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CHAP. XI.: Goes abroad. - Aristotle, Constitution of Athens [320 BC]

Edition used:

Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens, trans. Thomas J. Dymes (London: Seeley and Co., 1891).

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CHAP. XI.

Goes abroad.

When he had drawn up the constitution in the way that has been described, and everybody came to him and made themselves disagreeable about the laws, some blaming and others criticising, as he did not wish either to disturb these arrangements, or to become an object of hatred by his presence, he determined to go abroad for ten years, proposing to combine trade with observation and to reside in Egypt, in the neighbourhood of the city of Canopus. He came to this determination because he did not think it right that he personally should explain his laws, but his view was that each individual should do what was prescribed by them. It was his ill-fortune too that many of the upper classes had now become his enemies on account of the cancelling of debts, and that both factions had changed their attitude in consequence of the actual settlement proving to be contrary to their expectation. For the people thought that he would make a redistribution of property, and the upper ranks that he would restore again the old order of things. Having disappointed these expectations, he found himself in opposition to both sides, and although it was in his power, by combining with either side, if he wished, to make himself absolute, he chose rather to become an object of hatred to both after he had saved his country and passed the most excellent laws.