Demetrius of Phalerum (c. 355-280BCE) of Phalerum was a philosopher-statesman. He studied in the Peripatos under Theophrastus and subsequently used his political influence to help his teacher acquire property for the Peripatetic school. As overseer of Athens, his governance was characterized by a decade of domestic peace. Exiled to Alexandria in Egypt, he became the adviser of Ptolemy. He is said to have been in charge of legislation, and it is likely that he influenced the founding of the Museum and (...) the Library. This edition of the fragments of Demetrius of Phalerum reflects the growing interest in the Hellenistic period and the philosophical schools of that age. As a philosopher-statesman, Demetrius appears to have combined theory and practice. For example, in the work On Behalf of the Politeia, he almost certainly explained his own legislation and governance by appealing to the Aristotelian notion of politeia, that is, a constitution in which democratic and oligarchic elements are combined. In On Peace, he may have defended his subservience to Macedon by appealing to Aristotle, who repeatedly recognized the importance of peace over war; and in On Fortune, he will have followed Theophrastus, emphasizing the way fortune can determine the success or failure of sound policy. Whatever the case concerning any one title, we can well understand why Cicero regarded Demetrius as a unique individual: the educated statesman who was able to bring learning out of the shadows of erudition into the light of political conflict, and that despite an oratorical style more suited to the shadows of the Peripatos then to political combat. The new edition of secondary reports by Stork, van Ophuijsen, and Dorandi brings together the evidence for these and other judgments. The facing translation which accompanies the Greek and Latin texts opens up the material to readers who lack the ancient languages, and the accompanying essays introduce us to important issues. The volume will be of interest to those interested in Greek literature, Hellenistic philosophy, Hellenistic history, and generally to persons captivated by the notion of philosopher-statesman. (shrink)

Dicaearchus of Messana (fl. c. 320 b.c.) was a peripatetic philosopher. Like Theophrastus of Eresus, he was a pupil of Aristotle. Dicaearchus's life is not well documented. There is no biography by Diogenes Laertius, and what the Suda offers is meager. However, it can be ascertained that a close friendship existed between Aristoxenus and Dicaearchus as both are mentioned as personal students of Aristotle. Dicaearchus lived for a time in the Peleponnesus, and in his pursuit of geographical studies and measuring (...) mountains, he is said to have enjoyed the patronage of kings. Dicaearchus's interests were in certain respects narrower than Aristotle's. There is no evidence that Dicaearchus worked in logic, physics, or metaphysics. To the contrary, his work On the Soul recalls the Aristotelian treatise of the same title, but Dicaearchus's work was not an esoteric treatise. Instead, it was a dialogue in two parts. His interest in good and bad lifestyles also found expression in works such as On the Sacrifice at Ilium, and On the Destruction of Human Beings, in which he presented man himself as the greatest threat to mankind. In On Lives, a work of at least two books, he considered philosophers and others noted for their wisdom, with his main thesis being the superiority of the active life over that of quiet contemplation. Cicero speaks of controversy between Dicaearchus and Theophrastus the former championing the active life and the latter that of contemplation. Circuit of the Earth was a work of descriptive geography in which Dicaearchus said that the earth has the shape of a globe. This interest in earth's sphericity led him to make maps and discuss other phenomena like the cause of ebb- and flood-tides and the source of the Nile River. The largest number of texts in the collection deal with cultural history, most of which stem or appear to stem from his Life of Greece, while the smallest section deals with politics. This tenth volume in the series Rutgers Studies in Classical Humanities includes a facing translation of the Greek and Latin texts, making the material accessible to readers who lack the ancient languages, and the accompanying essays introduce important issues beyond the scope of the text. "[Dicaerchus of Messana] is a beautifully produced book...highly recommended, not only as a very full and useful treatment, meeting the highest standards, of one of Aristotle's more important pupils, but also as a model of methodology in the attempt to reconstruct from few remains something of an achievement which has been largely lost." -Dominic O'Meara, The Classical Bulletin William W. Fortenbaugh is professor of classics at Rutgers University. In addition to the other books in this series and his many articles, he has written Aristotle on Emotion and Quellen zur Ethik Theophrasts. Eckart Sch³trumpf is professor of classics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His interests include ancient literary criticism, rhetoric and political theory. His extensive commentary on Aristotle's Politics now extends to three volumes. A fourth and final volume is forthcoming. (shrink)

This paper addresses the scholarly controversies surrounding the succinct remark Thucydides makes at Hist. 1. 22. 1 on composing speeches. It argues for the understanding of the “ἂν εἰπεῖν” expression not as contrary-to-fact, as most scholars assume, but as potential of the past, to be translated: “as in his judgment the speakers most likely might have spoken.” The paper proposes that Thucydides indicates a historical method similar to the strategy used in contemporary rhetoric in order to show on the basis (...) of probability considering all the conditions given that certain things were said. The paper scrutinizes every important term used by Thucydides at 1. 22. 1 and the various modern interpretations and translations proposed. (shrink)

E. Barker twice wrote essays entitled ‘The composition and structure of Aristotle’s Politics’, first as a journal article in 1931, and later in 1946 as part of the introduction to his translation of the Politics. In these two essays, he came to exactly the opposite conclusions. In the first paper, he distinguished three periods in Aristotle’s life and assigned to each of them three ‘blocks’ in the Politics, based on the criterion of how closely these blocks were related to, or (...) are removed from, Plato’s political theory. In doing so, he not only followed W. Jaeger’s genetic approach, but also went beyond it by assuming that there were three different strata of Aristotle’s political philosophy. In 1946, however, Barker rejected not only Jaeger’s approach, but his own method of reading Aristotle’s Politics. This paper evaluates the merit of Barker’s arguments and comes to the conclusion not only that Barker’s essay from 1946 ignored the intellectual context of the Politics, but also that his view of the Politics as unitary in composition and structure overlooks many problems this work poses. (shrink)

Nach den wenigen sicher überlieferten Fragmenten des Dialogs Über Gerechtigkeit behandelte Aristoteles dort sowohl das Schicksal einer polis als auch das Verhältnis von Gerechtigkeit und Lust. In Politik I 2 formuliert Aristoteles seine Annahmen über die zentrale Bedeutung von Recht und Gerechtigkeit, die hier nicht in unterschiedliche Arten aufgespalten sind, wobei er zwei anthropologische Annahmen macht: Auf der einen Seite ist der Mensch ohne Gesetz und Recht das wildeste ›Tier‹, auf der anderen Seite besitzt nur er einen Sinn für Recht (...) und Unrecht und die Fähigkeit, dieses anderen mitzuteilen. Recht ist die Ordnung der politischen Gemeinschaft, es macht damit das gute Leben, um dessentwillen die polis existiert, erst möglich. Rechtlosigkeit setzt dagegen die schlimmsten zerstörerischen Energien frei. Aristoteles kritisiert Platon, der schon von einer polis gesprochen hatte, obwohl Organe des Rechtsvollzugs noch fehlten. (shrink)

Polis ist einer der Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Politik. So beginnt dieses Werk damit, dass Aristoteles einmal die polis als die höchste Gemeinschaft bestimmt, die nach dem höchsten Gut strebt und alle anderen in sich einschließt, und zweitens eine Gleichsetzung etwa von Staatsmann und Hausverwalter zurückweist, da sie den Unterschied von großem Haushalt und kleiner polis verkenne. Aus anthropologischer Sicht kann der Mensch, der ohne Gesetz und Recht das wildeste ›Tier‹ ist, erst in der polis seinen Sinn für Recht und Unrecht (...) und die Fähigkeit, dieses anderen mitzuteilen, verwirklichen. (shrink)

Im hellenistischen Schriftenverzeichnis der Werke des Aristoteles, das bei Diogenes Laertios V 22–27 erhalten ist, wird etwa ein Dutzend von Titeln zitiert, die auf eine philosophische Auseinandersetzung mit politischen Themen hindeuten. In den wenigen sicher überlieferten Fragmenten des Dialogs Über Gerechtigkeit, in vier Büchern, behandelte Aristoteles auch das Schicksal einer polis. In dem Dialog Staatsmann, in zwei Büchern, dessen Thema Cicero mit »Über den Staat und den herausragenden Mann« angibt, war Aristoteles selber einer der Sprecher.

Aristoteles verrät in Politik auf Schritt und Tritt, dass sich schon andere Autoren zu den von ihm behandelten Themen geäußert hatten. Besonders wichtig ist für ihn der Einfluss Platons, dessen Auffassungen er häufig kritisiert, obwohl er ihm doch in so vielem verpflichtet ist.

Dieses Buch präsentiert eine Auswahl von 25 auf Deutsch bzw. Englisch verfassten Studien des Autors, der sich durch seinen vierbändigen Kommentar zu Aristoteles Politik einen Namen gemacht hat. Die Bandbreite der abgedruckten Aufsätze reicht von einem Beitrag über ein Gedicht des frühen griechischen Lyrikers Simonides bis zur Erklärung der neuplatonischen Klassifizierung der Werke des Aristoteles. Der Themenschwerpunkt liegt bei den Gebieten antiker politischer Theorie und Rhetorik. Ausgewählt wurden Arbeiten, die zentral für die hier behandelten antiken Autoren sind, wie Gerechtigkeit in (...) Platons Staat, Sklaverei in Aristoteles' Politik und "tragische Schuld" in seiner Poetik. This book presents a collection of 25 scholarly papers by the author who is best known for his commentary on Aristotle's Politics. While the works included here range from an article on the Greek lyric poet Simonides to the neo-Platonic classification of Aristotle's works, the focus is on the areas of ancient political theory and rhetoric. Selected for this volume are studies that are central to the authors represented in these fields, such as justice in Plato's Republic, slavery in Aristotle's Politics, or 'tragic guilt" in his Poetics. (shrink)

Politeia bezeichnet in Aristoteles’ Politik einmal Verfassung als die je verschieden ausgeprägte politische Ordnung einer polis. Besonders in Politik IV und V stellt Aristoteles häufig politeia monarchischen Staatsformen gegenüber – die poleis unter diesen Verfassungen wären damit etwa ›Gemeindestaaten‹. Normativ kann die Geltung von politeia eingeengt sein, wenn gesetzlosen bzw. autokratischen Regierungsformen die Kennzeichnung politeia bestritten wird.