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786 LE LIVRE DE YCONOMIQUE D'ARISTOTE [TRANS. AMER. PHIL. SOC.
example, admonishes his brother in Homeric verse to
seek wealth and prosperity through diligent work—"Between
us and success the gods have placed the sweat of
our brows" 2 —through just dealings with one's neighbors,
by apportioning the tasks of the household around
the calendar of the seasons, by marrying before thirty
and living righteously by propitiating the gods. Xenophon,
disciple of Socrates and friend of Plato, enlivened
his discussion of the household arts, as practised
in fourth-century Greece, by his masterly use of the
dialogue form. ,' The style of our Economics is severely
analytical and expository, rarely adorned with illustrative
examples. Although a warm human sympathy can
be sensed in the section dealing with the husband-wife
relationship, the text adheres closely to the scientific
objective of the writer, whose model was certainly
Aristotle, the master of the expository style.
During the Dark Ages, the production of new works
on household economy languished almost to the vanishing
point. The instructions for planting of seeds in a
monastery garden, the Hortulus written about 840 by
the German monk \Valafrid Straho, is a shining exception
to the rule. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
a revival of interest in rural economy on the great
feudal estates gave rise to several treatises on the management
of these large properties. The thirteenth-century
Anglo-Norman treatise on husbandry by Walter of
Henley is the earliest work of its kind in a modern language.
The fortunes of Pietro Crescenzi's Duodecim
libri ruralium conunodorum, written about 1300, were
distinctly better; its reputation was sufficiently great to
recommend it to Charles V of France for translation into
French (1370). Under two titles, Le Livre des prouffits
champestres ci rurcudx and Le Livre appellé Rustican
du champ de labeur, it was widely disseminated in manuscript
before it was printed in 1486. Its popularity continued
for another half-century and a revised edition
appeared in Paris in 1560. The first original French
work on family economy was Le bon berger, written
about 1375 by Jean de Brie; this work enjoyed popular
favor for two centuries and was frequently reprinted.
Very similar in every respect save style is La Somme
rurale by Jean Boutillier (1380), which Vérard published
in Paris in 1491. The principal theme of Le
Livre du chevalier de 1cm Tour-Landry pour l'enseignenient
de ses flUes (1371) is the duty of the wife to her
husband, and the husband-wife relationship is likewise
the major concern of the anonymous author of Le
Ménagier de Paris (1393). This revival of interest in
economics among the French suffered a sharp decline in
the fifteenth century; no important work appeared in
French until 1564, when Charles Estienne published his
2 Hesiod, Works and days, ed. with parallel English translation
by H. G. Evelyn-White, line 289, Loeb Classical Library,
Harvard Univ. Press, 1936.
Xenophon, Memorabilia and Oeconomicus, ed. with parallel
English translation by E. C. Marchant, Loeb Classical Library,
London, Heineniann, 1923.
Maison rustique; originally composed in Latin, the
French edition was often reprinted until 1702. In the
meantime, the Italian Humanists had produced several
original treatises on the subject, the best known being
Alberti's Della. Famiglia (1445), which circulated in
French and German translations throughout the sixteenth
century. Of all the works we have named above,
only Alberti's shows definite indebtedness to the Economnics
attributed to Aristotle .4
III. THE GREEK AND LATIN OECONOMICzI
The history of this pseudo-Aristotelian treatise is
both curious and involved. The Greek original of the
first two Books is found in the manuscript copies of
the Aristotelian corpus immediately following the Politics,
but no Greek text of the third Book has been current
since the fourteenth century. As early as the
sixteenth century, the 1-lumanist editors of Aristotle were
questioning the authenticity of the treatise. In 1506
the French humanist I.efèvre d'Etaples proved conclusively
that the second Book is entirely spurious,' since
it contains references to persons known to have been
born after Aristotle's death in 322 nc. There is general
agreement that the first Book is, both in style and content,
worth y of the Stagyrite; it contains numerous passages
paraphrased from his Politics, while several sections
have beemi traced hack to Xenophon's Oeconomicus.
6 Xenophon was pillaged further by the unknown
author of Book III, which is a highly interesting disquisition
on the relations of husband and wife in the family
economy. It has been conjectured that this third Book
may be the Latin version of a late Greek tract, now lost,
entitled Rules for married life, included in a list of works
attributed to Aristotle drawn up in the sixth century
by the lexicographer Hesychius of Miletus. Thus the
Greek original of the Economics was it compilation of
disparate materials assembled by unknown hands at
various times after Aristotle's death and mistakenly
introduced into the Aristotelian corpus at an unknown
date, but quite certainly before the twelfth century, when
the great Arabic commentator on Aristotle, Averrhoes,
wrote a paraphrase of the treatise which was current in
a Latin translation about 1260.
If the history of the Greek text is intricate and confusing,
that of the mediaeval Latin versions of the
This brief account of a largely neglected segment of didactic
literature is, of course, far from complete. It is a subject that
begs for serious and full examination.
Faber Stapulensis (Le Fèvre d'Etaples), Qeconomica Arisfotelis,
126 If., Paris, H. Estiennc, 1506. The best critical edition
of Book II is that by B. A. Van Groningen, Le deuxiè.'ne Uvre
de l'1cononiiquc, 233 pp., Leyden, 1933. On the authenticity of
Book II, cf. Otto Schlegel, J?eiträge .ur Untersuchungen iiber
die Glaubwdrdigkeit der Beispielsammiung in den pseudoaristotelischen
Oekonomika, Weimar, 1909 (dissertation).
6 Written about 370 ac. Franz Susemihi, ed. Aristo tells quac
feruntur Oecono;nica, v-vi, note 1, Leipzig, Teuhner, 1887, lists
the parallels with Aristotle's Politics and Xenophon's Occono
HI CUS.