Abstract

Both Plato and Aristotle accept the basic distinction between Greeks and "barbarians". This distinction implies quite often-natural differences linked to different factors (as the climate). Nevertheless, the main tenet of their thought is not consistent with any form of modern "racism": not only because the most important reason for the Greek excellence is, in both these authors, an array of cultural factors (laws, mores, education); but also, and more fundamentally, because individual value is always linked to personal choice and to virtue - instead to the simple membership in any "racial" group.