he advises that one render himself independent of it by living a simple life,859 and urges against vulgar display.860 Like Aristotle, he prefers moderate wealth,861 and finds its chief value in the fact that it enables one to have the distinction of giving splendid gifts to the people.862 He approaches the cosmopolitan spirit of the Stoics in his emphasis upon the natural relationship of all men,863 a result of the broadening vision due to the unification of Greece under the Macedonian Empire. There is nothing of interest from other members of the Peripatetic school, except the Eudemian Ethics and Magna moralia, which were included in our discussion of Aristotle, and the pseudo-Aristotelian Economica, which will be discussed in the following pages.
THE ECONOMICA
Economica were one of the characteristic types of Greek literature, after the Economicus of Xenophon.864 They discussed wealth from the ethical standpoint, dealt largely with domestic, rather than public, economy, and considered questions of human relations, such as slavery and the married life. They are, in general, imitations of Xenophon and of Aristotle’s Politics, and add very little of interest to the economic theory of the Socratics. Aside from the work, falsely ascribed to Aristotle, to be discussed below, Economica were written by Antisthenes,865 Xenocrates,866 Philodemus,867 Metrodorus of Lampsacus,868 Hierocles,869 Dio Chrysostom,870 Plutarch,871 and the New-Pythagoreans,872 Bryson,873 Callicratidas,874 Periktione,875 and Phintys.876
The pseudo-Aristotelian Economica877 require no extended discussion, since most of the material that is of interest in them is an imitation of Aristotle’s Politics and Xenophon’s Economics. Book i is largely a repetition of some of Aristotle’s theories of domestic economy, the marriage relation, and slavery, with a few unimportant additions and slight differences.878 Book ii is almost entirely composed of practical examples of how necessary funds have been provided by states and rulers.