Constitution of the Athenians

The Constitution of the Athenians, also called the Athenian Constitution, is a work by Aristotle or one of his students. The work describes the constitution of Athens. It is preserved on a papyrus roll from Hermopolis, published in 1891 and now in the British Library. A small part of the work also survives on two leaves of a papyrus codex, discovered in the Fayum in 1879 and now in the papyrus collection of the Egyptian Museum of Berlin. Discovery The Aristotelian text is unique because it is not a part of the Corpus Aristotelicum as preserved through medieval manuscripts. It was lost until two leaves of a papyrus codex carrying part of the text were discovered in the Fayum in 1879 and published in 1880. A second, more extensive papyrus text was purchased in Egypt by an American missionary in 1890. E. A. Wallis Budge of the British Museum acquired it later that year, and the first edition of it by Frederic G. Kenyon was published in January, 1891. The editions of the Greek text in widest use today are Kenyon's Oxford Classical Text of 1920 and the Teubner edition by Mortimer H. Chambers (1986, second edition 1994). The papyrus text is now held in the British Library. Ancient accounts of Aristotle credit him with 158 Constitutions of various states; it is widely assumed that these were research for the Politics, and that many of them were written or drafted by his students. Athens, however, was a particularly important state, and where Aristotle was living at the time; therefore it is plausible that, even if students composed the others, Aristotle composed that one himself as a model for the rest. On the other hand, a number of prominent scholars doubt that it was written by Aristotle. If it is a genuine writing of Aristotle, then it is of particular significance, because it is the only one of his extant writings that was actually intended for publication. Because it purports to supply so much contemporary information previously unknown or unreliable, modern historians have claimed that "the discovery of this treatise constitutes almost a new epoch in Greek historical study".<ref>J. Mitchell and M. Caspari (eds.), p. xxvii, A History of Greece: From the Time of Solon to 403 B.C.", George Grote, Routledge 2001.</ref> In particular, 21–22, 26.2–4, and 39–40 of the work contain factual information not found in any other extant ancient text.