Athénská ústava – Aristotelés (2023)

The most universal spirit of antiquity, Aristotle, excelled not only in the originality of his thinking but also in immense creative potential. Throughout his life, he wrote countless professional and educational works and treatises, of which only a portion has survived; even that amounts to 47 titles. Among them is the Athenian Constitution, although many researchers still doubt Aristotle's true authorship of this work. Its discovery in 1890 and the subsequent book publication in London caused a sensation and a chain reaction among translators, including the prompt Czech translation by Josef Pražák in 1900. This concise treatise describes the development and organization of Athenian society from its mythical beginnings to the democratic reform and constitutional arrangement of the Athenian community in the second half of the 4th century BC, along with a detailed depiction of the bureaucratic apparatus and judiciary. For understanding the beginnings of democracy as a system of state governance, this work holds extraordinary informational value, enhanced by its authenticity. Whether it was written by Aristotle or someone else is not significant in terms of its content, as it summarizes such a wealth of information about the history of ancient Athens and, by extension, Greece, that it ranks among the most important legacies of ancient literature. Since the time of the first Czech edition...