Politics: A Treatise on Government

BOOK VI

CHAP­TER I

We have al­ready shown what is the na­ture of the supreme coun­cil in the state, and where­in one may dif­fer from an­oth­er, and how the dif­fer­ent mag­is­trates should be reg­ulat­ed; and al­so the ju­di­cial de­part­ment, and what is best suit­ed to what state; and al­so to what caus­es both the de­struc­tion and preser­va­tion of gov­ern­ments are ow­ing.

As there are very many species of democ­ra­cies, as well as of oth­er states, it will not be amiss to con­sid­er at the same time any­thing which we may have omit­ted to men­tion con­cern­ing ei­ther of them, and to al­lot to each that mode of con­duct which is pe­cu­liar to and ad­van­ta­geous for them; and al­so to in­quire in­to the com­bi­na­tions of all these dif­fer­ent modes of gov­ern­ment which we [1317a] have men­tioned; for as these are blend­ed to­geth­er the gov­ern­ment is al­tered, as from an aris­toc­ra­cy to be an oli­garchy, and from a free state to be a democ­ra­cy. Now, I mean by those com­bi­na­tions of gov­ern­ment (which I ought to ex­am­ine in­to, but have not yet done), name­ly, whether the de­lib­er­ative de­part­ment and the elec­tion of mag­is­trates is reg­ulat­ed in a man­ner cor­re­spon­dent to an oli­garchy, or the ju­di­cial to an aris­toc­ra­cy, or the de­lib­er­ative part on­ly to an oli­garchy, and the elec­tion of mag­is­trates to an aris­toc­ra­cy, or whether, in any oth­er man­ner, ev­ery­thing is not reg­ulat­ed ac­cord­ing to the na­ture of the gov­ern­ment. But we will first con­sid­er what par­tic­ular sort of democ­ra­cy is fit­ted to a par­tic­ular city, and al­so what par­tic­ular oli­garchy to a par­tic­ular peo­ple; and of oth­er states, what is ad­van­ta­geous to what. It is al­so nec­es­sary to show clear­ly, not on­ly which of these gov­ern­ments is best for a state, but al­so how it ought to be es­tab­lished there, and oth­er things we will treat of briefly.

And first, we will speak of a democ­ra­cy; and this will at the same time show clear­ly the na­ture of its op­po­site which some per­sons call an oli­garchy; and in do­ing this we must ex­am­ine in­to all the parts of a democ­ra­cy, and ev­ery­thing that is con­nect­ed there­with; for from the man­ner in which these are com­pound­ed to­geth­er dif­fer­ent species of democ­ra­cies arise: and hence it is that they are more than one, and of var­ious na­tures. Now, there are two caus­es which oc­ca­sion there be­ing so many democ­ra­cies; one of which is that which we have al­ready men­tioned; name­ly, there be­ing dif­fer­ent sorts of peo­ple; for in one coun­try the ma­jor­ity are hus­band­men, in an­oth­er me­chan­ics, and hired ser­vants; if the first of these is added to the sec­ond, and the third to both of them, the democ­ra­cy will not on­ly dif­fer in the par­tic­ular of bet­ter or worse, but in this, that it will be no longer the same gov­ern­ment; the oth­er is that which we will now speak of. The dif­fer­ent things which are con­nect­ed with democ­ra­cies and seem to make part of these states, do, from their be­ing joined to them, ren­der them dif­fer­ent from oth­ers: this at­tend­ing a few, that more, and an­oth­er all. It is nec­es­sary that he who would found any state which he may hap­pen to ap­prove of, or cor­rect one, should be ac­quaint­ed with all these par­tic­ulars. All founders of states en­deav­our to com­pre­hend with­in their own plan ev­ery­thing of near­ly the same kind with it; but in do­ing this they err, in the man­ner I have al­ready de­scribed in treat­ing of the preser­va­tion and de­struc­tion of gov­ern­ments. I will now speak of these first prin­ci­ples and man­ners, and what­ev­er else a demo­crat­ical state re­quires.

CHAP­TER II

Now the foun­da­tion of a demo­crat­ical state is lib­er­ty, and peo­ple have been ac­cus­tomed to say this as if here on­ly lib­er­ty was to be found; for they af­firm that this is the end pro­posed by ev­ery democ­ra­cy. But one part of lib­er­ty is to gov­ern and be gov­erned al­ter­nate­ly; for, ac­cord­ing to demo­crat­ical jus­tice, equal­ity is mea­sured by num­bers, and not by worth: and this be­ing just, it is nec­es­sary that the supreme pow­er should be vest­ed in the peo­ple at large; and that what the ma­jor­ity de­ter­mine should be fi­nal: so that in a democ­ra­cy the poor ought to have more pow­er than the rich, as be­ing the greater num­ber; for this is one mark of lib­er­ty which all framers of a democ­ra­cy lay down as a cri­te­ri­on of that state; an­oth­er is, to live as ev­ery one likes; for this, they say, is a right which lib­er­ty gives, since he is a slave who must live as he likes not. This, then, is an­oth­er cri­te­ri­on of a democ­ra­cy. Hence aris­es the claim to be un­der no com­mand what­so­ev­er to any one, up­on any ac­count, any oth­er­wise than by ro­ta­tion, and that just as far on­ly as that per­son is, in his turn, un­der his al­so. This al­so is con­ducive to that equal­ity which lib­er­ty de­mands. These things be­ing premised, and such be­ing the gov­ern­ment, it fol­lows that such rules as the fol­low­ing should be ob­served in it, that all the mag­is­trates should be cho­sen out of all the peo­ple, and all to com­mand each, and each in his turn all: that all the mag­is­trates should be cho­sen by lot, ex­cept to those of­fices on­ly which re­quired some par­tic­ular knowl­edge and skill: that no cen­sus, or a very small one, should be re­quired to qual­ify a man for any of­fice: that none should be in the same em­ploy­ment twice, or very few, and very sel­dom, ex­cept in the army: that all their ap­point­ments should be lim­it­ed to a very short time, or at least as many as pos­si­ble: that the whole com­mu­ni­ty should be qual­ified to judge in all caus­es what­so­ev­er, let the ob­ject be ev­er so ex­ten­sive, ev­er so in­ter­est­ing, or of ev­er so high a na­ture; as at Athens, where the peo­ple at large judge the mag­is­trates when they come out of of­fice, and de­cide con­cern­ing pub­lic af­fairs as well as pri­vate con­tracts: that the supreme pow­er should be in the pub­lic as­sem­bly; and that no mag­is­trate should be al­lowed any dis­cre­tionary pow­er but in a few in­stances, and of no con­se­quence to pub­lic busi­ness. Of all mag­is­trates a sen­ate is best suit­ed to a democ­ra­cy, where the whole com­mu­ni­ty is not paid for giv­ing their at­ten­dance; for in that case it; los­es its pow­er; for then the peo­ple will bring all caus­es be­fore them, by ap­peal, as we have al­ready men­tioned in a for­mer book. In the next place, there should, if pos­si­ble, be a fund to pay all the cit­izens–who have any share in the man­age­ment of pub­lic af­fairs, ei­ther as mem­bers of the as­sem­bly, judges, and mag­is­trates; but if this can­not be done, at least the mag­is­trates, the judges the sen­ators, and mem­bers of the supreme as­sem­bly, and al­so those of­fi­cers who are obliged to eat at a com­mon ta­ble ought to be paid. More­over, as an oli­garchy is said to be a gov­ern­ment of men of fam­ily, for­tune, and ed­uca­tion; so, on the con­trary, a democ­ra­cy is a gov­ern­ment in the hands of men of no birth, in­di­gent cir­cum­stances, and me­chan­ical em­ploy­ments. In this state al­so no of­fice [1318a] should be for life; and, if any such should re­main af­ter the gov­ern­ment has been long changed in­to a democ­ra­cy, they should en­deav­our by de­grees to di­min­ish the pow­er; and al­so elect by lot in­stead of vote. These things, then, ap­per­tain to all democ­ra­cies; name­ly, to be es­tab­lished on that prin­ci­ple of jus­tice which is ho­mo­ge­neous to those gov­ern­ments; that is, that all the mem­bers of the state, by num­ber, should en­joy an equal­ity, which seems chiefly to con­sti­tute a democ­ra­cy, or gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple: for it seems per­fect­ly equal that the rich should have no more share in the gov­ern­ment than the poor, nor be alone in pow­er; but that all should be equal, ac­cord­ing to num­ber; for thus, they think, the equal­ity and lib­er­ty of the state best pre­served.

CHAP­TER III

In the next place we must in­quire how this equal­ity is to be pro­cured. Shall the qual­ifi­ca­tions be di­vid­ed so that five hun­dred rich should be equal to a thou­sand poor, or shall the thou­sand have equal pow­er with the five hun­dred? or shall we not es­tab­lish our equal­ity in this man­ner? but di­vide in­deed thus, and af­ter­wards tak­ing an equal num­ber both out of the five hun­dred and the thou­sand, in­vest them with the pow­er of cre­at­ing the mag­is­trates and judges. Is this state then es­tab­lished ac­cord­ing to per­fect demo­crat­ical jus­tice, or rather that which is guid­ed by num­bers on­ly? For the de­fend­ers of a democ­ra­cy say, that that is just which the ma­jor­ity ap­prove of: but the favour­ers of an oli­garchy say, that that is just which those who have most ap­prove of; and that we ought to be di­rect­ed by the val­ue of prop­er­ty. Both the propo­si­tions are un­just; for if we agree with what the few pro­pose we erect a tyran­ny: for if it should hap­pen that an in­di­vid­ual should have more than the rest who are rich, ac­cord­ing to oli­garchi­cal jus­tice, this man alone has a right to the supreme pow­er; but if su­pe­ri­or­ity of num­bers is to pre­vail, in­jus­tice will then be done by con­fis­cat­ing the prop­er­ty of the rich, who are few, as we have al­ready said. What then that equal­ity is, which both par­ties will ad­mit, must be col­lect­ed from the def­ini­tion of right which is com­mon to them both; for they both say that what the ma­jor­ity of the state ap­proves of ought to be es­tab­lished. Be it so; but not en­tire­ly: but since a city hap­pens to be made up of two dif­fer­ent ranks of peo­ple, the rich and the poor, let that be es­tab­lished which is ap­proved of by both these, or the greater part: but should there be op­po­site sen­ti­ments, let that be es­tab­lished which shall be ap­proved of by the greater part: but let this be ac­cord­ing to the cen­sus; for in­stance, if there should be ten of the rich and twen­ty of the poor, and six of the first and fif­teen of the last should agree up­on any mea­sure, and the re­main­ing four of the rich should join with the re­main­ing five of the poor in op­pos­ing it, that par­ty whose cen­sus when added to­geth­er should de­ter­mine which opin­ion should be law, and should these hap­pen to be equal, it should be re­gard­ed as a case sim­ilar to an as­sem­bly or court of jus­tice di­vid­ing equal­ly up­on any ques­tion that comes be­fore them, who ei­ther de­ter­mine it by lot or some such method. But al­though, with [1318b] re­spect to what is equal and just, it may be very dif­fi­cult to es­tab­lish the truth, yet it is much eas­ier to do than to per­suade those who have it in their pow­er to en­croach up­on oth­ers to be guid­ed there­by; for the weak al­ways de­sire what is equal and just, but the pow­er­ful pay no re­gard there­un­to.

CHAP­TER IV

There are four kinds of democ­ra­cies. The best is that which is com­posed of those first in or­der, as we have al­ready said, and this al­so is the most an­cient of any. I call that the first which ev­ery one would place so, was he to di­vide the peo­ple; for the best part of these are the hus­band­men. We see, then, that a democ­ra­cy may be framed where the ma­jor­ity live by tillage or pas­turage; for, as their prop­er­ty is but small, they will not be at leisure per­pet­ual­ly to hold pub­lic as­sem­blies, but will be con­tin­ual­ly em­ployed in fol­low­ing their own busi­ness, not hav­ing oth­er­wise the means of liv­ing; nor will they be de­sirous of what an­oth­er en­joys, but will rather like to fol­low their own busi­ness than med­dle with state af­fairs and ac­cept the of­fices of gov­ern­ment, which will be at­tend­ed with no great prof­it; for the ma­jor part of mankind are rather de­sirous of rich­es than hon­our (a proof of this is, that they sub­mit­ted to the tyran­nies in an­cient times, and do now sub­mit to the oli­garchies, if no one hin­ders them in their usu­al oc­cu­pa­tions, or de­prives them of their prop­er­ty; for some of them soon get rich, oth­ers are re­moved from pover­ty); be­sides, their hav­ing the right of elec­tion and call­ing their mag­is­trates to ac­count for their con­duct when they come out of of­fice, will sat­is­fy their de­sire of hon­ours, if any of them en­ter­tain that pas­sion: for in some states, though the com­mon­al­ty have not the right of elect­ing the mag­is­trates, yet it is vest­ed in part of that body cho­sen to rep­re­sent them: and it is suf­fi­cient for the peo­ple at large to pos­sess the de­lib­er­ative pow­er: and this ought to be con­sid­ered as a species of democ­ra­cy; such was that for­mer­ly at Mantin­sea: for which rea­son it is prop­er for the democ­ra­cy we have been now treat­ing of to have a pow­er (and it has been usu­al for them to have it) of cen­sur­ing their mag­is­trates when out of of­fice, and sit­ting in judg­ment up­on all caus­es: but that the chief mag­is­trates should be elect­ed, and ac­cord­ing to a cer­tain cen­sus, which should vary with the rank of their of­fice, or else not by a cen­sus, but ac­cord­ing to their abil­ities for their re­spec­tive ap­point­ments. A state thus con­sti­tut­ed must be well con­sti­tut­ed; for the mag­is­tra­cies will be al­ways filled with the best men with the ap­pro­ba­tion of the peo­ple; who will not en­vy their su­pe­ri­ors: and these and the no­bles should be con­tent with this part in the ad­min­is­tra­tion; for they will not be gov­erned by their in­fe­ri­ors. They will be al­so care­ful to use their pow­er with mod­er­ation, as there are oth­ers to whom full pow­er is del­egat­ed to cen­sure their con­duct; for it is very ser­vice­able to the state to have them de­pen­dent up­on oth­ers, and not to be per­mit­ted to do what­so­ev­er they choose; for with such a lib­er­ty there would be no check to that evil par­ti­cle there is in ev­ery one: there­fore it is [1319a] nec­es­sary and most for the ben­efit of the state that the of­fices there­of should be filled by the prin­ci­pal per­sons in it, whose char­ac­ters are un­blem­ished, and that the peo­ple are not op­pressed. It is now ev­ident that this is the best species of democ­ra­cy, and on what ac­count; be­cause the peo­ple are such and have such pow­ers as they ought to have. To es­tab­lish a democ­ra­cy of hus­band­men some of those laws which were ob­served in many an­cient states are uni­ver­sal­ly use­ful; as, for in­stance, on no ac­count to per­mit any one to pos­sess more than a cer­tain quan­ti­ty of land, or with­in a cer­tain dis­tance from the city. For­mer­ly al­so, in some states, no one was al­lowed to sell their orig­inal lot of land. They al­so men­tion a law of one Oxy­lus, which for­bade any one to add to their pat­ri­mo­ny by usury. We ought al­so to fol­low the law of the Aphutaeans, as use­ful to di­rect us in this par­tic­ular we are now speak­ing of; for they hav­ing but very lit­tle ground, while they were a nu­mer­ous peo­ple, and at the same time were all hus­band­men, did not in­clude all their lands with­in the cen­sus, but di­vid­ed them in such a man­ner that, ac­cord­ing to the cen­sus, the poor had more pow­er than the rich. Next to the com­mon­al­ty of hus­band­men is one of shep­herds and herds­men; for they have many things in com­mon with them, and, by their way of life, are ex­cel­lent­ly qual­ified to make good sol­diers, stout in body, and able to con­tin­ue in the open air all night. The gen­er­al­ity of the peo­ple of whom oth­er democ­ra­cies are com­posed are much worse than these; for their lives are wretched nor have they any busi­ness with virtue in any­thing they do; these are your me­chan­ics, your ex­change-​men, and hired ser­vants; as all these sorts of men fre­quent the ex­change and the citadel, they can read­ily at­tend the pub­lic as­sem­bly; where­as the hus­band­men, be­ing more dis­persed in the coun­try, can­not so eas­ily meet to­geth­er-​nor are they equal­ly de­sirous of do­ing it with these oth­ers! When a coun­try hap­pens to be so sit­uat­ed that a great part of the land lies at a dis­tance from the city, there it is easy to es­tab­lish a good democ­ra­cy or a free state for the peo­ple in gen­er­al will be obliged to live in the coun­try; so that it will be nec­es­sary in such a democ­ra­cy, though there may be an ex­change-​mob at hand, nev­er to al­low a le­gal as­sem­bly with­out the in­hab­itants of the coun­try at­tend. We have shown in what man­ner the first and best democ­ra­cy ought to be es­tab­lished, and it will be equal­ly ev­ident as to the rest, for from these we [1319b] should pro­ceed as a guide, and al­ways sep­arate the mean­est of the peo­ple from the rest. But the last and worst, which gives to ev­ery cit­izen with­out dis­tinc­tion a share in ev­ery part of the ad­min­is­tra­tion, is what few cit­izens can bear, nor is it easy to pre­serve for any long time, un­less well sup­port­ed by laws and man­ners. We have al­ready no­ticed al­most ev­ery cause that can de­stroy ei­ther this or any oth­er state. Those who have tak­en the lead in such a democ­ra­cy have en­deav­oured to sup­port it, and make the peo­ple pow­er­ful by col­lect­ing to­geth­er as many per­sons as they could and giv­ing them their free­dom, not on­ly le­git­imate­ly but nat­ural­ly born, and al­so if ei­ther of their par­ents were cit­izens, that is to say, if ei­ther their fa­ther or moth­er; and this method is bet­ter suit­ed to this state than any oth­er: and thus the dem­agogues have usu­al­ly man­aged. They ought, how­ev­er, to take care, and do this no longer than the com­mon peo­ple are su­pe­ri­or to the no­bles and those of the mid­dle rank, and then stop; for, if they pro­ceed still fur­ther, they will make the state dis­or­der­ly, and the no­bles will ill brook the pow­er of the com­mon peo­ple, and be full of re­sent­ment against it; which was the cause of an in­sur­rec­tion at Cyrene: for a lit­tle evil is over­looked, but when it be­comes a great one it strikes the eye. It is, more­over, very-​use­ful in such a state to do as Clis­thenes did at Athens, when he was de­sirous of in­creas­ing the pow­er of the peo­ple, and as those did who es­tab­lished the democ­ra­cy in Cyrene; that is, to in­sti­tute many tribes and fra­ter­ni­ties, and to make the re­li­gious rites of pri­vate per­sons few, and those com­mon; and ev­ery means is to be con­trived to as­so­ciate and blend the peo­ple to­geth­er as much as pos­si­ble; and that all for­mer cus­toms be bro­ken through. More­over, what­so­ev­er is prac­tised in a tyran­ny seems adapt­ed to a democ­ra­cy of this species; as, for in­stance, the li­cen­tious­ness of the slaves, the wom­en, and the chil­dren; for this to a cer­tain de­gree is use­ful in such a state; and al­so to over­look ev­ery one’s liv­ing as they choose; for many will sup­port such a gov­ern­ment: for it is more agree­able to many to live with­out any con­trol than as pru­dence would di­rect.

CHAP­TER V

It is al­so the busi­ness of the leg­is­la­tor and all those who would sup­port a gov­ern­ment of this sort not to make it too great a work, or too per­fect; but to aim on­ly to ren­der it sta­ble: for, let a state be con­sti­tut­ed ev­er so bad­ly, there is no dif­fi­cul­ty in its con­tin­uing a few days: they should there­fore en­deav­our to pro­cure its safe­ty by all those ways which we have de­scribed in as­sign­ing the caus­es of the preser­va­tion and de­struc­tion of gov­ern­ments; avoid­ing what is hurt­ful, and by fram­ing such laws, writ­ten and un­writ­ten, as con­tain those things which chiefly tend to the preser­va­tion of the state; nor to sup­pose that that is use­ful ei­ther for a demo­crat­ic or [1320a] an oli­garchic form of gov­ern­ment which con­tributes to make them more pure­ly so, but what will con­tribute to their du­ra­tion: but our dem­agogues at present, to flat­ter the peo­ple, oc­ca­sion fre­quent con­fis­ca­tions in the courts; for which rea­son those who have the wel­fare of the state re­al­ly at heart should act di­rect­ly op­po­site to what they do, and en­act a law to pre­vent for­fei­tures from be­ing di­vid­ed amongst the peo­ple or paid in­to the trea­sury, but to have them set apart for sa­cred us­es: for those who are of a bad dis­po­si­tion would not then be the less cau­tious, as their pun­ish­ment would be the same; and the com­mu­ni­ty would not be so ready to con­demn those whom they sat in judg­ment on when they were to get noth­ing by it: they should al­so take care that the caus­es which are brought be­fore the pub­lic should be as few as pos­si­ble, and pun­ish with the ut­most sever­ity those who rash­ly brought an ac­tion against any one; for it is not the com­mons but the no­bles who are gen­er­al­ly pros­ecut­ed: for in all things the cit­izens of the same state ought to be af­fec­tion­ate to each oth­er, at least not to treat those who have the chief pow­er in it as their en­emies. Now, as the democ­ra­cies which have been late­ly es­tab­lished are very nu­mer­ous, and it is dif­fi­cult to get the com­mon peo­ple to at­tend the pub­lic as­sem­blies with­out they are paid for it, this, when there is not a suf­fi­cient pub­lic rev­enue, is fa­tal to the no­bles; for the de­fi­cien­cies there­in must be nec­es­sar­ily made up by tax­es, con­fis­ca­tions, and fines im­posed by cor­rupt courts of jus­tice: which things have al­ready de­stroyed many democ­ra­cies. When­ev­er, then, the rev­enues of the state are small, there should be but few pub­lic as­sem­blies and but few courts of jus­tice: these, how­ev­er, should have very ex­ten­sive ju­ris­dic­tions, but should con­tin­ue sit­ting a few days on­ly, for by this means the rich would not fear the ex­pense, al­though they should re­ceive noth­ing for their at­ten­dance, though the poor did; and judg­ment al­so would be giv­en much bet­ter; for the rich will not choose to be long ab­sent from their own af­fairs, but will will­ing­ly be so for a short time: and, when there are suf­fi­cient rev­enues, a dif­fer­ent con­duct ought to be pur­sued from what the dem­agogues at present fol­low; for now they di­vide the sur­plus of the pub­lic mon­ey amongst the poor; these re­ceive it and again want the same sup­ply, while the giv­ing it is like pour­ing wa­ter in­to a sieve: but the true pa­tri­ot in a democ­ra­cy ought to take care that the ma­jor­ity of the com­mu­ni­ty are not too poor, for this is the cause of ra­pac­ity in that gov­ern­ment; he there­fore should en­deav­our that they may en­joy per­pet­ual plen­ty; and as this al­so is ad­van­ta­geous to the rich, what can be saved out of the pub­lic mon­ey should be put by, and then di­vid­ed at once amongst the poor, if pos­si­ble, in such a quan­ti­ty as may en­able ev­ery one of them to pur­chase a lit­tle field, and, if that can­not be done, at least to give each of them enough to pro­cure the im­ple­ments [1320b] of trade and hus­bandry; and if there is not enough for all to re­ceive so much at once, then to di­vide it ac­cord­ing to tribes or any oth­er al­lot­ment. In the mean­time let the rich pay them for nec­es­sary ser­vices, but not be obliged to find them in use­less amuse­ments. And some­thing like this was the man­ner in which they man­aged at Carthage, and pre­served the af­fec­tions of the peo­ple; for by con­tin­ual­ly send­ing some of their com­mu­ni­ty in­to colonies they pro­cured plen­ty. It is al­so wor­thy of a sen­si­ble and gen­er­ous no­bil­ity to di­vide the poor amongst them, and sup­ply­ing them with what is nec­es­sary, in­duce them to work; or to im­itate the con­duct of the peo­ple at Tar­en­tum: for they, per­mit­ting the poor to par­take in com­mon of ev­ery­thing which is need­ful for them, gain the af­fec­tions of the com­mon­al­ty. They have al­so two dif­fer­ent ways of elect­ing their mag­is­trates; for some are cho­sen by vote, oth­ers by lot; by the last, that the peo­ple at large may have some share in the ad­min­is­tra­tion; by the for­mer, that the state may be well gov­erned: the same may be ac­com­plished if of the same mag­is­trates you choose some by vote, oth­ers by lot. And thus much for the man­ner in which democ­ra­cies ought to be es­tab­lished.

CHAP­TER VI

What has been al­ready said will al­most of it­self suf­fi­cient­ly show how an oli­garchy ought to be found­ed; for he who would frame such a state should have in his view a democ­ra­cy to op­pose it; for ev­ery species of oli­garchy should be found­ed on prin­ci­ples di­amet­ri­cal­ly op­po­site to some species of democ­ra­cy.

The first and best-​framed oli­garchy is that which ap­proach­es near to what we call a free state; in which there ought to be two dif­fer­ent cen­sus, the one high, the oth­er low: from those who are with­in the lat­ter the or­di­nary of­fi­cers of the state ought to be cho­sen; from the for­mer the supreme mag­is­trates: nor should any one be ex­clud­ed from a part of the ad­min­is­tra­tion who was with­in the cen­sus; which should be so reg­ulat­ed that the com­mon­al­ty who are in­clud­ed in it should by means there­of be su­pe­ri­or to those who have no share in the gov­ern­ment; for those who are to have the man­age­ment of pub­lic af­fairs ought al­ways to be cho­sen out of the bet­ter sort of the peo­ple. Much in the same man­ner ought that oli­garchy to be es­tab­lished which is next in or­der: but as to that which is most op­po­site to a pure democ­ra­cy, and ap­proach­es near­est to a dy­nasty and a tyran­ny, as it is of all oth­ers the worst, so it re­quires the great­est care and cau­tion to pre­serve it: for as bod­ies of sound and healthy con­sti­tu­tions and ships which are well manned and well found for sail­ing can bear many in­juries with­out per­ish­ing, while a dis­eased body or a leaky ship with an in­dif­fer­ent crew can­not sup­port the [1321a] least shock; so the worst-​es­tab­lished gov­ern­ments want most look­ing af­ter. A num­ber of cit­izens is the preser­va­tion of a democ­ra­cy; for these are op­posed to those rights which are found­ed in rank: on the con­trary, the preser­va­tion of an oli­garchy de­pends up­on the due reg­ula­tion of the dif­fer­ent or­ders in the so­ci­ety.

CHAP­TER VII

As the greater part of the com­mu­ni­ty are di­vid­ed in­to four sorts of peo­ple; hus­band­men, me­chan­ics, traders, and hired ser­vants; and as those who are em­ployed in war may like­wise be di­vid­ed in­to four; the horse­men, the heavy-​armed sol­dier, the light-​armed, and the sailor, where the na­ture of the coun­try can ad­mit a great num­ber of horse; there a pow­er­ful oli­garchy may be eas­ily es­tab­lished: for the safe­ty of the in­hab­itants de­pends up­on a force of that sort; but those who can sup­port the ex­pense of horse­men must be per­sons of some con­sid­er­able for­tune. Where the troops are chiefly heavy-​armed, there an oli­garchy, in­fe­ri­or in pow­er to the oth­er, may be es­tab­lished; for the heavy-​armed are rather made up of men of sub­stance than the poor: but the light-​armed and the sailors al­ways con­tribute to sup­port a democ­ra­cy: but where the num­ber of these is very great and a sedi­tion aris­es, the oth­er parts of the com­mu­ni­ty fight at a dis­ad­van­tage; but a rem­edy for this evil is to be learned from skil­ful gen­er­als, who al­ways mix a prop­er num­ber of light-​armed sol­diers with their horse and heavy-​armed: for it is with those that the pop­ulace get the bet­ter of the men of for­tune in an in­sur­rec­tion; for these be­ing lighter are eas­ily a match for the horse and the heavy-​armed: so that for an oli­garchy to form a body of troops from these is to form it against it­self: but as a city is com­posed of per­sons of dif­fer­ent ages, some young and some old, the fa­thers should teach their sons, while they were very young, a light and easy ex­er­cise; but, when they are grown up, they should be per­fect in ev­ery war­like ex­er­cise. Now, the ad­mis­sion of the peo­ple to any share in the gov­ern­ment should ei­ther be (as I said be­fore) reg­ulat­ed by a cen­sus, or else, as at Thebes, al­lowed to those who for a cer­tain time have ceased from any me­chan­ic em­ploy­ment, or as at Mas­salia, where they are cho­sen ac­cord­ing to their worth, whether cit­izens or for­eign­ers. With re­spect to the mag­is­trates of the high­est rank which it may be nec­es­sary to have in a state, the ser­vices they are bound to do the pub­lic should be ex­press­ly laid down, to pre­vent the com­mon peo­ple from be­ing de­sirous of ac­cept­ing their em­ploy­ments, and al­so to in­duce them to re­gard their mag­is­trates with favour when they know what a price they pay for their hon­ours. It is al­so nec­es­sary that the mag­is­trates, up­on en­ter­ing in­to their of­fices, should make mag­nif­icent sac­ri­fices and erect some pub­lic struc­ture, that the peo­ple par­tak­ing of the en­ter­tain­ment, and see­ing the city or­na­ment­ed with vo­tive gifts in their tem­ples and pub­lic struc­tures, may see with plea­sure the sta­bil­ity of the gov­ern­ment: add to this al­so, that the no­bles will have their gen­eros­ity record­ed: but now this is not the con­duct which those who are at present at the head of an oli­garchy pur­sue, but the con­trary; for they are not more de­sirous of hon­our than of gain; for which rea­son such oli­garchies may more prop­er­ly be called lit­tle democ­ra­cies. Thus [1321b] we have ex­plained on what prin­ci­ples a democ­ra­cy and an oli­garchy ought to be es­tab­lished.

CHAP­TER VI­II

Af­ter what has been said I pro­ceed next to treat par­tic­ular­ly of the mag­is­trates; of what na­ture they should be, how many, and for what pur­pose, as I have al­ready men­tioned: for with­out nec­es­sary mag­is­trates no state can ex­ist, nor with­out those which con­tribute to its dig­ni­ty and good or­der can ex­ist hap­pi­ly: now it is nec­es­sary that in small states the mag­is­trates should be few; in a large one, many: al­so to know well what of­fices may be joined to­geth­er, and what ought to be sep­arat­ed. The first thing nec­es­sary is to es­tab­lish prop­er reg­ula­tors in the mar­kets; for which pur­pose a cer­tain mag­is­trate should be ap­point­ed to in­spect their con­tracts and pre­serve good or­der; for of ne­ces­si­ty, in al­most ev­ery city there must be both buy­ers and sell­ers to sup­ply each oth­er’s mu­tu­al wants: and this is what is most pro­duc­tive of the com­forts of life; for the sake of which men seem to have joined to­geth­er in one com­mu­ni­ty. A sec­ond care, and near­ly re­lat­ed to the first, is to have an eye both to the pub­lic and pri­vate ed­ifices in the city, that they may be an or­na­ment; and al­so to take care of all build­ings which are like­ly to fall: and to see that the high­ways are kept in prop­er re­pair; and al­so that the land­marks be­tween dif­fer­ent es­tates are pre­served, that there may be no dis­putes on that ac­count; and all oth­er busi­ness of the same na­ture. Now, this busi­ness may be di­vid­ed in­to sev­er­al branch­es, over each of which in pop­ulous cities they ap­point a sep­arate per­son; one to in­spect the build­ings, an­oth­er the foun­tains, an­oth­er the har­bours; and they are called the in­spec­tors of the city. A third, which is very like the last, and con­ver­sant near­ly about the same ob­jects, on­ly in the coun­try, is to take care of what is done out of the city. The of­fi­cers who have this em­ploy­ment we call in­spec­tors of the lands, or in­spec­tors of the woods; but the busi­ness of all three of them is the same. There must al­so be oth­er of­fi­cers ap­point­ed to re­ceive the pub­lic rev­enue and to de­liv­er it out to those who are in the dif­fer­ent de­part­ments of the state: these are called re­ceivers or quaestors. There must al­so be an­oth­er, be­fore whom all pri­vate con­tracts and sen­tences of courts should be en­rolled, as well as pro­ceed­ings and dec­la­ra­tions. Some­times this em­ploy­ment is di­vid­ed amongst many, but there is one supreme over the rest; these are called proc­tors, no­taries, and the like. Next to these is an of­fi­cer whose busi­ness is of all oth­ers the most nec­es­sary, and yet most dif­fi­cult; name­ly, to take care that sen­tence is ex­ecut­ed up­on those who are con­demned; and that ev­ery one pays the fines laid on him; and al­so to have the charge of those who are in prison. [1322a] This of­fice is very dis­agree­able on ac­count of the odi­um at­tend­ing it, so that no one will en­gage there­in with­out it is made very prof­itable, or, if they do, will they be will­ing to ex­ecute it ac­cord­ing to law; but it is most nec­es­sary, as it is of no ser­vice to pass judg­ment in any cause with­out that judg­ment is car­ried in­to ex­ecu­tion: for with­out this hu­man so­ci­ety could not sub­sist: for which rea­son it is best that this of­fice should not be ex­ecut­ed by one per­son, but by some of the mag­is­trates of the oth­er courts. In like man­ner, the tak­ing care that those fines which are or­dered by the judges are levied should be di­vid­ed amongst dif­fer­ent per­sons. And as dif­fer­ent mag­is­trates judge dif­fer­ent caus­es, let the caus­es of the young be heard by the young: and as to those which are al­ready brought to a hear­ing, let one per­son pass sen­tence, and an­oth­er see it ex­ecut­ed: as, for in­stance, let the mag­is­trates who have the care of the pub­lic build­ings ex­ecute the sen­tence which the in­spec­tors of the mar­kets have passed, and the like in oth­er cas­es: for by so much the less odi­um at­tends those who car­ry the laws in­to ex­ecu­tion, by so much the eas­ier will they be prop­er­ly put in force: there­fore for the same per­sons to pass the sen­tence and to ex­ecute it will sub­ject them to gen­er­al ha­tred; and if they pass it up­on all, they will be con­sid­ered as the en­emies of all. Thus one per­son has of­ten the cus­tody of the pris­on­er’s body, while an­oth­er sees the sen­tence against him ex­ecut­ed, as the eleven did at Athens: for which rea­son it is pru­dent to sep­arate these of­fices, and to give great at­ten­tion there­un­to as equal­ly nec­es­sary with any­thing we have al­ready men­tioned; for it will cer­tain­ly hap­pen that men of char­ac­ter will de­cline ac­cept­ing this of­fice, and worth­less per­sons can­not prop­er­ly be en­trust­ed with it, as hav­ing them­selves rather an oc­ca­sion for a guard than be­ing qual­ified to guard oth­ers. This, there­fore, ought by no means to be a sep­arate of­fice from oth­ers; nor should it be con­tin­ual­ly al­lot­ted to any in­di­vid­uals, but the young men; where there is a city-​guard, the youths ought in turns to take these of­fices up­on them. These, then, as the most nec­es­sary mag­is­trates, ought to be first men­tioned: next to these are oth­ers no less nec­es­sary, but of much high­er rank, for they ought to be men of great skill and fi­deli­ty. These are they who have the guard of the city, and pro­vide ev­ery­thing that is nec­es­sary for war; whose busi­ness it is, both in war and peace, to de­fend the walls and the gates, and to take care to muster and mar­shal the cit­izens. Over all these there are some­times more of­fi­cers, some­times few­er: thus in lit­tle cities there is on­ly one whom they call ei­ther gen­er­al or pole­march; but where there are horse and light-​armed troops, and bow­men, and sailors, they some­times put dis­tinct com­man­ders over each of these; who again have oth­ers un­der them, ac­cord­ing to their dif­fer­ent di­vi­sions; all of which join to­geth­er to make one mil­itary body: and thus much for this de­part­ment. Since some of the mag­is­trates, if not all, have busi­ness with the pub­lic mon­ey, it is nec­es­sary that there should be oth­er of­fi­cers, whose em­ploy­ment should be noth­ing else than to take an ac­count of what they have, and cor­rect any mis­man­age­ment there­in. But be­sides all these mag­is­trates there is one who is supreme over them all, who very of­ten has in his own pow­er the dis­pos­al of the pub­lic rev­enue and tax­es; who pre­sides over the peo­ple when the supreme pow­er is in them; for there must be some mag­is­trate who has a pow­er to sum­mon them to­geth­er, and to pre­side as head of the state. These are some­times called pread­vis­ers; but where there are many, more prop­er­ly a coun­cil. These are near­ly the civ­il mag­is­trates which are req­ui­site to a gov­ern­ment: but there are oth­er per­sons whose busi­ness is con­fined to re­li­gion; as the priests, and those who are to take care of the tem­ples, that they are kept in prop­er re­pair, or, if they fall down, that they may be re­built; and what­ev­er else be­longs to pub­lic wor­ship. This charge is some­times en­trust­ed to one per­son, as in very small cities: in oth­ers it is del­egat­ed to many, and these dis­tinct from the priest­hood, as the builders or keep­ers of holy places, and of­fi­cers of the sa­cred rev­enue. Next to these are those who are ap­point­ed to have the gen­er­al care of all those pub­lic sac­ri­fices to the tute­lar god of the state, which the laws do not en­trust to the priests: and these in dif­fer­ent states have dif­fer­ent ap­pel­la­tions. To enu­mer­ate in few words the dif­fer­ent de­part­ments of all those mag­is­trates who are nec­es­sary: these are ei­ther re­li­gion, war, tax­es, ex­pen­di­tures, mar­kets, pub­lic build­ings, har­bours, high­ways. Be­long­ing to the courts of jus­tice there are scribes to en­roll pri­vate con­tracts; and there must al­so be guards set over the pris­on­ers, oth­ers to see the law is ex­ecut­ed, coun­cil on ei­ther side, and al­so oth­ers to watch over the con­duct of those who are to de­cide the caus­es. Amongst the mag­is­trates al­so may fi­nal­ly be reck­oned those who are to give their ad­vice in pub­lic af­fairs. But sep­arate states, who are pe­cu­liar­ly hap­py and have leisure to at­tend to more minute par­tic­ulars, and are very at­ten­tive to good or­der, re­quire par­tic­ular mag­is­trates for them­selves; such as those who have the gov­ern­ment of the wom­en; who are to see the laws are ex­ecut­ed; who take care of the boys and pre­side over their ed­uca­tion. To these may be added those who have the care of their gym­nas­tic ex­er­cis­es, [1323a] their the­atres, and ev­ery oth­er pub­lic spec­ta­cle which there may hap­pen to be. Some of these, how­ev­er, are not of gen­er­al use; as the gov­er­nors of the wom­en: for the poor are obliged to em­ploy their wives and chil­dren in servile of­fices for want of slaves. As there are three mag­is­trates to whom some states en­trust the supreme pow­er; name­ly, guardians of the laws, pread­vis­ers, and sen­ators; guardians of the laws suit best to an aris­toc­ra­cy, pread­vis­ers to an oli­garchy, and a sen­ate to a democ­ra­cy. And thus much briefly con­cern­ing all mag­is­trates.