REMARKS ON ARISTOTLE’S THETTALON POLITEIA

This article attempts to make a critical assessment of the preserved fragments of Thettalonpoliteia as a source on the history of early Thessaly. The traces of the existence of this textcome from the second half of the 2nd century CE at the earliest, but even then it was seen as oneof the Politeiai recorded by Aristotle. As a result of this attribution, information from this text istreated as a reliable source of knowledge on the koinon organization of the Thessalians and theirjoint army. There are, however, important reasons to treat this source with the greatest caution:we have only six short quotations from the work available, and the part which refers to Aleuas’supposed reforms is very much damaged and has been subjected to a number of emendationsby its various publishers. The description of the system of mobilization of the Thessalian armyfrom Thettalon politeia seems anachronistic, and probably arose under the infl uence of informationabout the reorganization of the army conducted in the 370s BCE by Jason of Pherae and thepropaganda that accompanied these changes