Reception

The reception of the Politics remains limited to the Latin West. The work has left barely detectable traces in Byzantine, Arab, or Jewish philosophical works. The Byzantine philosopher Michael Ephesus (tenth century) left only some notes regarding this work, and the existence of an Aristotelian political philosophy naturally could not have remained hidden from Averroes (d. 1198), indicating that the work was not accessible in the Arab West. As a result, the Byzantines, Arabs, and Jews were more likely to base their arguments on Plato’s political philosophy, especially the Republic, a work that was only available for direct study in the West beginning in the early Quattrocento, when it was translated by Italian humanists. William of Moerbeke tracked down the Politics in Greece about 1260, at the beginning of his translation efforts, and began by making an incomplete translation of Books 1 through 2.11 (1254a-1273a30). A few years later, he turned again to the Politics and was able to finish a complete translation of the work by about 1265. This Flemish or northern French translator used a word-for-word (verbum de verbo) translation method. Moerbeke markedly enriched the western vocabulary for political terminology through his introduction of numerous neologisms.

The first commentaries on this version of the Politics were written by the Dominican friars Thomas Aquinas

And Albert the Great. In addition, the Politics was added to university curricula shortly after its translation. According to a statement by Pierre Dubois, Siger of Brabant is supposed to have disputed questions from Aristotle’s Politics, including a defense of the primacy of the law above even the most virtuous of human beings in Pol. III.10 (1281b). The most influential commentaries at the University of Paris were the two written by Peter of Auvergne (d. 1304). His Quaestiones super libros

Politicorum, with its 126 questions on the first seven books, is without doubt a by-product of his teaching responsibilities at the Faculty of Arts. Not only did the questions prove exceptionally provocative of response over time, clearly influencing all later political commentaries in question form until the fifteenth century (Flueler 1992), they also contain the first transmission of university debates on subjects in political science, as well as a methodological foundation for practicing the discipline. In addition to his questions on the Politics, Peter wrote a literal commentary which, together with the incomplete commentary by Thomas Aquinas, shaped reception of the work through early modernity. Commentators of the fourteenth century include scholars such as Guido Vernani, Walter Burley, Nicholas Oresme, and Nicolas de Waldemonte (ps. John Buridan), among others. During the fifteenth century Donatus Acciailoli, Guillelmus Becchius Florentinus, Henricus Toke, Henricus Totting de Oyta, Johannes Versoris, and Leonardus Bruni Aretini wrote commentaries on the Politics, and there are numerous anonymous works of this character. Although the Politics did not belong to the group of works, such as the Nichomachean Ethics for example, which were read year after year at arts faculties, it does appear to have been taught on a regular basis, as evidenced by the detailed lecture plans of the University of Vienna (Fliieler 2004:135-138).