i. The threefold function of the soul

The fragment quoted by Stobaeus begins as follows (Ecl. 1.49.27, Thesleff 48.20–50.23):

The first section of the treatise is organized into four statements: (i) the main thesis; (ii) an argument for the soul being a paradigm of justice, which includes (iii) an analysis of the three parts of the soul, their functions and relations; and finally, (iv) a concluding statement on the divine creation of humankind.

Aesara starts by stating the main thesis of the treatise: human nature is a standard of law and justice, and such a model of justice applies to both the domestic and the public spheres. We read φύσις (‘nature’) as referring more broadly to the distinctive features and constitutive makeup of humans. In the following section, the standard of justice is restricted to the orderly arrangement of the soul. On the one hand, soul and human nature may be coextensive. If so, the treatise would not narrow its focus from human nature more broadly down to the soul specifically. Rather, the soul would coincide with the distinctive constitution of the human being. On the other hand, however, in the conclusion the god is said to follow the standard of justice when fashioning not only the soul, but also the human body (σκῆνος).Footnote ¹⁰ Therefore, we take the initial statement to indicate that the general configuration of a human, that is to say, both the body and the soul, is a model of justice.Footnote ¹¹

Human nature is said to be a κανών, a ‘standard’. This comes with four genitives: νόμω (‘law’), δίκας, the archaic term for the Platonic δικαιοσύνη (‘justice’), οἴκω (‘home’) and πόλιος (‘city’). The text allows for at least three reconstructions, and therefore three readings, of the first line. First, the four genitives might have the same function of specifying what human nature models. Aesara would then be distinguishing four realms, that is to say, the law, justice, the private sphere and society, and proposing the soul as the standard to be emulated in each context. This is unlikely for three reasons. First, νόμος and δικαιοσύνη are rarely treated separately in the Pythagorean pseudepigrapha and the rhetorical tradition: for example, Archytas is credited with authoring a treatise titled On Law and Justice.Footnote ¹² These two terms, then, are likely to be interconnected. Second, and related, this suggestion is supported by the use of τϵ καί, which groups together law and justice, on the one hand, and city and household, on the other. Finally, the two pairs of genitives are separated by means of the infinitive ϵἶναι and an additional καί. The second way to interpret the treatise would be as distinguishing two realms: the legislative and the executive, so to say. In this view, the four genitives work in pairs and human nature models, on the one hand, the law-making process and, on the other, the more practical activities of running the city and the household. Alternatively, and most likely, the two groups of genitives may have different functions: the first two indicate that for which human nature is a standard, namely, law and justice, and the last two establish that the city and the household use human nature as a blueprint for justice. The latter suggestion is how most scholars now read the treatise.Footnote ¹³ Moreover, this third interpretation brings Aesara in line with the Platonic analogy between human justice in the soul and social justice in the city from the Republic. Specifically, Aesara expands on Plato’s theory, arguing that the same model of law and justice also applies to the domestic and private spheres inside the household.

Overall, Aesara’s first claim establishes that human nature provides a standard of law and justice for the city and the household. In the next section, she goes on to define justice as the good arrangement of the parts of the soul. This is mirrored in other Pythagorean pseudepigraphic treatises: for example, in Metopus’ On Virtue justice is said to be the virtue ‘of the whole soul’,Footnote ¹⁴ and in Theages’ On Virtue justice is produced ‘whenever all parts of the soul follow the rational one’.Footnote ¹⁵ The latter treatise also explains the parallel between law and justice by stating that what is called ‘Themis among the celestial gods is called Justice (δίκη) among the terrestrials and Law (νόμος) among men’ (Stob. Flor. 3.1.117, Thesleff 191.1–8). Both νόμος and δίκη are orderly arrangements, but while the former only applies to human affairs, the latter is cosmic and divine.

Aesara argues that human nature provides a paradigm of law and justice in two steps: first, this standard is said to be within them and coincide with the good arrangement of the soul. This leads to a digression on the tripartite structure of the soul. Second, the god is said to have created humans in accordance with justice and by so doing to have placed the standard inside them. The frequent use of γάρ (‘for’) throughout this section of the treatise shows that it is meant to have argumentative force.

First, human beings are a standard of justice insofar as the standard of justice is found within them. This is evidenced by the repetition of ἐν αὐτῷ (‘within oneself’). The conditional clause ‘If one were to search … one would find …’ suggests that not all humans are aware of their connection to law and justice, only those who make the effort to contemplate and perhaps recreate such a model in their cities and homes. Here for the first time the κανών of justice is said to coincide with a well-structured soul. The term used to describe the good arrangement of the soul is διακόσμησις. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle uses διακόσμησις in connection to the fifth-century Pythagorean conception of the cosmos (1.5.986a6). We offer two suggestions: first, διακόσμησις might be one of the few Pythagorean resonances found in the pseudepigrapha. Second, and more importantly, this shows the large scope of Aesara’s argument, where the same model of justice applies not only to the soul and the city, as Plato writes, but also to the household and arguably the whole cosmos.

Next, Aesara opens a parenthesis and begins to clarify what it means for the soul to be well-structured. The first step is to argue that the soul is tripartite. The tripartition of the soul is inferred from its three functions: thought, impulse and love. The latter function is explicitly linked to the part of the soul named ἐπιθυμία (‘desire’). Thus, in his edition of On Nature, Thesleff links the first function with νοῦς (‘intellect’) and the second with θύμωσις (‘spirit’), the two parts of the soul mentioned alongside desire in the concluding section of the treatise.

As Migliorati observes, Aesara’s organization of the soul mirrors Plato’s Republic 4.432d–433c. Plato, too, divides the soul into three parts based on its different roles and then maps this tripartition onto the city, which he organizes into three classes of rulers, auxiliaries and workers, each with its corresponding virtue of wisdom, courage and moderation. However, there are at least two differences. First, the terminology: while in the Republic the lower parts are called θύμος (or θυμοϵιδής) and ἐπιθυμητικόν, Aesara calls them θύμωσις and ἐπιθυμία. More importantly, Aesara names the higher part νοῦς, rather than λογιστικόν, which is used in the Republic Footnote ¹⁶ and other pseudepigrapha.Footnote ¹⁷ As argued below, this brings the treatise closer to the psychology in the Timaeus (44d–e, 69c–e, 70e–73d) and the Laws (1.631d, 10.897d, 12.963a).Footnote ¹⁸ Second, while Plato argues for the soul being tripartite (4.436a–440a), Aesara appears to take this for granted. The author of On Nature does not explain that the soul has three parts because it has three different functions, ἔργα. Here, the tripartition of ἔργα itself is not argued for, as if it were an established belief in the Platonic and the Pythagorean pseudepigraphic tradition. Once again, Metopus’ On Virtue is likely to be in the background, where the soul is said to have three parts: the rational for judgement and contemplation, which rules, and the irrational, which follows, and which is in turn divided into irascible and appetitive for desire, each with its own function and virtue.

On Wisdom continues by describing the way in which the soul is organized and how its three parts are related: the highest part leads, the lowest is ruled, and the middle part both rules and is ruled. Two remarks should be made: first, the passive form συντέτακται (‘arranged’), links the tripartition to the following cosmological claim, according to which humans are created and put together by the god. Second, while the function of the lowest part and one of the two functions of the middle part are the same, that is to say, to be ruled, Aesara distinguishes the actions of the highest and the middle parts by using two different verbs: the highest leads (ἡγέομαι) and the middle partially rules (ἄρχϵιν).Footnote ¹⁹ We interpret this as implying that, while spirit is superior to and to some extent governs desires, its action is not the same sort of leading of which intellect is capable. Intellect is ultimately in charge of the soul. Overall, we read the first argument as follows: since the human soul is divided into three parts, whose good arrangement coincides with justice, humans therefore find justice within themselves. This makes them a paradigm of law and justice for the city and the household.

The introduction of the treatise closes with a cosmological claim concerning the creation of living beings, and especially humankind, by the hands of a god, or a demiurge.Footnote ²⁰ The god intends for humans alone to be able to embody justice, as opposed to other animals. Therefore, the god arranges human beings with the aim of recreating the orderly structure of the parts of the soul wherein the superior leads the inferior. This explains further why humans have within themselves the standard of law and justice to begin with. The implication for humankind is threefold: first, among all living things humans are the only ones who are made capable of instantiating justice. Second, as mentioned above, they are able to look inside themselves and search for it. Third, arguably, humans are then capable of recreating the standard of law and justice internally, in their own soul, and externally, in their households and cities. This connects the theoretical and psychological section of the treatise to the political sphere.

ii. Systems and communities

After arguing for the god’s role in making humanity the recipient and standard of law and justice, Aesara devotes a long section of the treatise to explaining what comprises a σύσταμα κοινωνίας (‘system of commonality’), or as we translate, ‘a fully integrated community’:Footnote ²¹

The notion of system, which Bruno Centrone elegantly translates as ‘organism’,Footnote ²³ is not exclusive to Aesara’s On Nature. Rather, it is central to several Pythagorean pseudepigraphic writings,Footnote ²⁴ where a system is said to come into being out of the harmonic combination of different elements. Aesara focuses on a specific kind of σύστημα, a system of community, or communion (κοινωνία), and lists the conditions to be met for such a community to come into being.Footnote ²⁵ These conditions are formulated in an ascending climax of negative requirements.

Firstly, Aesara writes that a ‘fully integrated community cannot come into being out of a single thing’. We mark this as Condition 0, for the claim does not receive any justification and is simply taken for granted. The reason seems clear: for any community, or system, to exist, at least two items are required. Yet it is less clear what counts as a ‘single thing’, part or item, and what counts as the whole resulting from the arrangement of several constitutive items. At the beginning of the treatise, Aesara says that the order of the human soul provides a standard for law and justice both in the household and in the city. The city and the household, then, appear to be examples of communities. Elsewhere in the pseudepigrapha, the family and the cosmos are also described as συστήματα, which replicate (or should replicate) the inner arrangement of our soul.Footnote ²⁶ More difficult is to establish what counts as a part. The suggestion in the next section is that a part is something that performs a task for the whole. For the moment, let us conclude that Condition 0 establishes that a fully integrated community comes into being out of a plurality of items.

Next, Aesara immediately clarifies that a plurality of items is not the sole requirement for a community to come into being. Condition 1, in fact, establishes that the items involved should also not be alike. Aesara explains the requirement for diversity among the parts of a fully integrated community in two steps. First, she justifies it by referring to the diversity of the pursuits to be undertaken. Given the different tasks the soul carries out, it is necessary that its parts, too, be different. Next, she resorts to an analogy with the body. The first step relies on a simplified version of the strategy adopted by Plato in the Republic to demonstrate that the soul is composed of different parts.Footnote ²⁷ While Plato establishes that the soul has a plurality of parts, for the same thing cannot do or suffer contrary things at the same time and in the same respect, Aesara establishes that the portions of the soul must be different insofar as they perform different tasks. In support of this thesis, she gives the example of the body. The body, too, engages in the different tasks of sight, hearing, taste and smell. The implicit conclusion seems to be that different sense organs oversee each of these tasks.Footnote ²⁸ Migliorati interprets the body as an example of a fully integrated community and the argument as an argument by analogy.Footnote ²⁹ By contrast, we believe that in this passage Aesara is still establishing the necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for a community. Thus, the body is not introduced as an example of community, but rather as an example of different parts performing different functions to give empirical support to the claim that ‘not all things have the same bond towards all things’. The argument is the following: since any system performs a variety of tasks and, as shown by the case of the senses and sense organs in the body, different tasks cannot be performed by the same part, then any system must be composed of different parts.

Thus far, Aesara has established that a fully integrated community is composed of several and different items. Condition 2 adds that these items should also have a specific arrangement. First, Aesara notes that a fully integrated community does not come into being simply out of ‘any several and dissimilar items’. Next, she clarifies that specific items are required, namely those which produce a certain fulfilment (ἐκπλήρωσις),Footnote ³⁰ organization (σύνταξις) and fitting together (συναρμογή) of the whole. In other words, Aesara argues that all the items comprising a fully integrated community are not simply different, but different in such a way that their communion, tuning and organization brings forth a concordant whole.

Finally, Aesara stresses further that a fully integrated community does not arise from a random arrangement of the items. Not only should the items involved be (0) several, (1) different and (2) with a specific organized arrangement, Condition 3 states that the organized arrangement itself should also not come about by chance, but rather it must follow some law and intelligent supervision. The idea that the arrangement follows some νόμος and supervision leads this digression on the necessary criteria for a fully integrated community back to the introduction of the treatise. First, it is in line with the cosmological claim that the god crafted the soul to be just. Second, it reiterates that other systems, such as the city, the household and the cosmos, should abide by the standard of organization provided by the soul. The latter requirement adds an external factor, which is necessary for the planning and organization of the community: the application of a law and the need for intelligent supervision. Having a plurality of different but organized parts alone is not sufficient. A community should also follow specific norms and abide by an intelligent supervision. This is not incompatible with the view in Plato’s Republic that the justice of the soul can be analogically projected onto that of the city. Nonetheless, building on the work of Luc Brisson and Joshua Wilburn, we take Aesara’s treatise to come closer to the political arrangement that Plato puts forward in the Laws.Footnote ³¹ In this dialogue, too, insight into the soul is considered the most useful for the art of statesmanship. Yet in the Laws there is an absolute prominence of νοῦς, whose ordered motion the soul should replicate, and the laws of the city themselves are based ‘on the regulation of the intellect’.Footnote ³²

Overall, in this section Aesara lists the necessary and sufficient conditions for a fully integrated community to come into being. These can be summarized as follows: (0) a plurality of items is required; (1) the items involved must be different; (2) these items must be in tune with each other and organized; and (3) the organization of these items is produced following some law and rational plan.Footnote ³³ By gradually building these conditions into an ascending climax, Aesara also allows for the possibility that there might be several other communities that nevertheless cannot be described as ‘fully integrated’. The reason why there is a need for a design and rational plan overseeing the arrangement of the fully integrated community is explained in the following portion of the treatise:

After stating that the parts of a fully integrated community are designed following some law and rational plan, Aesara proceeds to explain why and how. Indeed, for a system to be not only a community but also a just community there needs to be a proportionate distribution of power and honour. This proportion cannot be achieved when all the parts receive the same share of power and honour, nor when the worse parts receive the greater share, nor when the better parts have the greater share and the worse the lesser but in a disproportionate way.Footnote ³⁵ For any proportion other than the optimal would bring about results other than justice. Conversely, when each part is arranged according to the optimal proportion, the result is justice. This is said to generate friendship and concord.Footnote ³⁶

These remarks allow us to make further considerations. Firstly, from this section of the treatise it appears that a fully integrated community is the only community where justice arises, provided that its parts are properly arranged according to an optimal proportion. This, however, also implies that a fully integrated community whose parts are nonetheless not proportionate may well be a necessary, but is not yet a sufficient, condition for justice to arise. Second, as opposed to the previous section, where the conditions generally apply to any sort of system, the focus of this section is the soul, as the clarifications κατὰ ψυχήν and πϵρὶ τὴν ψυχήν suggest. In the introduction, too, Aesara had distinguished three parts of the soul (intellect, spirit and desire) and ranked them as the superior, the middle and the inferior part. The ranking is echoed in this section. Nonetheless, there are at least three differences: in this passage, Aesara speaks of ‘parts’ using the neuter plural rather than the singular. Furthermore, while in the introduction Aesara uses the superlative κράτιστον to describe the superior part, in this section the better parts are always identified with the comparative τὰ κάρρονα. Finally, while Aesara had previously noted that the intermediate part of the soul both rules and is ruled, this section does not make it clear what role is specifically assigned to the middle parts.

There are various ways to explain these changes. We take the use of the neuter plural to broaden the focus from the soul to any fully integrated community. Aesara implies that the same conditions hold whatever the fully integrated community, whether it be the soul, the city or the household. Since not all communities are tripartite like the soul, this may also explain why Aesara does not speak of the middle parts, but rather refers more generally and exclusively to the better and the worse parts. An alternative option is to take the middle parts to be included among the better or the worse parts, depending on the distribution of the share. Contextual evidence in support of the latter interpretation is the shift in vocabulary from the introduction, where Aesara uses the superlative κράτιστον to speak of the superior part of the soul, the intellect, while in this section she uses the comparative plural τὰ κάρρονα, thus referring to numerous superior parts. If so, the possible distributions of power and honour are more numerous than the three options mentioned in the treatise and may give rise to several different arrangements of a system. Finally, it is worth noting that the shares to be distributed are not only shares of power, but also of honour. This suggests that in order to be able to lead either the soul or any community, the best parts should be both the strongest and those held in the highest esteem by the other parts. Most importantly, the reference to the distribution of power and honour and to concord, or agreement, as a product of a well-arranged system prompts an explicitly political reading of the passage.

iii. The role of nous

The conclusion of the treatise turns back to the internal organization and functions of the soul. Aesara writes the following:

Having outlined what sort of arrangement of parts is orderly and just, Aesara applies this general rule to the human soul. In the soul, too, the better part should rule, and the inferior be ruled. This arrangement is called ϵὐνομία, that is, good order (Pl. Resp. 4.425a), or observance of the law (Soph. Aj. 713). This further stresses the political reading of the treatise.Footnote ⁴⁰ Aesara repeats that this good arrangement generates unanimity (ὁμόνοια) and virtue. Moreover, the order of the soul brings about friendship, love and friendliness. While in the introduction of the treatise love and friendship are linked to the appetitive part of the soul, here they become features of the whole system. Similarly, in Resp. 4.432a, the concord (ὁμόνοια) of the stronger and weaker parts extends moderation (σωφροσύνη) from the third class to the whole city.

Aesara had previously noted that the soul is tripartite: one part being responsible for judgement, the second for strength and the third for love. The three parts are now explicitly referred to as intellect, spirit and desire. A well-ordered soul, Aesara continues, is one where the intellect persuades its fellow parts to work together and where spirit and desire become kindred allies under the guidance of νοῦς. Thus, νοῦς is said to have an ordering function making the other parts fit together (ἁρμόζω), each according to its proper function: for example, desire keeps the pleasant for itself and leaves the thoughtful to the intellect. Several aspects of this passage, both linguistic and conceptual, echo Plato’s Timaeus, where the parts of the soul are located in three different bodily organs (69c–72c). First, this account of the tripartition of the soul focuses more on its physiological implications. For example, νοῦς is said to harmonize the pleasant and the painful. In Timaeus 42a, pleasure (ἡδονή) and pain (λύπη) are the result of embodiment. Similarly, in Timaeus 64a–65b pleasure and pain are said to accompany our perceptions of the sensible world, and in 65b–66c the sense of taste is linked to the sweet, or pleasant (ἡδύς). Second, like Aesara, in Timaeus 70a–71e Plato illustrates how the rational part of the soul is able to persuade both spirit and desire.Footnote ⁴¹ Specifically, in 70a–b the desire for money and victory is said to aid, rather than oppose, the works of reason.Footnote ⁴² It should be noted that Migliorati also points out passages from the Timaeus that show affinity with this section.Footnote ⁴³ In particular, she focuses on the internal structure of the soul and considers the possibility that Aesara’s soul might comprise both immortal and mortal parts. Our proposal is slightly different: we suggest that the Timaeus helps clarify the internal processes of the soul from a biological standpoint. In the Timaeus, the control of the rational part of the soul over the others is explained further by means of physiological reactions. This would then give us more ground to understand, for example, the operations of desire: the appetitive part keeps the sweetness, which belongs to the liver, and which, in turn, is exploited by the intellect in order to persuade the appetitive part. Furthermore, this sheds light on the physiological role of spirit, placed in the chest, as an ally of the intellect: boiling with hatred and filled with passion, θύμος passes down the orders of the rational part to the appetitive. We suggest that Aesara is building upon these physiological claims and employing the Timaeus as a model for the structure and workings of the soul and its parts.Footnote ⁴⁴ Finally, this account is in line with the conception of the body as a tool of the soul, which is found elsewhere in Pythagorean pseudepigraphic literature,Footnote ⁴⁵ and with the initial claim of the introduction of On Nature that the god also fashions the body on the model of justice.

The treatise ends with an exhortation: Aesara writes that the life in which virtue is combined with pleasure is the best. By virtue, arguably, she means the good arrangement of the soul. By pleasant, she arguably refers to a system of body and soul where intellect and desire work together. This conclusion offers further support to our initial suggestion that the treatise is meant to be prescriptive and protreptic,Footnote ⁴⁶ rather than descriptive: not all humans live this way, but nonetheless they are able to do so with education and by contemplating the virtue of justice within themselves.