Note 22 — Chapter I · LIFE OF ARISTOTLE.

The statement of Aristokles (ap. Eusebium, Præp. Ev. xv. 2) is doubtless just — φανερὸν οὖν, ὅτι καθάπερ πολλοῖς καὶ ἄλλοις, οὕτω καὶ Ἀριστοτέλει συνέβη, διά τε τὰς πρὸς τοὺς βασιλεῖς φιλίας καὶ διὰ τὴν ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ὑπεροχήν, ὑπὸ τῶν τότε σοφιστῶν φθονεῖσθαι. The like is said by the rhetor Aristeides — Or. xii. p. 144, Dindorf.

I have already observed that the phrase of “Halbgrieche” applied by Bernays and W. v. Humboldt to Aristotle (Bernays, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, p. 2, p. 134) is not accurate literally, unless we choose to treat all the Hellenic colonies as half-Greek. His ancestry was on both sides fully Hellenic. But it is true of him, in the same metaphorical sense in which it is true of Phokion. Aristotle was semi-Macedonian in his sympathies. He had no attachment to Hellas as an organized system autonomous, self-acting, with an Hellenic city as president: which attachment would have been considered, by Perikles, Archidamus, and Epameinondas, as one among the constituents indispensable to Hellenic patriotism.