48 works, 6 with an English translation; 1,115,839 words analysed
Life and work
Checked against sources · 30 September 2026
Diogenes Laertius gives the outline of Aristotle's life. He was born at Stagira (384–322 BC), the son of Nicomachus, who lived at the court of Amyntas, king of Macedon, as physician and friend.1 By Apollodorus' chronology he joined Plato at seventeen and stayed with him twenty years.2 When Plato died, he went to Hermias and stayed three years; he came to Philip's court when Alexander was in his fifteenth year; he arrived back in Athens and lectured at the Lyceum for thirteen years; then he retired to Chalcis, where he died a natural death at about sixty-three, the same year Demosthenes died at Calauria.3
Ancient tradition / legend Some said differently. Eumelus claimed that Aristotle died at Chalcis by drinking aconite, at seventy. Diogenes answers that he is mistaken, since Aristotle lived to sixty-three.4 And “it is said” that he displeased the king by introducing Callisthenes to him.3
After Plato's death Aristotle left Athens with Xenocrates for Assos in Asia Minor. There he and Theophrastus did extensive research in botany and marine biology, which they carried on at nearby Lesbos.5 He returned to Athens, founded the Lyceum, and from it his school took the name Peripatetic.5
Only about a third of what he wrote survives, and the treatises we have are generally thought to be lecture aids for his students.5 The polished dialogues he published, among them On Philosophy, Eudemus, On Justice and On Good Birth, survive only in fragments.6 His books had a strange journey. Plutarch says Sulla seized the library of Apellicon of Teos, in which were most of the treatises of Aristotle and Theophrastus, “not yet well known” to the public. In Rome Tyrannio the grammarian arranged them, and Andronicus of Rhodes was given copies, published them and drew up the lists then current. The older Peripatetics, Plutarch adds, had known these writings neither widely nor exactly, because the estate of Neleus of Scepsis, to whom Theophrastus left his books, fell to careless and uneducated people.7 Andronicus' edition was the first complete edition of the works, and the texts we have are based on it.6
His Greek builds technical terms from plain words. τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, literally “what it was to be” (our translation), is his phrase for what makes a thing what it is, and Book 7 of the Metaphysics turns it over at length.8ἐνέργεια, in LSJ's words “activity, operation”, is another; LSJ's first example is from his Nicomachean Ethics.9
Things readers still argue about
Who wrote the Constitution of the Athenians? It is attributed to Aristotle or one of his students. A papyrus of it was bought in Egypt in 1890 and acquired for the British Museum, and Frederic Kenyon published the first edition in January 1891. Some think Aristotle wrote it himself as a model for the rest; a number of prominent scholars doubt it.10
One ethics or two? Books 5, 6 and 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics are identical to Books 4, 5 and 6 of the Eudemian Ethics.11 The Nicomachean Ethics also handles pleasure in two places: Book 7, chapters 11–14, and Book 10, chapters 1–5.1213
What is really his? Many works carried under his name are generally agreed to be spurious, among them On Colours, On Things Heard, Physiognomonics, On Plants, On Marvellous Things Heard, Mechanics, On Indivisible Lines, the Rhetoric to Alexander, On Virtues and Vices and the Magna Moralia. The authenticity of the Problemata and the Economics is disputed.6
The road of the text
Follow the text from Aristotle's own day to the book in your hands. The gaps are the long silences between one mark and the next.
384 BCThe authorBorn at Stagira, in Chalcidice, in the first year of the 99th Olympiad by Apollodorus' count1,2
about 17 years laterc. 367 BCThe authorJoins Plato's Academy at seventeen, and stays about twenty years2,5
about 20 years laterc. 347 BCThe authorPlato dies; Aristotle leaves Athens, going to Hermias, and to Assos and Lesbos for research2,5
about 4 years laterc. 343 BCThe authorGoes to the court of Philip of Macedon, to teach the young Alexander3,5
about 8 years laterc. 335 BCThe authorBack in Athens, he lectures at the Lyceum for thirteen years3,5
about 13 years later322 BCThe authorDies at Chalcis, aged about sixty-three, the year Demosthenes also died3
about 1,270 years laterc. AD 950CopiesThe Florence codex Laurentianus LXXXI.11 (Kb), the oldest surviving manuscript of the Nicomachean Ethics, is made in the 10th century11
about 550 years laterc. 1495Print and editionsAldus Manutius prints the Greek Aristotle in five volumes at Venice (1495–98)15
about 13 years later1508Print and editionsThe Aldine press prints the Greek Poetics, inside an anthology called Rhetores graeci14
about 320 years later1831Print and editionsThe Berlin Academy's edition begins (1831–70); its page and column numbers, such as 1094a, are still the standard way to cite Aristotle6
60 years later1891Print and editionsFrederic Kenyon publishes the Constitution of the Athenians, from a papyrus bought in Egypt in 189010
The author
Copies
Print and editions
How the words reached us
Manuscripts & transmission
Passed from hand to hand
Sulla's library and Andronicus. Plutarch's account of Apellicon's library, its arrival in Rome and Andronicus' lists is above; it is the ancient story of how the treatises came into the form we have.76
The page numbers. References like 1094a are Bekker numbers, based on the pages of the Prussian Academy of Sciences' edition, Aristotelis Opera, published in Berlin from 1831 to 1870; the letter marks a column.6
Print. The first printed Greek Aristotle was Aldus Manutius' five volumes at Venice, 1495–98.15
The oldest Ethics. The oldest surviving manuscript of the Nicomachean Ethics is the Florence codex Laurentianus LXXXI.11, called Kb, of the tenth century.11
The Poetics on a thin thread. The accepted Greek source is the eleventh-century manuscript Paris 1741. A second route is an Arabic version, made from a Syriac one that descends from a Greek manuscript of before AD 700 and is independent of Paris 1741. William of Moerbeke made an accurate Latin translation in 1278, which was virtually ignored. Only the first part survives, on tragedy and epic; the second, on comedy, is lost. The Greek text was first printed by the Aldine press in 1508.14
The Constitution. Two papyrus fragments were found in the Fayum in 1879 and published in 1880. A much larger papyrus was bought in Egypt in 1890 and acquired for the British Museum, and Kenyon published it in 1891.10
Textual variants
Where the copies disagree
An Arabic witness. The Arabic version of the Poetics descends from a Syriac translation that departed widely in vocabulary from the original, and Wikipedia's account says it started a misreading of Aristotle that lasted through the Middle Ages.14
Three shared books. The same three books are printed in both ethical works, and editors must decide how to handle the duplication.11
Doubtful works. Whole works are in question, rather than readings: many are generally agreed to be spurious, and two are disputed.6
Books to read it in
I. Bywater, Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea (Oxford Classical Texts, 1894).16 The Greek Nicomachean Ethics in the Scroll, with H. Rackham's Loeb translation (1926).18
W. D. Ross's Oxford text of the Rhetoric and J. H. Freese's Loeb translation (1926, reprinted 1947).18 The Rhetoric in the Scroll.
R. Kassel, Aristotelis De arte poetica liber (Oxford Classical Texts, 1965).17 The Greek Poetics in the Scroll, with W. H. Fyfe's Loeb translation (1939).18
I. Bekker (ed.), Aristotelis Opera, for the Prussian Academy of Sciences (Berlin, 1831–70).6 The source of the Bekker numbers.
R. A. Gauthier and J. Y. Jolif, L'Éthique à Nicomaque (Louvain and Paris, 1970, revising the first edition of 1958–59).19 With commentary.
J. Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, 2 vols (Princeton University Press, 1984).20
We checked every statement above against these sources on 30 September 2026. Where they disagree, we say so. What we could not confirm, we left out.
Where to begin
The works here with a translation and the most familiar vocabulary: the fewest rare words to look up. That is vocabulary only; grammar, dialect and ideas may still be demanding.