You are at Stagira in Chalcidice, in northern Greece, home of Aristotle. Diogenes Laertius says he was born at Stagira, joined Plato at seventeen and stayed with him twenty years; he later taught at the Lyceum in Athens.
Here, at the start of the Politics, he has just traced how families grow into villages and villages into the city (the πόλις). From this, he says, it is clear that the city exists by nature, and that man is by nature an animal of the city.
A few lines on he gives the reason: of all the animals, only man has speech.
This lesson takes for granted the lessons before it. Not done yet: 1 Nothing in excess, 2 Know yourself, 3 Everything moves on, 4 Life is short, 5 The art is long, 6 The measure of all things, 7 I do not think I know, 8 The unexamined life.
Forgot how a letter is read? The whole alphabet
ClickTap a word to see what it means here, as you would in the reader. The words with a dotted line are new: pick what you think each one means, then it opens.
5 new words still to look at.