Historical Fragments Preserved by the Indirect Tradition: Some Evaluations from Theory to Practice

The interpretation of Arist. Ath. Pol. fr. 3 constitutes an appropriate demonstration from a methodological viewpoint. During the last 40 years, the category of the fragment has become something ‘other’ than the past. The highly hypothetical level of all that concerns it has been taken into account and consequently demands to be addressed not only in commentaries or in theoretical studies. The time has come to apply this methodological attainment also, and especially, to historical reconstruction when it uses fragments as a source.