Page:Aristotle - The Politics, 1905.djvu/35

I. 2as if they thought that the barbarian and the slave were by nature one.

Out of these two relationships between man and woman, 5master and slave, the family first arises, and Hesiod is right when he says,—

First house and wife and an ox for the plough^[1],'

for the ox is the poor man's slave. The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's every-day wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas 'companions of the cupboard' [ὁμοσιπύους], and by Epimenides the Cretan, 'companions of the manger^[2]' [ὁμοκάπους]. But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, then comes into existence the village. And the most natural 6 form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be 'suckled with the same milk'. And this is the reason why Hellenic states were originally governed by kings; because the Hellenes were under royal rule before they came together, as the barbarians still are. Every family is ruled by the eldest, and therefore in the colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed because they were of the same blood. As Homer says [of the 7 Cyclopes]:7

'Each one gives law to his children and to his wives^[3].'

For they lived dispersedly, as was the manner in ancient

1. Op. et Di. 405.
2. Or, reading with the old translator (William of Moerbek) ὁμοκάπνους, 'companions of the hearth.'
3. Od. ix. 114, quoted by Plato, Laws, iii. 680, and in N. Eth. x. 9. § 13.