Aristotle, Athenian Constitution
H. Rackham, Ed.

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Fragments

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Ἐκ τῶν Ἡρακλείδου περὶ Πολιτειῶν.

The Athenians originally had a royal government. It was when Ion came to dwell with them that they were first called Ionians.

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Harpocration s.v.Ἀπόλλων Πατρῷος.

<For when he came to dwell in Attica, as Aristotle says, the Athenians came to be called Ionians, and Apollo was named their Ancestral god.>

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Schol. Aristoph. Birds 1537

<The Athenians honor Ancestral Apollo because their War-lord Ion was the son of Apollo and Creusa the daughter³ of Xuthus.>

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Ἐκ τῶν Ἡρακλείδου περὶ Πολιτειῶν.

Erechtheus was succeeded as king by Pandion, who divided up his realm among his sons

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Schol. Aristoph. Wasps 1223

<giving the citadel and its neighborhood to Aegeus, the hill country to Lycus, the coast to Pallas and the district of Megara to Nisus>.

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Ἐκ τῶν Ἡρακλείδου περὶ Πολιτειῶν.

And these sections were continually quarrelling; but Theseus made a proclamation and brought them together on an equal and like footing.

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Plut. Thes. 25

<He summoned all on equal terms, and it is said that the phrase 'Come hither, all ye folks'⁴ was the proclamation of Theseus made when he was instituting an assembly of the whole people.>

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Plut. Thes. 25

<And that Theseus first leant towards the mob, as Aristotle says, and relinquished monarchical government, even Homer seems to testify, when he applies the term 'people'⁵ in the Catalogue of Ships to the Athenians only.>

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Lexicon Patm. p. 152 Sakkel.

< . . . As Aristotle narrates in his Athenian Constitution, where he says: 'And they were grouped in four tribal divisions in imitation of the seasons in the year, and each of the tribes was divided into three parts, in order that there might be twelve parts in all, like the months of the year, and they were called Thirds and Brotherhoods; and the arrangement of clans was in groups of thirty to the brotherhood, as the days to the month, and the clan consisted of thirty men.⁶>

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Ἐκ τῶν Ἡρακλείδου περὶ Πολιτειῶν.

He having come to Scyros met his end by being thrust down a cliff by Lycomedes, who was afraid that he might appropriate the island. But subsequently the Athenians after the Persian Wars brought back his bones.

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Schol. Vatic. ad Eur. Hipp. 11.

He came to Scyros <probably in order to inspect it because of his kinship with Aegeus⁷>

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Schol. Vatic. ad Eur. Hipp. 11.

<The Athenians, after the Persian Wars, in conformity with an oracle took up his bones and buried them.>

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Ἐκ τῶν Ἡρακλείδου περὶ Πολιτειῶν.

Kings were no longer chosen from the house of Codrus,⁸ because they were thought to be luxurious and to have become soft. But one of the house of Codrus, Hippomenes, who wished to repel the slander, taking a man in adultery with his daughter Leimone, killed him by yoking him to his chariot with his daughter [? emend 'with his team'], and locked her up with a horse till she died.⁹

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Ἐκ τῶν Ἡρακλείδου περὶ Πολιτειῶν.

The associates of Cylon¹⁰ because of his tyranny were killed by the party of Megacles when they had taken refuge at the altar of Athena. And those who had done this were then banished as being under a curse.