Costituzione degli Ateniesi
- Lingua:
- inglese
- Stato:
- Opera completa
- Autorialità:
- Scritta dall'autore
- Stato del testo:
- Testo pulito
- Estensione:
- ~25.500 parole · 121 passi
Cita quest'opera
- APAAristotele. (n.d.). Costituzione degli Ateniesi. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/it/works/aristotle/the-athenian-constitution
- MLAAristotele. "Costituzione degli Ateniesi." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/it/works/aristotle/the-athenian-constitution.
- ChicagoAristotele. Costituzione degli Ateniesi. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/it/works/aristotle/the-athenian-constitution.
Di che cosa tratta
La storia e la descrizione del regime ateniese, perduta per secoli e ritrovata su un papiro egiziano nel 1879.
Contesto e storia
Il testo fu pubblicato nel 1891 ed è tuttora una delle scoperte che più hanno mutato ciò che sappiamo del mondo antico: la prima parte racconta come mutò la costituzione di Atene dai tempi più antichi alla democrazia restaurata, per Dracone, Solone, Pisistrato e Clistene; la seconda descrive come funzionava il sistema nel IV secolo, magistratura per magistratura, con i sorteggi, le indennità e i tribunali. Senza questo testo, buona parte di quel che si dice sulla democrazia ateniese non si potrebbe dire. Apparteneva a una raccolta di centocinquantotto costituzioni cittadine messe insieme nella scuola di Aristotele; è l'unica giunta fino a noi. Gli studiosi discutono se l'abbia scritta lui stesso o un discepolo, e la questione resta aperta.
Contesto editoriale, non una fonte citabile: a differenza dei passi dell'opera, questi dati non si possono verificare sul corpus.
...[They were tried] by a court empanelled from among the noble families, and sworn upon the sacrifices. The part of accuser was taken by Myron. They were found guilty of the sacrilege, and their bodies were cast out of their graves and their race banished for evermore. In view of this expiation, Epimenides the Cretan performed a purification of the city. Part 2 After this event there was contention for a long time between the upper classes and the populace. Not only was the constitution at this time oligarchical in every respect, but the poorer classes, men, women, and children, were the serfs of the rich. They were known as Pelatae and also as Hectemori, because they cultivated the lands of the rich at the rent thus indicated. The whole country was in the hands of a few persons, and if the tenants failed to pay their rent they were liable to be haled into slavery, and their children with them. All loans secured upon the debtor's person, a custom which prevailed until the time of Solon, who was the first to appear as the champion of the people. But the hardest and bitterest part of the constitution in the eyes of the masses was their state of serfdom. Not but what they were also discontented with every other feature of their lot; for, to speak generally, they had no part nor share in anything. Part 3 Now the ancient constitution, as it existed before the time of Draco, was organized as follows. The magistrates were elected according to qualifications of birth and wealth. At first they governed for life, but subsequently for terms of ten years. The first magistrates, both in date and in importance, were the King, the Polemarch, and the Archon. The earliest of these offices was that of the King, which existed from ancestral antiquity.…