Aristotle - The Athenian Constitution

Our source for this book is the Penguin Classics edition of Aristotle’s The Athenian Constitution, first published in 1984, translated and with an Introduction and Notes by P.J. Rhodes, Professor of Ancient History at Durham University. The first words of the Introduction are “An anonymous pupil of Aristotle” to whom Prof. Rhodes assesses to be the likely author though the important work was attributed to Aristotle himself in ancient times.

??????????? The Introduction makes clear that as literature, The Athenian Constitution is “not a masterpiece” but as we see in other works such as Demosthenes’ speeches, this work which is primarily focused on political analysis provides other valuable information.

The historical part, however, contains a great deal of material that has not been preserved for us in any other context: much of it is very important to historians either because it provides them with facts which they would not otherwise know or because it gives them a different slant on facts which are available elsewhere. … What the author has done … he has compiled … specifically a history of the Athenian constitution. The second part is more strikingly original: … a factual account of how the constitution of a Greek city state worked. … we cannot compare his work with the other 157 constitutions; but he has left us a book of great interest and importance.

??????????? The beginning of the original work is lost, “equivalent to about four pages in this translation” for which Prof. Rhodes provides a summary that begins at a time when myth and history were not yet separated. It starts with the legendary first king of Athens, Cecrops who was “born from the soil” or autocthonous, a belief that the people of Athens literally were born from the earth at this place, they did not migrate from somewhere else as the Dorians famously did in Sparta. This early story speaks of the hero Theseus who first organized the twelve cities under Athens’ rule. In another example of the merging of myth and history, the historical Cimon is reported to have carried the legendary Theseus’ remains back to Athens after the Persian Wars, during the reliably reported historical period. Rhodes informs us that while this blending of narratives sounds strange to us, as moderns we know that the Trojan War was considered to fall on the side of myth until Heinrich Schliemann followed clues in Homer’s Iliad and found the remains of Troy in 1873. And the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus, among others, accepted the Trojan War as history, and even dated the Fall of Troy to 1184 BC.

This was the legendary history of Athens as it had been systematized in the fourth century BC. Of the actual history little can be said. The Mycenaean kingdoms collapsed in the twelfth century; in the dark age which followed, Athens remained inhabited, and was one of the first cities to show signs of recovery…. By the seventh century the whole of Attica, about 1,000 square miles, formed a single state ruled by Athens.

??????????? Athens was originally an oligarchy, ruled by the richest men, a situation which Aristotle makes indubitably clear in Politics is always an unavoidable source of social strife and revolution. The great lawmaker Solon (630-560 BC) was also a prolific poet who left many records that the author of The Athenian Constitution could turn to discover the specific changes introduced. In reading these details, we see that Solon himself did not create what we think of as a democracy, an egalitarian society of equals, but more of a timocracy built of a series of classes based on wealth. In Chapter 7, Solon’s various class qualifications are described.

He divided the citizens into four classes by an assessment of wealth, as they had been divided before: the five-hundred-bushel class, the cavalry, the rankers and the laborers. He distributed among the five-hundred-bushel class, the cavalry and the rankers the major offices, such as the nine archons, the treasurers, the sellers, the Eleven and the colacretae (managers of finances), assigning offices to the members of each class according to the level of their assessment. To those registered in the laborers’ class he gave only membership of the assembly and the jury-courts.

??????????? Chapters 21 and 22 provide historical material that is found nowhere else, an example of the value of this political analysis beyond the study of constitutions. After the tyranny of the Peisistratids (546-510 BC) is overthrown, during which many of Solon’s practices had fallen into disuse, Cleisthenes (570-508 BC) introduced many changes. These democracy-enhancing changes included expanding the traditional number of tribes from four to ten so that more men would participate in governing, expanding the council from 400 to 500 men, and dividing the land of Attica into thirty demes. We learn of the overall effect of these changes in Chapter 22.

When this had been accomplished, the constitution was much more democratic than that of Solon. … Cleisthenes enacted other new laws in his bid for popular support, among them the law about ostracism. … this had been enacted through suspicion of men in a powerful position, because Peisistratus from being popular leader and general had made himself a tyrant.

??????????? Following these reforms, the first Persian invasion in 490 BC was defeated by Athenians under the leadership of ten generals selected from each of the ten tribes, who served as another innovation of Cleisthenes’ reforms. While the Persians continued to threaten, Themistocles (524-460 BC) was the strong leader who took decisive action after first convincing the Assembly of the viability of his plan. Chapter 22 continues to provide a unique historical perspective, in this case an exercise of what we could call independent capitalism. At this time, the silver mines of Maronea produced a tremendous surplus of one hundred talents and men proposed distributing this to the people.

Themistocles prevented this. He refused to say what he would do with the money, but urged the Athenians to lend one talent each to the hundred richest citizens; if they were satisfied with the way in which the money was spent, it should be put down to the city’s account, but if not, the money should be reclaimed from those to whom it had been lent. When he had obtained the money on these terms, he had a hundred triremes built, each of the hundred men taking responsibility for one; and with these the battle of Salamis was fought against the barbarians.

??????????? Readers of Herodotus know well the history of this battle where a smaller, but better crewed fleet, brilliantly led by Themistocles himself, defeated the vast forces of Xerxes’ Persian fleet in the Straits of Salamis and saved Greece and the Western world from a defeat that would have crushed the early democracy under the tyranny of the Great King.

??????????? The turmoil and grasping for power that Aristotle delineates in The Politics continues, and we learn in Chapter 32 that the council of the elected 5000 is sidelined by a new constitution, and a new oligarchy of 400 takes power.

Under this constitution the Five Thousand were appointed in name only, while the Four Hundred with the powerful ten generals entered the council house and began ruling the city.

??????????? This is in the year 412, and this history overlaps with Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War, where Sparta is now being aided by Persia and Athens is struggling, which prompts the 400 to seek an end to the war. But the terms that Sparta demands, that Athens give up their rule of the sea, is too much to ask, “so they abandoned the attempt.” This rule of Four Hundred only lasts for four months, as we learn in chapter 33, government reverts to a form familiar from Politics.

Then they overthrew the Four Hundred, entrusting affairs to the Five Thousand of the hoplite class and resolving that there should be no stipend for any office. … The Athenians seem to be well governed at this time, when they were at war and the constitution was based on the hoplites.

??????????? Chapter 34 touches briefly on a dreadful instance in the last years of the war with Sparta, which is covered in much more detail in Xenophon’s Hellenica and by Diodorus Siculus in his Library of History. This example of a disaster caused by democracy was a vote by the popular council when after a naval victory at Arginusae the Athenian fleet was forced to flee the area of combat in the face of a major storm. This had the tragic result of leaving dead and wounded abandoned in the waves. The ten generals who led Athens’ military at this critical part of the war, which Athens has been losing, are condemned to death for not retrieving the casualties. Knowing the details, this historian’s depiction is sadly brief, which is to be understood since he is writing a history of Athens’ constitutions, not a history of wars as Xenophon and Diodorus wrote.

In the sixth year after the overthrow of the Four Hundred … the sea battle of Arginusae was fought. After that, first, the ten generals who had won the battle were all condemned in a single vote, though some had not taken part in the battle and others had lost their own ships and been saved by other ships: the people were deceived by those who stirred up their anger.

??????????? Although The Athenian Constitution was written in about 330 BC, the history of changes to government ends in 404/3, which assumes that governance of Athens was substantially stable following the end of the Peloponnesian War and the restoration of the democracy via the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants installed by the victorious Spartans. Chapter 41 provides a compressed compilation of all the changes recorded in The Athenian Constitution, where again myth passes seamlessly into history, in this case between the characters of Theseus and Draco.

This was the eleventh of the changes in the constitution. The first … when Ion and the people with him first came as settlers … when four tribes and tribal heads were instituted. Second … the change under Theseus, which deviated slightly from monarchy. Next … under Draco … when laws were written for the first time. Third, under Solon … which brought about the origin of democracy. Fourth, the tyranny of Peisistratus. Fifth, the constitution of Cleisthenes … more democratic than Solon’s. Sixth, the constitution after the Persian Wars, when the Areopagus took charge. Seventh… to which Aristides pointed and Ephialtes accomplished by overthrowing the Areopagus: in this the city made its greatest mistakes, because of the demagogues and its rule of the sea. Eighth, the establishment of the Four Hundred; and after that, ninth, democracy again. Tenth, the tyranny of the Thirty and the Ten. Eleventh … the constitution has continued to that in force today, continually increasing the power of the masses. … The Athenians seem to be right to follow this line, for it is easier to corrupt the few than the many, whether by money or favors.