs and democrats cheat each other (IV.13). - IV.14–16: The three parts of government: deliberative, offices (magistracies), and courts. **Book V (12 chapters): revolution and how to prevent it.** - V.1–4: The root cause is disagreement over equality: democrats think equal in one respect means equal in all, oligarchs that unequal in wealth means unequal absolutely (V.1). Other causes: insolence, fear, contempt, disproportionate growth of one part, election intrigue, small occasions with large stakes. - V.5–7: How democracies fall (demagogues), oligarchies (oppression and rivalry), aristocracies and polities (too few sharing honours; drift). - V.8–9: Preserving constitutions: guard small breaches of law, do not deceive the people, keep offices short, audit officials, and above all educate citizens "in the spirit of the constitution". Rulers need loyalty, ability and virtue (V.9). - V.10–11: Monarchies: how kingships and tyrannies fall (insult, fear, contempt; Philip's assassination by Pausanias is one example, V.10) and how they are kept. The tyrant's two methods: the old repressive arts associated with Periander, or ruling so as to seem a guardian of the state, "particularly earnest in the service of the Gods" (V.11). - V.12 (Ellis translation): the longest-lived tyrannies (Orthagoras at Sicyon, the Cypselids at Corinth, the Pisistratids at Athens) and a critique of Socrates' cycle of constitutional decline in Plato's *Republic*. **Book VI (8 chapters): building and keeping democracies and oligarchies.** - VI.1–3: Democracy's principle is liberty: ruling and being ruled in turn, and living as one likes (VI.2). How to reconcile numerical and proportional equality (VI.3). - VI.4–5: The best democracy is agricultural, with citizens too busy to attend the assembly often; poor relief should help the poor acquire land or a trade rather than be handed out (VI.5). - VI.6–7: Oligarchies, and how terrain and military arms (cavalry, hoplites, light troops, navy) shape them. - VI.8: The offices every city needs, from market wardens to auditors. **Book VII (17 chapters): the best city.** - VII.1–3: The best life is the life of virtue with enough external goods; the happiness of the city and of the individual are the same. Is the active political life or the contemplative life better? Thinking is also a kind of action. - VII.4–7: Material conditions: a population large enough to be self-sufficient but small enough to be surveyed "at a single view"; territory; access to the sea. Climate and character: northern peoples spirited but unintelligent, Asians intelligent but lacking spirit, the Greeks between and so able to "rule the world" if united (VII.7). - VII.8–10: Necessary conditions are not parts. The same citizens should bear arms when young and govern when older, and the old should serve as priests; farmers and artisans are not citizens. Common meals; land divided into public and private. - VII.11–12: Siting the city for health, defence and walls; the free agora. - VII.13–15: Happiness as the complete use of virtue. Rulers and ruled are the same people at different ages. Education must aim at leisure and peace, not at war and business; Sparta's error. - VII.16–17: Marriage (women about eighteen, men "seven and thirty"). "Let there be a law that no deformed child shall live", and where custom forbids exposure, "let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun" (VII.16). Rearing infants; games and stories under supervision. **Book VIII (7 chapters): education.** - VIII.1–3: Education must be public and suited to the constitution, since "the citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives" (VIII.1). Four customary subjects: reading and writing, gymnastics, music, sometimes drawing. Liberal education versus the vulgar and mechanical. - VIII.4: Gymnastics without Spartan brutality or athletic over-training. - VIII.5–7: Music for amusement, for character and for intellectual enjoyment. Children should learn to play, but not to professional standard. The modes and their effects on character; music for "purgation" (*katharsis*), a term promised "more precision" in a discussion of poetry (VIII.7). The book ends here, apparently unfinished. ### Key ideas - **The political animal.** Humans complete their nature only in a city; the city is prior to the individual (I.2). - **Teleology.** A thing's nature is its fully developed end. This explains the city and, notoriously, the hierarchies within the household (I.2, I.5, I.13). - **Natural slavery and its concession.** Some people are slaves by nature; but much actual slavery is merely legal, and its critics are partly right (I.5–6). - **Six constitutions.** One, few or many, ruling for the common good or for themselves (III.7). Oligarchy and democracy are really about rich and poor (III.8). - **The wisdom of the multitude.** Many ordinary people judging together may judge better than a few experts (III.11). - **Rule of law.** Law is "reason unaffected by desire" (III.16). - **The middle class and the mixed regime.** Stability comes from a broad middle and from blending oligarchic and democratic devices (IV.8–11). - **Revolution comes from rival ideas of equality.** Both sides hold a partial justice (V.1). - **Education fitted to the constitution.** The constitution is preserved by forming citizens in its spirit (V.9, VIII.1). - **Leisure as the aim of the best life.** Business serves leisure, and war serves peace (VII.14–15). ## 6. Fact-check Most of the book is argument and recommendation. The checkable claims are about the text, its date and use, and a few historical statements Aristotle makes. | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | Aristotle asks "Is not all slavery a violation of nature?" and concludes some are "by nature free, and others slaves", for whom slavery "is both expedient and right" (Glenn video, 11:20) | **Supported** | Jowett I.5: the question opens the chapter and the conclusion closes it, word for word. He raises the question only to answer it against the critics | | "In the same book: Let there be a law that no deformed child shall live" (Glenn video) | **Supported, with a nuance** | Jowett VII.16 (1335b per the Video Summaries note), same work but six books later. The same sentence also directs abortion "before sense and life have begun" where custom forbids exposure for population control. Other translations word it differently (e.g. "reared"); not checked | | Aristotle knew of thinkers who held slavery "contrary to nature" and resting on force rather than justice (Phil0bot video) | **Supported** | I.3: "Others affirm that the rule of a master over slaves is contrary to nature". I.6 discusses slavery by law and grants the critics are partly right. Who these opponents were is not named; Alcidamas is sometimes suggested (not checked here) | | The natural slave "can recognize reason in another... without fully possessing it" (Phil0bot) | **Supported** | I.5: "participates in rational principle enough to apprehend, but not to have, such a principle" (1254b per the Video Summaries note) | | Natural slaves lack a deliberative faculty (I.13) | **Disputed** | SEP notes Aristotle "asserts without evidence" that natural slaves lack it ([SEP](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/)). Aristotle himself admits nature often fails to mark who is a natural slave (I.5–6). No modern scholar defends the doctrine | | Hippodamus "invented the art of planning cities" (II.8) | **Disputed** | Orthogonal grid plans long predate him, e.g. Megara Hyblaea (8th century BC) and Metaponto (6th century); many scholars think Aristotle credits him with the systematic division of a city's land and people, not the grid (MIT Press 1970 appendix; Burgaz excavation report; Fleming, "The Streets of Thurii"; linked below) | | Nearly two-fifths of Spartan land was held by women (II.9) | **Unverified** | Aristotle is the main ancient source for the figure; I did not check modern assessments of it | | Greeks are intermediate between spirited northerners and intelligent but spiritless Asians, hence free and fit to rule (VII.7) | **Disputed** | Climate theories of national character are not supported by modern evidence; the passage is also a standard example of Greek ethnic chauvinism (general knowledge; no specific source checked) | | Usury is unnatural because "interest" means money born of money (I.10) | **Supported as etymology; the economics is disputed** | Greek *tokos* means both offspring and interest (standard lexica; general knowledge). The moral argument was influential through medieval usury doctrine and is rejected by modern economics | | Part of the *Politics* was written after 336 BC | **Supported** | V.10 refers to Philip II's assassination by Pausanias (336 BC) ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle))) | | Aristotle's school compiled 158 constitutions | **Supported as an ancient report** | [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle)). Only the *Constitution of the Athenians* survives, and its authorship is debated ([SEP](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/)) | | The *Politics* is two treatises of different dates (Books I–III and VII–VIII earlier and Platonic; IV–VI later and empirical) | **Disputed** | Proposed by Werner Jaeger (1923); Carnes Lord and others point to the cross-references between the parts ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle))) | | Aristotle "witnessed his home town of Stagira destroyed by Philip" (*In Our Time* blurb) | **Unverified, probably loose** | Philip destroyed Stagira in the 340s (general knowledge, not checked here); SEP places Aristotle at Athens until 347 and then at Assos, so "witnessed" is doubtful | ## 7. Citations and references **Works and figures the book engages** (with the passages where they appear) - Plato, *Republic* (II.1–5, V.12) and *Laws* (II.6); Socrates as Plato's speaker. - Phaleas of Chalcedon (II.7); Hippodamus of Miletus (II.8). - The constitutions of Sparta, Crete and Carthage (II.9–11); the lawgivers Lycurgus, Solon, Zaleucus, Charondas and Philolaus (II.12). - Homer ("Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one", I.2; the tripods of Hephaestus, I.4); "the poets" on Hellenes ruling barbarians (I.2). - Thales of Miletus and the olive presses (I.11). - Gorgias of Leontini on citizenship (III.2); Antisthenes' fable of the lions and hares (III.13). - Tyrants and their fates: Periander, Pisistratus and his sons, the Cypselids, Orthagoras, Hiero and Gelo, Philip II and Pausanias (V.10–12). - Aristotle's own *Nicomachean Ethics* (the *Politics* continues it) and his promised discussion of *katharsis* in poetry (VIII.7). **Secondary sources** - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Aristotle's Political Theory" (first published 1998, rev. 2022) and "Aristotle". - Werner Jaeger, *Aristoteles: Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung* (1923), via Wikipedia (not read). - Carnes Lord, introduction to *Aristotle's Politics* (Chicago), via Wikipedia (not read). - W. L. Newman, *The Politics of Aristotle* (Oxford, 1887–1902), Greek text and commentary. - Hippodamus scholarship: MIT Press archive, "Appendix (1970)" on Hippodamean planning (PDF linked below; author and parent book not confirmed); "Settlement Pattern of Palaia Knidos (Burgaz)"; Fleming, "The Streets of Thurii"; "Aristotle's Hippodamos (Politics 2.1267b22-30)", University of Nebraska Digital Commons. **Links used in this note** - https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html (and politics.2.two.html to politics.8.eight.html) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6762 - https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0058 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle) - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/ ; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/ - https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16247898W ; https://openlibrary.org/books/OL698671M ; https://openlibrary.org/books/OL26947798M ; https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7355256M ; https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23726216M ; https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1040273M - https://archive.org/details/politicsofaristo01arisuoft ; https://archive.org/details/politicsofaristo02arisuoft ; https://archive.org/details/thepoliticsofari00arisuoft ; https://archive.org/details/politics00aris ; https://archive.org/details/politicspenguinc00aris ; https://archive.org/details/aristotlespoliti0000aris_m8t6 ; https://archive.org/details/politics0000aris_d5v5 - https://librivox.org/politics-by-aristotle/ - https://library2go.overdrive.com/media/66667 - https://www.audible.com/pd/Politics-Audiobook/B07PLHRBYR ; https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/politics-unabridged/id1268802377 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00f8530 - https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114 ; https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114/lecture-7 ; https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114/lecture-8 ; https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114/lecture-9 - https://mitp-arch.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/41h0rsnk/download/pdf ; https://doi.org/10.4000/14une ; https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/websites.umass.edu/dist/9/3171/files/2024/07/FlemingThurii.pdf ; https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historyfacpub/14 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3WGPomiOJs ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaQmkxKywBs