ARISTOTLE TO AUGUSTINE division between master and slave as no less natural than the division between men and women, though he complains that it is barbaric to treat women and slaves alike (1 1252a25–b6) Families combine to make a village, and several villages combine to make a state, which is the Wrst selfsuYcient community, and is just as natural as is the family (1 1253a2) Indeed, though later than the family in time, the state is prior by nature, as an organic whole like the human body is prior to its organic parts like hands and feet Without law and justice, man is the most savage of animals Someone who cannot live in a state is a beast; someone who has no need of a state must be a god The foundation of the state was the greatest of benefactions, because only within a state can human beings fulWl their potential (1 1253a25–35) Among the earlier writers whom Aristotle cites and criticizes Plato is naturally prominent Much of the second book of the Politics is devoted to criticism of the Republic and the Laws As in the Ethics there is no Idea of the Good, so in the Politics there are no philosopher kings Aristotle thinks that Platonic communism will bring nothing but trouble: the use Aristotle saw women as inferior to men Legend took revenge, as in this illustration to a text of Petrarch, showing him ridden and beaten by his wife, Phyllis 83