Dialogues d'Histoire Ancienne 21.2, 1995, 27-40
A NOTE ON 'ОМОГАААКТЕХ IN ARISTOTLE'S
Hans DERKS Université d'Utrecht
Aristotle's 'man is by nature a political animal'2 is without any doubt still the most popular dictum of the Stagirit. Users of this proposition are most interested in the terms nature and political, while animal was neglected notwithstanding Aristotle's additional statement 'that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals'3. In this part of Politics, in which he outlined his famous historical model of society, another most interesting animal-related word was never the subject of serious analysis, because it was not discovered as such. It seems as if Aristotle wrote here about too common a thing, namely milk, as he introduced people called бцоуаХахтес meaning literally 'sharers of the same
1. This article elaborates on remarks made in my recently published De Кое van Troje. De Mythe van de Griekse Oudheid / The Trojan Cow. The Myth of Greek Antiquity (Hilversum, 1995), p. 200 ff. That book is in itself an elaboration of a part of my thesis Stad en Land, Markt en Oikos (Amsterdam, 1986). I am grateful to all those who have commented on a earlier draft of this article and on "The Trojan Cow". In particular I want to thank Harry Pleket (Un. of Leiden), who suggested also to write articles about provocative subjects from the book and Kim Hershorn, who effectively helped with the translation. 2. Pol. 1253a 2 ff. 3. Pol. 1253a 7 ff.
