ARISTOTLE AND FOREIGN TRADE 51
Practice
By analyzing the relationship between theory and practice, we have already
touched upon the second aspect, namely the actual modes of a city’s organi-
zation of foreign trade. Here the Rhetoric will serve as the connecting thread
in our discussion. For Aristotle, a city’s leaders should take five subjects into
consideration:
- ways of gaining revenue (πόροι)^40 ;
- war and peace;
- protection of the territory;
- imports and exports (τὰ εἰσαγόμενα καὶ ἐξαγόμενα);
- legislation.^41
To begin with, one may note that the problem of foreign trade in the form of
imports and exports is described as one of the most important issues for a city.
It may be by chance, but the topic is placed ahead of legislation – an issue that
we know was very important for the ancient Greeks. The passage deserves a
detailed analysis:
Ἔτι δὲ περὶ τροφῆς, πόση δαπάνη ἱκανὴ τῇ πόλει, καὶ ποία, ἡ αὐτοῦ
τε γιγνομένη καὶ εἰσαγώγιμος, καὶ τίνων τ‘ ἐξαγωγῆς δέονται καὶ τίνων
εἰσαγωγῆς, ἳνα πρὸς τούτους καὶ συνθῆκαι καὶ συμβολαὶ γίγνωνται
πρὸς δύο γάρ διαφυλάττειν ἀναγκαῖον ἀνεγκλήτους τοὺς πολίτας,
πρὸς τε τοὺς κρείττους καὶ πρὸς τοὺς εἰς ταῦτα χρησίμους.^42The meaning of the first part is clear. We give the following translation: ‘Further
in regard to food, [it is necessary] to know what expenditure is adequate for
the city and what kinds are on hand and what can be imported’ (trans. adapted
from Kennedy). Here again we find explicitly mentioned the concept of for-
eign trade whose function is to supply what is not being produced by balanc-
ing imports (the argument is implicit) with the export of surpluses. The word
trophe is translated as ‘foodstuffs’, this being its normal meaning. Yet given that
Aristotle cannot have been unaware of the fact that the objects of foreign
trade also included other products (wood, metal, etc.), one may suspect that
the word referred in fact to the ‘the total amount of food and supplies needed
to survive’. But the important point occurs in the rest of the text, particularly
the sentence from καὶ τίνων to γίνωνται. The passage has been translated by
Dufour: ‘Ceux [i.e. les produits] qu’il faut exporter et ceux qu’il faut importer,
afin de conclure avec les peuples pouvant les recevoir ou les fournir pactes et
conventions’. Gauthier remarks:
After much hesitation, I have reproduced the translation of Dufour,
which is the normal translation. It contains two drawbacks: first, it repeats