This miscellaneous but very interesting chapter has the air of having been dashed off to complete as rapidly as possible the discussion of excellent constitutions actual and proposed, and of their framers and lawgivers. If the chapter is in fact by Aristotle, he may not have intended it to stand at this point; but its authenticity, in whole or part, has often been doubted (see commentaries). Its most important sections concern the conflict felt by Pittacus between equity on the one hand and law and order on the other, and the attempt to meet criticisms of Solon’s legislation, which Aristotle admired (cf. e.g. IV xi). The chapter ends with a rapid list of points ‘peculiar’ to various legislators, which in part repeats briefly material discussed earlier in the book.
1273b27 Those who have voiced opinions on constitutions fall into two classes. We have already given some account, so far as it is worth mentioning, of all of the first class, that is, of those who took no part whatever in political activity,1 but remained private citizens all their lives. The others, after personal experience of politics, have become lawgivers either in their own or in certain foreign cities. Some of these merely drafted laws, but others, like Lycurgus and Solon, framed constitutions too; for they established both constitutions and laws. Of the Spartan constitution I have spoken already.2
1273b35 Some, who believe that Solon was a sound law-giver, put forward the following reasons: (a) he abolished the undiluted oligarchy; (b) he put an end to the enslavement of the people; and (c) he established the traditional Athenian democracy by mixing the constitution well. They explain that the mixture contains an oligarchical element (the Council of the Areopagus),3 an aristocratic element (the fact that the officials are elected), and a democratic one (the courts). As a matter of fact it would seem that Solon found the first two of these already in existence, the council and the practice of electing officials, and merely refrained from abolishing them. On the other hand, by setting up courts drawn from the entire body of citizens, he did establish democracy at Athens. It is in fact here that some people find Solon at fault: they say that by giving supreme power over all matters to the courts, appointed by lot, he ruined the other half of his work. As soon as these courts became powerful, they began to do everything with a view to pleasing the people, just as if they were humouring a tyrant, and in this way converted the constitution into the democracy as we now have it. Ephialtes and Pericles reduced the power of the Council of the Areopagus, and Pericles introduced payment for service in the courts; in this way each successive leader of the people enlarged the democracy and advanced it to its present scale.4
1274a11 But it seems that all this took place not according to Solon’s intention but as a result of circumstances. For the Athenian sea-power in the Persian wars was due to the Athenian people; this gave them a great opinion of themselves, and they chose inferior men as popular leaders when respectable men pursued policies not to their liking. Certainly Solon himself seems to have given only a necessary minimum of power to the people – the power to elect officials and to require a scrutiny (for if they did not have supreme power over even this, the people would be no better than slaves or foes). He provided that all officials were to be drawn from among the notables and men of substance, that is to say the Pentacosiomedimnoi, the Zeugitae, and the third class, the ‘Knights’;5 he excluded from office only the fourth property-class, the Thetes.
1274a22 Other lawgivers were Zaleucus, who made laws for the Epizephyrian Locrians, and Charondas of Catana, who made laws both for his own citizens and for the other states of Italy and Sicily that were of Chalcidian origin. (Some wish to include Onomacritus as the first expert in lawmaking, saying that he was a Locrian, that he trained in Crete during a visit there to practise his art of soothsaying, that Thales the Cretan was his friend, and that Lycurgus and Zaleucus heard Thales lecture and Charondas heard Zaleucus. But all that is somewhat to disregard chronology.)6
1274a31 Then there was Philolaus the Corinthian, who made laws for the Thebans. He was of the Bacchiad family, and became the lover of Diodes, a victor in the Olympic Games.7 This Diocles, in disgust at the amorous passion for him of his mother Alcyone, left Corinth for Thebes, where he and Philolaus ended their days. Visitors are still shown their two tombs, which are easily visible one from the other; but one can be seen from Corinthian territory, the other not. The story is that they planned the sites of the two tombs themselves, Diocles so that the land of Corinth with its bitter memories of his suffering should be invisible from his grave, Philolaus that it might be visible from his. That is how they came to be living at Thebes. Philolaus became their lawgiver, and among his measures there are some relating to the begetting of children. These the Thebans called ‘laws of adoption’. They consist of an enactment, peculiar to Philolaus, which was designed to keep fixed the number of estates.
1274b5 As for Charondas, there is nothing peculiar to him except the suits for false witness (he was the first to permit notice to be given.)8 In the careful detail of his laws he is more finished even than modern legislators. The feature peculiar to Phaleas9 is his equalization of possessions; to Plato, communal ownership of possessions, wives, and children, and common meals for women;10 also his law about intoxication, that the sober should preside at drinking parties;11 and again that soldiers in their training should practise to become ambidextrous, instead of having one hand useful, the other useless.12 There are laws of Draco,13 but these were additions to an existing constitution. There is nothing peculiar to them worth mentioning except the severity of their heavy punishments.
1274b18 Pittacus14 too was a maker of laws, not of a constitution; and a law peculiar to him states that if drunken men commit an offence they should pay a larger fine than sober men. Since more drunken men than sober commit crimes of violence, and ought to be pardoned more readily, he decided to disregard the question of pardoning them and concentrate on getting useful results.15 The inhabitants of the city of Chalcis, in Thrace, had a lawgiver, Androdamas16 of Rhegium, whose laws relate to homicide and heiresses, but I cannot mention any point that is peculiar to them.
Let this suffice for our survey of constitutions, actual and proposed.