IF PLATO'S family history may help to explain his devotion
to Athens and his political sympathies, the same is not true
of Aristotle. Indeed, in terms both of origins and of experience
one might expect Aristotle to be not simply a critic of Athenian
institutions, which he was, but a sceptic concerning the whole
idea of the city-state and the prophet of imperialism, which he
most emphatically was not. His political philosophy, indeed,
is singularly at variance with his experience and his seeming
self-interest, a fact that needs some explanation by those who in-
sist that political philosophies are always rationalizations.

Aristotle was born at Stagira in 384 B.C. That city was in the
Chalcidice, a peninsula colonized by the Greek city-states, but
properly part of Macedonia. Aristotle's parents were both of
Chalcidian descent. His father, moreover, was court physician
to the King of Macedonia. This may explain Aristotle's own
later interest in medicine and the frequent use he made of med-
ical analogies. What is significant for our purposes, however,
is that, while the Macedonians were Greeks ethnologically, they
were not considered by the Greeks of the city-states as true
Hellenes. They were governed by kings, and in the Persian
Wars had been forced to aid Cyrus against their fellows to the
south. They shared neither the Greek traditions and govern-
ment nor the Greek culture. Yet it was among them that Ar-
istotle was born, and was to return to his native land and to
remain for many years during the very time that it was becom-
ing great.

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