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The Complete Works of Aristotle

Page 410

by Barnes, Jonathan, Aristotle


  66 · When all the courts are full, two ballot boxes are placed in the first court, and a number of bronze dice, bearing the colours of the several courts, and other dice inscribed with the names of the presiding magistrates. Then two of the Thesmothetae, selected by lot, severally throw the dice with the colours into one box, and those with the magistrates’ names into the other. The magistrate whose name is first drawn is thereupon proclaimed by the crier as assigned for duty in the court which is first drawn, and the second in the second, and similarly with the rest. The object of this procedure is that no one may know which court he will have, but that each may take the court assigned to him by lot.

  When the jurors have come in, and have been assigned to their respective courts, the presiding magistrate in each court draws one ticket out of each chest (making ten in all, one out of each tribe), and throws them into another empty chest. He then draws out five of them, and assigns one to the superintendence of the water-clock, and the other four to the telling of the votes. This is to prevent any tampering beforehand with either the superintendent of the clock or the tellers of the votes, and to secure that there is no malpractice in these respects. The five who have not been selected for these duties receive from them a statement of the order in which the jurors shall receive their fees, and of the places where the several tribes shall respectively gather in the court for this purpose when their duties are completed; the object being that the jurors may be broken up into small groups for the reception of their pay, and not all crowd together and impede one another.

  67 · These preliminaries being concluded, the cases are called on. If it is a day for private cases, the private litigants are called. Four cases are taken in each of the categories defined in the law, and the litigants swear to confine their speeches to the point at issue. If it is a day for public causes, the public litigants are called, and only one case is tried. Water-clocks are provided, having small supply-tubes, into which the water is poured by which the length of the pleadings is regulated. Ten gallons are allowed for a case in which an amount of more than five thousand drachmas is involved, and three for the second speech on each side. When the amount is between one and five thousand drachmas, seven gallons are allowed for the first speech and two for the second; when it is less than one thousand, five and two. Six gallons are allowed for arbitrations between rival claimants, in which there is no second speech. The official chosen by lot to superintend the water-clock places his hand on the supply-tube whenever the clerk is about to read a resolution or law or affidavit or treaty. When, however, a case is conducted according to a set measurement of the day, he does not stop the supply, but each party receives an equal allowance of water. The standard of measurement is the length of the days in the month Poseideon6 .. . . The measured day is employed in cases when imprisonment, death, exile, loss of civil rights, or confiscation of goods is assigned as the penalty.

  68 · Most of the courts consist of 500 members . . .;7 and when it is necessary to bring public cases before a jury of 1,000 members, two courts combine for the purpose,. . .8 The ballot balls are made of bronze with stems running through the centre, half of them having the stem pierced and the other half solid. When the speeches are concluded, the officials assigned to the taking of the votes give each juror two ballot balls, one pierced and one solid. This is done in full view of the rival litigants, to secure that no one shall receive two pierced or two solid balls. Then the official designated for the purpose takes away the jurors’ staves, in return for which each one as he records his vote receives a brass voucher marked with the numeral 3 (because he gets three obols when he gives it up). This is to ensure that all shall vote; for no one can get a voucher unless he votes. Two urns, one of bronze and the other of wood, stand in the court, in distinct spots so that no one may surreptitiously insert ballot balls; in these the jurors record their votes. The bronze urn is for effective votes, the wooden for unused votes; and the bronze urn has a lid pierced so as to take only one ballot ball, in order that no one may put in two at a time.

  When the jurors are about to vote, the crier demands first whether the litigants enter a protest against any of the evidence; for no protest can be received after the voting has begun. Then he proclaims again, ‘The pierced ballot for the plaintiff, the solid for the defendant’; and the juror, taking his two ballot balls from the stand, with his hand closed over the stem so as not to show either the pierced or the solid ballot to the litigants, casts the one which is to count into the bronze urn, and the other into the wooden urn.

  69 · When all the jurors have voted, the attendants take the urn containing the effective votes and discharge them on to a reckoning board having as many cavities as there are ballot balls, so that the effective votes, whether pierced or solid, may be plainly displayed and easily counted. Then the officials assigned to the taking of the votes tell them off on the board, the solid in one place and the pierced in another, and the crier announces the numbers of the votes, the pierced ballots being for the prosecutor and the solid for the defendant. Whichever has the majority is victorious; but if the votes are equal the verdict is for the defendant. Then, if damages have to be awarded, they vote again in the same way, first returning their pay-vouchers and receiving back their staves. Half a gallon of water is allowed to each party for the discussion of the damages. Finally, when all has been completed in accordance with the law, the jurors receive their pay in the order assigned by the lot.

  **TEXT: F. G. Kenyon, OCT, Oxford, 1920

  1Sc. the Alcmeonidae. The papyrus begins in the middle of a sentence.

  2‘Removal of burdens’.

  3The text is uncertain.

  4Kenyon obelizes this sentence.

  5Reading ἀριθμῷ πέντε.

  6The next ten lines in the papyrus are mutilated.

  7The papyrus is mutilated at this point.

  8The papyrus is mutilated here.

  FRAGMENTS

  Selected and translated by

  Jonathan Barnes and Gavin Lawrence

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Catalogue of Aristotle’s Writings

  I.

  Dialogues

  II.

  Logic

  III.

  Rhetoric and Poetics

  IV.

  Ethics

  V.

  Philosophical Works

  VI.

  Physics

  VII.

  Biology

  VIII.

  Historical Works

  IX.

  Letters

  X.

  Poems

  Aristotle’s Will

  PREFACE

  In the twelfth volume of the Oxford Translation, Sir David Ross published a selection of fragments from Aristotle’s lost works. Ross limited his attention to passages bearing upon Aristotle’s dialogues and upon his logical and philosophical writings. He presented those passages at generous length, including large amounts of context and often transcribing several variants of the same report.

  Like Ross, we have attempted to give a fairly full collection of the fragments of Aristotle’s juvenilia, which have occupied much scholarly attention in the past five decades, and also of the texts relating to the more philosophically interesting of his lost works. But we have been less generous than Ross in matters of context, repetitious variants, and dubiously valuable reports.

  Unlike Ross, we have paid some attention to the fragments of Aristotle’s other lost works—fragments which account for some two thirds of our total information about the lost writings. Here we have, for want of space, been highly selective: our aim has been to give a fair sample of the range of Aristotle’s intellectual concerns, as it is exhibited in the fragments, and at the same time to illustrate those parts of his work which are less well represented in the surviving treatises.

  We have prefaced the selection with a translation of the Catalogue of Aristotle’s works; and we have closed it with versions of his letters and of his poems.
r />   All the translations have been done afresh from the originals; but we have based ourselves on Ross’s versions where those are available, and for the fragments of the Protrepticus we have leaned heavily on Düring’s translation. As for the Greek texts, we have generally taken the latest, or the standard, editions of the various authors concerned. For much of the Protrepticus we have again made use of Düring’s work; for On Ideas we have followed Harlfinger’s edition of the text of Alexander.

  We present the passages in the order in which they occur in Rose’s third edition of the Fragmenta (Teubner, Leipzig, 1886). “F I R3” thus refers to fragment one in this edition. The few passages not occurring there have been interpolated at the most appropriate points. We have retained Rose’s division of the fragments into ten categories. Rose’s arrangement is not ideal; but we felt that, on balance, any fresh arrangement would have caused more inconvenience than it produced enlightenment.

  Finally, a few words of caution. Most of the passages we print are not, in the strict sense, fragments of Aristotle’s lost works: most of the passages do not purport to quote Aristotle’s actual words. Rather, they offer paraphrases or summaries of his opinions and arguments; and in many cases they are little more than casual allusions to his views. Some of the passages we quote refer to works which were in all probability not written by Aristotle at all; several of the passages may plausibly be construed as relaxed allusions to the extant treatises rather than as close paraphrases of lost works; and in some cases—and those not the least celebrated—we ourselves are not convinced that any genuinely Aristotelian matter is conserved.

  J.B.

  G.L.

  CATALOGUE OF ARISTOTLE’S WRITINGS

  (Diogenes Laertius, V 22–27)

  He wrote a vast number of books, which I have thought it appropriate to list because of the man’s excellence in all fields of enquiry:—

  On Justice, 4 books

  On Poets, 3 books

  On Philosophy, 3 books

  On the Statesman, 2 books

  On Rhetoric, or Grylus, 1 book

  Nerinthus, 1 book

  Sophist, 1 book

  Menexenus, 1 book

  Eroticus, 1 book

  Symposium, 1 book

  On Wealth, 1 book

  Protrepticus, 1 book

  On the Soul, 1 book

  On Prayer, 1 book

  On Good Birth, 1 book

  On Pleasure, 1 book

  Alexander, or On behalf of Colonies, 1 book

  On Kingship, 1 book

  On Education, 1 book

  On the Good, 3 books

  Excerpts from Plato’s Laws, 3 books

  Excerpts from Plato’s Republic, 2 books

  Economics, 1 book

  On Friendship, 1 book

  On being affected or having been affected, 1 book

  On the Sciences, 2 books

  On Eristics, 2 books

  Eristical Solutions, 4 books

  Sophistical Divisions, 4 books

  On Contraries, 1 book

  On Genera and Species, 1 book

  On Properties, 1 book

  Notes on Arguments, 3 books

  Propositions on Excellence, 3 books

  Objections, 1 book

  On things spoken of in many ways or by addition, 1 book

  On Feelings or On Anger, 1 book

  Ethics, 5 books

  On Elements, 3 books

  On Knowledge, 1 book

  On Principles, 1 book

  Divisions, 16 books

  Division, 1 book

  On Question and Answer, 2 books

  On Motion, 2 books

  Propositions, 1 book

  Eristical Propositions, 4 books

  Deductions, 1 book

  Prior Analytics, 9 books

  Great Posterior Analytics, 2 books

  On Problems, 1 book

  Methodics, 8 books

  On what is better, 1 book

  On the Idea, 1 book

  Definitions prior to the Topics, 1 book

  Topics, 7 books

  Deductions, 2 books

  Deduction and Definitions, 1 book

  On the desirable and on accidents, 1 book

  Pre-topics, 1 book

  Topics aimed at definitions, 2 books

  Feelings, 1 book

  Division, 1 book

  Mathematics, 1 book

  Definitions, 13 books

  Arguments, 2 books

  On Pleasure, 1 book

  Propositions, 1 book

  On the Voluntary, 1 book

  On the Noble, 1 book

  Argumentative theses, 25 books

  Theses on love, 4 books

  Theses on friendship, 2 books

  Theses on the soul, 1 book

  Politics, 2 books

  Lectures on Politics (like those of Theophrastus), 8 books

  On Just Acts, 2 books

  Collection of Arts, 2 books

  Art of Rhetoric, 2 books

  Art, 1 book

  Art (another work), 2 books

  Methodics, 1 book

  Collection of the Art of Theodectes, 1 book

  Treatise on the Art of Poetry, 2 books

  Rhetorical Enthymemes, 1 book

  On Magnitude, 1 book

  Divisions of Enthymemes, 1 book

  On Diction, 2 books

  On Advice, 1 book

  Collection, 2 books

  On Nature, 3 books

  Nature, 1 book

  On the Philosophy of Archytas, 3 books

  On the Philosophy of Speusippus and Xenocrates, 1 book

  Excerpts from the Timaeus and from the works of Archytas, 1 book

  Against Melissus, 1 book

  Against Alcmaeon, 1 book

  Against the Pythagoreans, 1 book

  Against Gorgias, 1 book

  Against Xenophanes, 1 book

  Against Zeno, 1 book

  On the Pythagoreans, 1 book

  On Animals, 9 books

  Dissections, 8 books

  Selection of Dissections, 1 book

  On Composite Animals, 1 book

  On Mythological Animals, 1 book

  On Sterility, 1 book

  On Plants, 2 books

  Physiognomonics, 1 book

  Medicine, 2 books

  On Units, 1 book

  Storm Signs, 1 book

  Astronomy, 1 book

  Optics, 1 book

  On Motion, 1 book

  On Music, 1 book

  Memory, 1 book

  Homeric Problems, 6 books

  Poetics, 1 book

  Physics (alphabetically ordered), 38 books

  Additional Problems,1 2 books

  Standard Problems, 2 books

  Mechanics, 1 book

  Problems from Democritus, 2 books

  On the Magnet, 1 book

  Conjunctions of Stars, 1 book

  Miscellaneous, 12 books

  Explanations2 (arranged by subject), 14 books

  Claims, 1 book

  Olympic Victors, 1 book

  Pythian Victors in Music,3 1 book

  On Pytho, 1 book

  Lists of Pythian Victors, 1 book

  Victories at the Dionysia, 1 book

  On Tragedies, 1 book

  Didascaliae, 1 book

  Proverbs, 1 book

  Rules for Messing, 1 book

  Laws, 4 books

  Categories, 1 book

  On Interpretation, 1 book

  Constitutions of 158 States (arranged by type: democratic, oligarchical, tyrannical, aristocratic)

  Letters to Philip

  Letters about the Selymbrians4

  Letters to Alexander (4), to Antipater (9), to Mentor (1), to Ariston (1), to Olympias (1), to Hephaestion (1), to Themistagoras (1), to Philoxenus (1), to Democritus (1)

  Poems, beginning: “Holy one, most honoured of the gods, far-shooting …”

  Elegies, beginning: “Daughter of a mother of fair children …”
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  Appendix:

  (A) Titles found in the Vita Menagiana but not in Diogenes:

  Peplos

  Hesiodic Problems,5 1 book

  Metaphysics, 10 books

  Cycle on Poets, 3 books

  Sophistical Refutations or On Eristics

  Prior Analytics, 2 books

  Messing Problems, 3 books

  On Blessedness, or Why did Homer invent the cattle of the sun?

  Problems from Archilochus, Euripides, Choerilus, 3 books

  Poetical Problems, 1 book

  Poetical Explanations

  Lectures on Physics, 16 books

  On Generation and Destruction, 2 books

  Meteorologica, 4 books

  On the Soul, 3 books

  History of Animals, 10 books

  Movement of Animals, 3 books

  Parts of Animals, 3 books

  Generation of Animals, 3 books

  On the Rising of the Nile

  On Substance in Mathematics

  On Reputation

  On Voice

  On the Common Life of Husband and Wife

  Laws for Man and Wife

  On Time

  On Vision, 2 books

  Nicomachean Ethics

  Art of Eulogy

  On Marvellous Things heard

  Eulogies or Hymns

  On Differentia

  On the Nature of Man

  On the Generation of the World

  Customs of the Romans

  Collection of Foreign Customs

  (B) Titles in the Life of Ptolemy but neither in Diogenes nor in the Vita Menagiana:

  On Indivisible Lines, 3 books

 

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