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pear, although not very frequently, in his other works, e.g. in Politics.
It is believed that the constitutions of Eretria and Chalcis were
among the 158 constitutions discussed by Aristotle and his disciples.
Although it is difficult to doubt that the philosopher from Stagira
knew a lot about the island's past, the evidence supporting the
theory that he wrote a treatise about it is very weak. No reference
has survived about the title of such a book. The fact that he wrote
Eretreion politeia is only confirmed by the mention of Eretria in
Heraclides's Epitome, in which fragments of a number of constitutions
have been preserved. 14 Chalkideon politeia is not mentioned
either by Heraclides or any other writer, and its existence can only
be deduced from references to this city and its political system in
Politics and the fragments of works by Strabo, Plinius and Clement
of Alexandria mentioned above, in which the authors refer to Aristotle's
testimony. 15 In Corpus Aristotelicum there are no traces
which would indicate the writer's particular interest in the island.
All the surviving works by the philosopher contain a little over ten
references to Euboea and its cities, that is the same number as in
the case of Argos or Corinth. Thus, it is possible to assume that the
fragments mentioned above do not necessarily come from works
written by him. Although both in the antiquity and at present the
name Aristotle was mostly associated with the great philosopher, he
was not the only one of that name, as evidenced by a list of persons
bearing the name 'Aristoteles' provided by Diogenes Laertios
(5.1.35). Although the list does not contain a local historian writing
about Eboia, the Lexicon of the Greek Personal Names lists at least
seven men of that name on the island at the turn of the 4 th and 3 rd
centuries, i.e. at the time almost contemporary to the philosopher. 16
There are, therefore, grounds for considering it likely that Peri Euboia
mentioned by Harpocration was written by an unknown historian,
Aristotle of Chalcis, and that the fragments cited by Strabo,
Plutarch and Aelianus came from that work.
Establishing the period in which he lived can only be based on
very weak grounds; there have been proposals placing him in the
14 F. G. Schneidewin (ed.), Heraclidis politiarum quae extant, Göttingen
1847, 81—82; V. Rose (ed.), Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta, Leipzig
1886, F 611.40.
15 Arist. frg. 601, 602, 603 and 611.40 Rose; Cf. Aristoteles, Die Historischen
Fragmente, Übersetzt und Erläutert von M. Hose, Berlin 2002, 246—7.
16 A Lexicon of the Greek Personal Names, vol. I, P. M. Fraser, E. Mathewes
(eds), Oxford 1987, 75.
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