the distinction , not only Aristotelian but also relative to Western tradition, between the highest and the lowest, ruler and ruled (that is to say, the immovable hierarchy) (82), one may understand that here may be no place in Aristotle´s society of free men for living tools or slaves and women (83).
In this situation, the soldiers are necessary so much as the traders and the workers or servants, since it must be kept the freedom from the slavery of invaders (84). The independence of the state claims for the possibility of war.
Aristotle refers to the revolution in the Politics. It is due to disproportionate inequality, being the desire of equality the reason which directs the rebellion (85). The motifs are the desire of profit, honour, insolence, fear, desire of superiority, intrigues, reject, avarice and others (86). The revolutions may be realized through fraud or force (87). Constitutional governements may be overturned because of a deviation from constitution (89).
Like Plato, Aristotle points out the guardians must not be intemperate (90).
According with the guiding notion that the natural is the just and necessary, Aristotle observes that the war must not be studied to enslave someone but principally for not being enslaved (91): “they should seek to be masters only over those who deserve to be slaves”(92). Even, the legislator must direct his military measures to he provision of leisure and the establishment of peace (93). And this because: “peace is the end of war, and leisure of toil... for truly, the proverb says, “there is no leisure for slaves”, and those who cannot face danger like men are slaves of any invader”(94). Aristotle concludes that war imposes man to be temperate and just (95).
Because of what has been said, Aristotle says in his Nichomachean Ethic:
“The practical virtues are exercised in politics or in warfare, but the pursuits seem to be unleisured. Those of war entirely so, for no one desires to be at war for the sake of being at war, not deliberately takes steps at war... “(96).
One makes war in order to obtain peace (98). This is the central thought of Aristotle. There is war for peace to be.
Now, the happiness consists in leisure, privilege of the free man at the city state. The painful activity of war allows peace in the independent state for the politics and the contemplation which nourish the happiness of the free rational man (99).
The respect for universal human rights, the inclusion of everybody in democracy are absent in this kind of thought. The importance of war in Plato and Aristotle is followed in the Western history of Western culture, and in Christianism, especially, as a fight against sin, passions, temptations, material world. The true peace is thus delayed for the celestial and postapocalyptic world.
It is noteworthy, and impossible not to expose, the discourse of Isocrates, On Peace. Athenian orator (436-338BC), thanks to the good situation of his father he earned a fine education, knowing Gorgias and Socrates. He was witness of the war between Persian and Greeks, rivalries between Greek cities and convulsions at his own city. The war situation impoverished him and he had to dedicate himself to teaching. Isocrates experienced and lived the sorrows of war.
Different from Hesiod, who in the Work and Days praises the works of peace and labour in an olympic pious way, Isocrates shows himself concerned about the consequences of war, the impoverishment and the absence of true union in the Hellas. In this sense, the discourse of Isocrates is political, exhorting to peace for the greatness of Greece, the Panhellenism. On the other hand, his style is philosophically deliberative, trying to persuade through history and reason, orientated to the submission to law and justice in free democracy. Isocrates, who suffered poverty, states that it weakens people, fomenting demagogues. Dedicating himself to education, Isocrates judges that culture is the measure of man.
Because of this, Isocrates believes that peace must found the Panhellenism, that the true enemy are the Persians and that it is best a pacific politics of conciliation rather than the calamities of conflicts. Hence, peace is transformed in a state question in the thought of Isocrates.
He says in the mentioned discourse: “Assemblied to deliberate about War and Peace, which exercise the greatest power over the life of man... Such is the magnitude of the question” (100); Isocrates attributes a relevant importance to the question of war and peace; it exerts a great power over the life of man.
He states:
“it has become plain to all that you will be better pleased with those who summon you to war than those who counsel peace; for the former put into our minds the expectation both of regaining our possessions... and recovering the power which we formerly enjoyed, while the latter hold forth no such hope, insisting rather that we must have peace and not to crave great possessions contrary to justice, but be content with those we have, and that for the great majority of mankind is of all things the most difficult. For we are so dependent on our hopes... so risking the loss of what we have... Wherefore we may subject to this madness”(101).
That is to say, the greedy man is induced by the desire of richness and power to make war, a madness to which he submits himself preferring the one who invokes to war to the one who speaks for peace. But, Isocrates observes that the orators who exhort to peace had never caused suffering and disgrace. Those who without meditating it had driven to war, they have sunk the Hellas in disasters (102). In this, Isocrates is completely resolved: “I shall not desist from what I have in mind to say... I maintain... that we should make peace”(103). To remain in peace, keeping treaties, is to live in safety, cultivating and navigating, without the burden of war. Isocrates says:
“if we make peace, and demean ourselves as our common covenants command us to do, then we will dwell in our city in great security, delivered from war and perils and the turmoil in which are now involved amongst ourselves, and we shall advance day by day to prosperity, relieved of paying taxes... burdens imposed by war, without fear cultivating our lands and sailing the seas and engaging in other occupations... “(104).
Isocrates sees further than these domestic situations that peace makes auspicious. Through peace, humanity would be allied with the Hellas. The universalism depends and is a product of peace and of rational persuasion which is promoted by him, in the belief that war is the use of force. He states:
“Asnd what is more important of al, we shall have all mankind as our allies, allies who will not have been forced, but rather persuaded to join us, who will not welcome our friendship because our power... but who will be disposed toward us. “ (105)
Even more, Isocrates thinks that what has not been obtained through war and great investment, they would get it easier through pacific embassies (106). He proposes, hence, to change the modes and acquire reputation (107).
Isocrates founds peace and this change in piety, virtue and justice, in the practice of moderation (108), qualities which are necessary for happiness and prosperity (109), since disgrace accompanies the depraved who provoke calamities (110). The sobriety must be a property of the individual and the state, avoiding vices. Gods judge and punish those who do not behave so (111).
Concluding the discourse, Isocrates observes:
“It is a noble enterprise for us, in the midst of the injustice and madness of the rest of the world, to be the first to adopt a sane policy and stand forth as the champions of the freedom of the Hellenes, to be acclaimed as their saviours, not their destroyers, and to become illustrious for our virtues and regain the good repute which our ancestors possessed” (112).
Isocrates seriously believes that the supremacy of virtue and justice, in peace, will be the instrument not of slavery but of the salvation of the Hellenes. The paths of right, justice and harmony lead toward prosperity (114).
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