Aristotle's Athenaion Politeia and the establishment of the Thirty Tyrants

Summary

Ever since the publication of Kenyon's editio princeps of Aristotle's Athenaion Politeia in 1891, students of Athenian history have been forced to reckon with its contents. There is some measure of agreement that the latter portion of this document (i.e. chapters 42–69) is of greater historical value in that Aristotle is presenting a more detailed and contemporary account of the fourth-century Athenian government and constitution. The credibility of the earlier chapters, on the other hand, has suffered from the censor's knife. Some criticisms, to be sure, are justifiable, but to dismiss in a casual manner the entire narrative of chapters 1–41, principally on the grounds of error and distortion in Aristotle's sources, is a serious mistake. This is especially true where Aristotle furnishes information not found in other extant sources. An example is his relatively detailed history of the period between 413 and 403 b.c. (chapters 29–41), which, as Sandys correctly noted, held ‘the writer's evident interest’. Here Aristotle describes the activities of the commission of thirty syngrapheis, presents the tantalizing constitutional documents of the 400 and the 5000, and introduces other material (particularly post-Thucydidean) which is neglected by, or contradicts, the testimonies of Xenophon, Diodorus, Lysias, Plutarch and others. One of the most interesting and controversial developments treated within these chapters is the establishment of the Thirty Tyrants in 404 b.c. Since no one source relates the whole story, it is necessary to reconstruct the situation piecemeal.