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ΑΘΗΝΑΙΩΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΙΑ1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The object of the following article is not to review the work achieved by the first editor of the newly recovered Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία, still less to discuss the plan adopted for its publication by the authorities of the British Museum. It would, however, be an exaggerated and perhaps a misleading reticence, if no reference were made to those preliminaries and mere points of procedure. Many sharp things have been thought and said in various quarters about the matter: but there are several sides even to these minor questions. The Museum from amid its priceless cuneiform and hieroglyphic treasures, all crying for publication, need not have regarded the mission of this small Greek argosy as marking so great an epoch. A committee, indeed, might have worked more surely, but it would have worked more slowly than our single industrious and indeed brilliant editor: had assessors been voted him, we might still be waiting the result. Now, as may be observed with satisfaction, the resources of the whole world of learning are being concentrated upon the new text, and the earlier murmurs of critical dissatisfaction are in a fair way to be lost in good-humoured collaboration for a reconstruction of the text. This work, indeed, has been carried so far already, as appears from the March number of the Classical Review, that it will not be deemed premature to raise some questions in regard to the value of the new text, viewed from the side of the historian. It is the design of the present paper to define some of the points which must be considered before the exact place of the new text among our historical sources can be determined. It is no reproach to the editor to say that he has dealt somewhat curtly with these problems in his Introduction and notes. It will require that many minds should independently be brought to bear upon the multitude of questions which present themselves in connexion with the more strictly historical criticism, or, as it was in some quarters too proudly termed of yore, ‘the higher criticism,’ before definitive results can be reached. If the present paper contribute to elucidate some of the points to be discussed in relation to the historical authority of the recovered treatise on the Athenian Constitution, it will fulfil its purpose, and not be considered a petitio principii.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1891
References
page 21 note 1 Arist. Pol. III. i. 6 (1275 a. 22) 
(ἀρχὴ here used for the moment in a specific sense.) Cp. III. i. 12 (1275 b. 22) 
and so on. The definition of citizenship (the Franchise) suits Democracy best, III. i. 10. Add the notably democratic character of a Βουλὴ), VII. viii. 17, 24 (1322 b. 12 seqq.).
page 22 note 1 The editor's Index indeed identifies the two.
page 25 note 1 Cp. Diehls, H.Ueber die Berliner Fragmenta der ΑΘΗΝΑΙΣΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΙΑ des Aristoteles. Berlin, 1885.Google Scholar
page 27 note 1 It is to be regretted that the reading c. 13, p. 34, last line, is doubtful: but the editor's note is virtually decisive for the matter.
page 30 note 1 Timaeus, testibus Polybio et Athenaeo, referred to the Πολιτεȋαι, or at least to the Constitution of the Locri, and referred to it as Aristotle's work. See Rose, V., Aristotelis Fragmenta, 1886Google Scholar, ed. Teubner, No. 547. Ed. maj. 1863. Arist. Pseudepigraphus, No. 499. Ed. Berl. 1870, No. 504. This carries a fair inference as to the Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία. If the Locrian was the work of Aristotle, a fortiori therefore was the Athenian. The reference to Eth. Nic. X. ix. 23 (1181 b) is inconclusive.
page 31 note 1 20th Boedromion 322 Plutarch, B. C.: Phokion. 28.Google Scholar
page 32 note 1 With the reflection 
contrast Arist. Pol. IV. x. 5 (1329 a. 11) 
The two passages are not contradictories.
page 32 note 2 With the generalization 
cp. Arist. Pol. VIII. vi. 10 (1306 a. 9) 
page 32 note 3 Cp. Isokrates, 7, 153, on the ἐπιείκεια τοȗδήμου. See also Plato, Rep. viii. 558 A.
page 33 note 1 Cp. Newman, W. L., The Politics of Aristotle, Vol. II. p. 373.Google Scholar
page 33 note 2 One of these sources seems to have been strongly anti-Themistoclean. See c. 23, the causality of the battle of Salamis ascribed to the Areiopagus: there is here a suppressio veri. In c. 25 we have the suggestio falsi, and more. Plutarch's qualified admission of the first anecdote and complete rejection of the second is much to his credit. With c. 23, 
cp. Arist. Pol. VIII. iv. 8, 1304, a. 22, ὁ 
The passages are not strictly contradictory. See also Thucyd. I. 74, 1.
page 37 note 1 In respect to the psephism of Pythodorus the editor makes a remark, that (as Pythodorus is spoken of as the author of the psephism) ‘the rider proposed by Cleitophon’ was apparently rejected: on the contrary, the highly technical language in which the proposal of Kleitophon is introduced would support the inference that the author is following an epigraphic or at least an official text, in which the proposal of Kleitophon would scarcely have been included unless it had been passed. Of course the main psephism bore the name of the original mover.