The Constitution of the Athenians

The Constitution of the Athenians describes the political system of ancient Athens. According to ancient sources, Aristotle or his students under his direction compiled the constitutions of 158 Greek states, with the aim of recording the legislative culture of his time in encyclopedic form. This is the only one to have survived intact. It was probably composed between 330 and 322 BC, since the text mentions the Festival of Hephaestus instituted during the archonship of Cephisophon, in 329 BC, and a Samos still under Athenian control, which places the writing within that interval.

The work is divided into two parts. The first traces the successive forms of government in Athens from the trial of the Alcmaeonidae to the restoration of democracy in 403 BC, after the rule of the Thirty. The second describes the city's institutions: the requirements for citizenship, the magistrates and the courts. The opening of the text, lost from the main papyrus, is known through quotations and a later summary, and dealt with the legendary origins of Athens, from the arrival of Ion to the reforms of Theseus.

The work was discovered late. It was found in Egypt and published in 1891 by Frederic G. Kenyon, and since then it has been an essential source for the political history of Greece. Its authorship remains debated: some scholars attribute it to Aristotle himself, while others hold that one of his disciples wrote it.