Aristotle Rhetoric 2.4.9

John Henry Freese (Translator)

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Rhetoric. Aristotle. John Henry Freese (Translator). London. 1926.

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Current edition Perseus

The "Art" of Rhetoric (English) (Aristotle. The "Art" of Rhetoric. Freese, John Henry, translator. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1926 (printing).)

Editions (1)
Ῥητορική Perseus (Aristotle. Aristotelis Ars Rhetorica. Ross, William David, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press,1959 (printing).) — 2.4.9 focus
Translations (1)
Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric (Theodore Alois Buckley) (OCR draft) Experimental (Theodore Alois Buckley's English translation, first published in 1850 and represented from the Henry G. Bohn 1857 printing; corrected against a second OCR of the same printing.) — 2 focus

Notes on the current edition

Rhetoric

1. Aristotle's opinion of husbandry, in which tillage and planting, keeping of bees, fish, and fowl were included, was not nearly so favorable as that of Xenophon in his Oeconomicus. In two lists of the elements of a State given in the Politics, it comes first at the head of the lower occupations. In its favor it is said that it forms the best material of a rural democracy, furnishes good sailors, a healthy body of men, not money-grabbers like merchants and tradesmen, and does not make men unfit to bear arms. On the other hand, it claims so much of a man's time that he is unable to devote proper attention to political duties, and should be excluded from holding office. He further says that husbandmen, if possible, should be slaves (neither of the same race nor hot-tempered, for they will work better and are less likely to revolt); or, as the next best alternative, barbarians or serfs. The favorable view taken by Aristotle here and in the Oeconomics (probably not his) does not agree with that put forward in the Politics.