Cambiamenti costituzionali nei Philippika di Teopompo di Chio

This paper deals with the concept of constitutional change (metabolè politeiôn) in the surviving fragments of Theopompus’ Philippikà. In particular, the analysis of the Philippikà let to identify three main thematic cores pertaining to this topic: the first group is characterized by those fragments showing a clear relation between the crisis of a form of government and the leaders’ behaviour; the second includes those passages describing the consequences of the adoption of a new constitutional form on the civic community’s customs; the last group is composed by those fragments in which the malpractice and the licentiousness of a community are considered the main reasons for its extinction. Therefore, we can conclude that not only Theopompus undertook a general reflection on the constitutional change, but also his position about this topic reveals itself as very interesting, if compared with the historiographical works of the same period.