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Aristotle’s last period of residence in Athens, between 335 and 323 BC, is when the philosopher is believed to have composed many of his works, including elegant treatises and dialogues much admired in antiquity and later – Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold" – of which only around a third survive.
As Aristotle wrote, politics around him were still very unstable. Alexander crossed off into Asia, never to return, in 334 BC, leaving Antipater, an old general of his father's era (who was actually a decade older than the deceased Philip), as Macedonian regent in Greece.
This probably pleased Aristotle, since Antipater was the father of Aristotle’s pupil Cassander, later one of the most successful rulers of the post-Alexander era. Alexander took care of a smallish Persian army at the battle of the Granicus that year, as Aristotle started to develop his political theories.
Seeing the example of the infirm Persian empire, crumbling under Alexander's attacks, Aristotle concluded that the natural, healthy human organization is the city (polis) which functions as a political "community" or "partnership" (koinonia), and is the natural subject of any theories on governance (“politics”).
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