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“ For this law is not of now or yesterday, but is eternal . . . this I was not likely [to infringe through fear of the pride] of any man）;1
” [7] and further, that justice is real and expedient, but not that which only appears just; nor the written law either, because it does not do the work of the law2; that the judge is like an assayer of silver, whose duty is to distinguish spurious from genuine justice; [8] that it is the part of a better man to make use of and abide by the unwritten rather than the written law.3 [9] Again, it is necessary to see whether the law is contradictory to another approved law or to itself; for instance, one law enacts that all contracts should be binding, while another forbids making contracts contrary to the law. [10] If the meaning of the law is equivocal, we must turn it about, and see in which way it is to be interpreted so as to suit the application of justice or expediency, and have recourse to that. [11] If the conditions which led to the enactment of the law are now obsolete, while the law itself remains, one must endeavor to make this clear and to combat the law by this argument. [12] But if the written law favors our case, we must say that the oath of the dicast “to decide to the best of his judgement” does not justify him in deciding contrary to the law, but is only intended to relieve him from the charge of perjury, if he is ignorant of the meaning of the law; that no one chooses that which is good absolutely, but that which is good for himself;
that there is no difference between not using the laws and their not being enacted; that in the other arts there is no advantage in trying to be wiser than the physician, for an error on his part does not do so much harm as the habit of disobeying the authority; that to seek to be wiser than the laws is just what is forbidden in the most approved laws. Thus much for the laws. [13] Witnesses are of two kinds, ancient and recent; of the latter some share the risk of the trial, others are outside it. By ancient I mean the poets and men of repute whose judgements are known to all; for instance, the Athenians, in the matter of Salamis, appealed to Homer4 as a witness, and recently the inhabitants of Tenedos to Periander of Corinth5 against the Sigeans. Cleophon also made use of the elegiacs of Solon against Critias, to prove that his family had long been notorious for licentiousness, otherwise Solon would never have written: “ Bid me the fair-haired Critias listen to his father.6
” [14] One should appeal to such witnesses for the past,
1 The first line is quoted 1.13.2. The second differs somewhat from Soph. Ant. 458, where the passage runs, τούτων ἐγὼ οὐκ ἔμελλον, ἀνδρὸς οὐδινὸς φρόνημα δείσασ᾽, ἐν θεοῖσι τὴν δίκην δώσειν （“I was not likely, through fear of the pride of any man, to incur the penalty for violating these statutes at the bar of heaven”）.
2 Which is the administration of real justice, not that which appears to the legislator to be such and is embodied in legal enactments.
3 Cp.14.7 above.
4 Αἴας δ᾽ ἐκ Σαλαμῖνος ἄγεν δυοκαίδεκα νῆας, στῆσε δ᾽ ἄγων ἵν᾽ Α᾿θηναίων ἵσταντο φάλαγγες, Hom. Il. 2.557-558. The Lacedaemonians, acting as arbitrators between Athens and Megara, who were fighting for the possession of Salamis, decided in favor of Athens on the strength of the two lines in the Iliad, which were taken to show that Salamis belonged to Athens. It was reported that the second line was the invention of Solon.
5 It is not known to what this refers.
6 （Frag. 22, P.L.G. 2, where the line runs, εἰπέμεναι Κριτίᾳ ξανθότριχι πατρὸς ἀκούειν）. The Critias attacked by Cleophon is the well-known oligarch and grandson of the first. Cleophon argued from the phrase “bid him listen to his father” that his ancestor was a disobedient son and a degenerate. In reality, Solon had a high opinion of the family, and probably meant to praise the father.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 22, translated by J. H. Freese. Aristotle. Cambridge and London. Harvard University Press; William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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