Aristotle's Politics Today

7. ARISTOTLE’S REGIME OF THE AMERICANS

7 ARISTOTLE’S REGIME OF THE AMERICANS Peter L. P. Simpson INTRODUCTION T he discovery of ancient texts once thought to have been irretrievably lost is a rare event. But it does happen. The discovery a few years ago of the works of Posidippus is a case in point. As far as the texts of Aristotle are concerned, the most dramatic event in modern times was the discovery, in the nineteenth century, of his Athenaion Politeia, or Regime of the Athenians. Not less dramatic is the text that follows and that I offer here for the first time both in the original Greek and in accompanying English translation. How the text came into my hands is a complex story that would take too long to explain, so let me just say that it involves a shadowy Hittite book dealer near ancient Scepsis in the Troad. The text’s title of Amerikanon Politeia, taken from the opening words, is Aristotelian enough and, as will immediately appear, so is much of its content. Indeed several sentences and paragraphs can easily be paralleled in Aristotle’s Politics. This gives us, accordingly , some reason to regard the text as his or at least as preserving genuinely Aristotelian thought. What will give us pause, of course, is the seeming anachronism of the subject matter. The regime of the Americans seems an unlikely, nay, an impossible topic for Aristotle to have written about. Did he not die millennia before the regime came into existence? This question, however, betrays an anachronism of its own. According to Aristotle himself, as we learn from texts undoubtedly his, the world is eternal and experiences periodic cataclysms during which human civilization is reduced to primitive savagery whence it slowly rises, recovering all that was previously lost, until the next cataclysm destroys everything again. Consequently the regime of the Americans , or something like it, has already existed many times in the past. Our current views about the age and origin of the cosmos are not as definite or as complete as altogether to rule out Aristotle’s speculations. If so, there is 109 110 PETER L. P. SIMPSON no compelling reason to deny that he could have come to learn about an American-style regime from ancient tales or records. There is also, therefore, no compelling reason to deny that he could have described and assessed that regime in the same way as he did the regimes of the Athenians and Spartans. At all events, one should judge the text that follows, not by its anachronism (for it has none), but by its content. And that content seems Aristotelian enough. To aid the understanding of the content, therefore, I have divided the text into numbered paragraphs and also marked, in the translation, where the author passes from description to criticism. ARISTOTELOUS AMERIKANWN POLITEIA 1. h( de\ ’Amerikanw~n politei/a, h(\n sxedo\n e)n pa/saij tai=j po/lesin e)/xontai kai\ e)n th|= summaxi/a| th|= pro\j a)llh/louj, ei)j ei)/dh a)rxw~n ma/lista tri/a diane/metai: \ w((n de\ plei/staj me\n o( dh=moj ai(rei=tai, ai( de\ tou= tri/tou me/gistai u(po\ tw~n a)/llwn a)rxw~n kaqi/stantai. le/gw de\ tri/a th\n me\n monarxi/an, tou\j de\ ge/ronta/j te kai\ th\n e)kklhsi/an, kai\ tri/ton de\ ta\ dikasth/ria. kai/per me\n ga\r to\n mo/narxon th=j au(tw~n mhtropo/lewj dia\ pole/mou e)kbalo/ntej w(\j o)/nta tu/rannon, o(/mwj de\ th\n monarxikh\n a)rxh\n sfo/dra filou=sin oi( ’Amerikanoi\ kai\ mega/laj a)rxa\j mo/naj me\n o)/ntaj kuri/aj de\ pollw~n tw~n koinw~n kate/sthsan pantaxou=. kalou=si de\ proe/drouj h)\ kubernh/taj h)\ kai\\ dhma/rxouj. ou(\j kai\ e)n a)rxh|= diame/nein e)w~sin e)/th polla\ kai\ ei)j th\n au)th\n tou\j au)tou\j polla/kij ai(rou=ntai: ou) mh\n a)ll’ e)ni/ote to\n au)to\n ei)j th\n au)th\n badi/zein ou)k e)w~sin plh\n a(/pac h)\ di/j. pro\j de\ tou/toij peri\ katasta/seij a)/llwn a)rxw~n poiou=si pollw~n toiou/touj me\n kuri/ouj...