Andrew Lintott - Aristotles Political Philosophy in its Historical Context

This book offers new translations of Aristotles Politics 5 and 6, accompanied by an introduction and commentary, targeted at historians and those who like to read political science in the context in which it was produced. Philosophical analysis remains essential and there is no intention to detract from the books as political theory, but the focus of this volume is the text as a crucial element in the discourse of fourth-century Greece, and the conflict throughout the Greek world between democracy, oligarchy, and the rise of the Macedonian monarchy.

Andrew Lintott is Emeritus Professor of Worcester College, University of Oxford, UK.

First published 2018

by Routledge

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2018 Andrew Lintott

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ISBN: 978-1-138-57071-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-70331-1 (ebk)

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I came to the Politics late. I cannot have read more than a few chapters while I was an undergraduate or postgraduate. When I turned to it (in the 1970s) while writing my book on violence and civil strife in the classical city, I was struck by how little there was in English to help those reading it, apart from Newmans great commentary now over 100 years old. Furthermore, although writers on ancient Greek history frequently cited passages from it, they rarely, if ever, tried to put this into the context of the argument of the work. I made a brief start on this in a chapter of the book on violence. My research, however, then turned largely to Roman matters for the next twenty-five years apart from two pieces on Aristotle and Democracy(1992) and Aristotle and the Mixed Constitution(2000). When I wrote these pieces, it still seemed to me that despite some specialised work and the valuable edition by Trevor Saunders of Books 1 and 2, the Politics as a whole was still something of a no-go area for historians of ancient Greece, and that this ought to be remedied; nor was this changed by David Keyts edition of Books 5 and 6, however great its value for philosophers.

Translating Aristotle is difficult, nor is it easy to provide a commentary which satisfies both the historically and the philosophically minded. I am grateful for the encouragement and help I received from younger scholars, including William Mack, Guy Westwood, and Rosalind Thomas. I must also thank those who read the book in draft for the publishers for their valuable suggestions and advice Paul Cartledge, Benjamin Gray, Carol Atack, and others who remain anonymous. Finally, I must express my gratitude to Amy Davis-Poynter, Lizzi Risch, and the staff at Routledge for their patience with me in producing this book. The great strength in scholarly work, especially that in the classics, is the knowledge that you are working in a tradition, and it is with this in mind that I have dedicated it to scholars whom I have known.

Andrew Lintott

The translation is based on the Oxford Classical Text of W. D. Ross(1957). Alternative texts are the Teubner of O. Immisch (Leipzig,1929), the Bud of J. Aubonnet, 5 vols (Paris,1960), and the Loeb of H. Rackham (London and Cambridge, MA,1950).

In references to other ancient texts I follow in principle the system of the Oxford Classical Dictionary . Abbreviations of periodicals in general follow the system of LAnne Philologique . The following specific abbreviations are used: