A New Classic.

It is rarely that a hitherto unknown classical work comes to light, and for many years none has appeared so important in every way as Aristotle's "Treatise on the Constitution of Athens." The first copies of this recently discovered manuscript reached this country about a week ago, and in one of his courses Professor W. W. Goodwin has spoken of the value of the manuscript in a very interesting manner.

It has been published under the authority of the British Museum from a papyrus which has recently come into the possession of the Museum through some Egyptian excavations. In general the manuscript is in good condition, though the last of the four rolls of which it consists is fragmentary. The writing, as is usual in such cases, is on the reverse of the papyrus, which originally held certain mercantile accounts dated 79 A. D. Allowing, therefore, reasonable time for these accounts to lose their importance before the other side would be used, we may fix the date of this text at the end of the first century of our era.

There has long been known a catalogue of Aristotle's works none of whose titles correspond with those of his extant works, and this treatise is unquestionably referred to among that class. This fact, together with the clear style of the present work in contrast to Aristotle's usual technical style supports the theory which has often been advanced that the catalogue referred to is one of Aristotle's popular works.

The subject treated is the constitutional history of Athens, and it falls into two sections. The first gives an historical account of the development of the Athenian state, and is complete; the second is an exposition of the contemporary machinery of the government. This latter part is only partially preserved, but we know most of it already through the quotations of the grammarian Pollux. On the contrary there is much that is new in the first part. In the very first chapters one point is settled which is of especial interest to us at Harvard. About six months ago Professor Wright completed an article for the Harvard Studies in which merely on literary grounds he fixed a date for the Cylonian conspiracy much earlier than that accepted by Grote. In these first chapters there is a striking confirmation of this on historical evidence, and the date fixed, as Professor Wright argued that it should be, before the legislation of Draco. Contrary to the general idea we learn that Draco established the Athenian senate and that the Areopagus was in existence before his time.

All of Solon's reforms are explained in the new manuscript, and we find that his reduction of the coinage was much later than his abolition of debt, but that he did both. The nine archons were chosen by lot, as was not understood before, from forty men elected in tens by the four tribes; the division of the tribes equally into mountain, plain and seashore is now first known.

The period of Aristides government is explained, and perhaps most important of all the flight of Themistocles from Athens, at which time the revolt of Naxos occurred which marks the first break in Athenian power, it is shown must have been as late as 462; the whole history of this period must now be read in a new light. The account is continued down to Aristotle's own time, but the most of the remaining statements are either already known or unimportant. Professor Goodwin will give another talk on the manuscript on Saturday morning.