§ 1. A commonwealth is composed of villages or hamlets, villages of households, and a household of spouses: thus nature and experience teach us.
Three classes of human beings are necessary to a commonwealth: farmers, craftsmen, and soldiers. Socrates requires farmers, magistrates, and soldiers. But there can be a commonwealth in which the magistrate is drawn from the farmers. For Cincinnatus was summoned from the plow to the dictatorship, and after his victory the triumphing farmer worked his own land; and when Regulus was conducting affairs exceedingly well in Africa, he obtained from the Roman people a cultivator for his little field, lest he be summoned away from the midst of his victories to his meager little farm. Farmers can therefore hold magistracy, and the same men can be craftsmen and soldiers.
Nevertheless, the principle is different. There is need of few magistrates, for it is enough if every hundredth man presides; but an abundance of craftsmen and soldiers is necessary. It is therefore generally necessary for these to be distinct from farmers, since soldiers must frequently remain far from home and the critical moments of circumstances—at which an enemy must be repelled or attacked—are uncertain.
§ 2. This distinction is required not only in constituted commonwealths but also among barbarians. For both the Garamantes, who lived without a magistrate, and now the Brazilians and inhabitants of Florida divide duties between soldiers and farmers; but because they are naked and armed with clubs and bows, they scarcely need craftsmen.
The ancients did not rightly judge that a commonwealth coalesces from similar persons. For the greater the variety of offices, labors, arts, and conditions, the more abundant and well-equipped the commonwealth is. Aristotle weighed this accurately, as he did other matters, in Politics, Book II, chapter 2, when he said:
A city not only consists of several human beings, but of those differing in kind; for it cannot consist of similar persons.
For a city is one thing, a συμμαχία, or military alliance, another; since the auxiliaries of several cities form one army from the same class of human beings. But I shall speak of the variety of human beings within a city in its proper place.
§ 3. Since Aristotle defines the city as a composition from villages so populous and well equipped that it possesses πέρας αὐταρκείας, the summit of abundance and, as it were, a horn of plenty by which it is sufficient to itself from itself, prudent men not undeservedly ask concerning what αὐταρκεία, or sufficiency, he appears to be understood.
For if he speaks of the things necessary for food, clothing, defense, and attack, such a commonwealth will be shown nowhere. For, to preserve human society, God willed that some human beings should need the aid of others. Some kingdoms may have been sufficient to themselves in that respect, such as Egypt and Italy; cities were by no means so—not even Sparta, the cultivator of harsh sobriety. For it was necessary for Sparta to seek rowers, money, and engines elsewhere. But in the present time we see that the most powerful and celebrated cities especially need foreign defenses.
Nor will anyone have explained the matter sufficiently if he calls that a city which either possesses sufficiency from itself or possesses suitable strength and means for acquiring it. For wealthy households can do this, and villages much more so. Therefore another sufficiency must be sought by which a city or commonwealth is constituted. For commonwealths are not distinguished from villages by resources, multitude of human beings, or walls, since Sparta was celebrated for poverty, counted no more than two thousand citizens, and did not fortify itself with walls; yet for many years it commanded many very wealthy cities, indeed all Greece, and even Athens itself, “μεγαπόλεσιν Ἀθήναις,” the great city.
I therefore define “Αὐτάρκειαν,” or sufficiency coalesced from the conjunction of villages, as existing when some nation or assemblage of a people is so associated that, free from every external dominion, it employs an absolute and complete sovereignty and, dependent upon no one, can freely determine concerning itself. For if it is subject to another sovereignty, it will not itself be an integral commonwealth, but a part and accession of another commonwealth, from which it borrows magistrates and laws.
That Aristotle thought and taught thus is evident from Politics, Book III, chapter 1. After he taught that the city is one of the τῶν συγκειμένων, composite things, he says that it must be asked who is a citizen. “For a city,” he says, “is a multitude of citizens.” He then defines a citizen not by resources or residence, but by “τῷ μετέχειν κρίσεως καὶ ἀρχῆς”—by the fact that he possesses a share in judging and commanding. Finally he decides the entire matter in these words: “ᾧ ἐξουσία κοινωνεῖν ἀρχῆς βουλευτικῆς, ἢ κριτικῆς, πολίτην ἤδη λέγομεν εἶναι· πόλιν δὲ τὸ τῶν τοιούτων πλῆθος ἱκανὸν πρὸς αὐτάρκειαν ζωῆς.” “One upon whom the power has been conferred to share in a magistracy concerned with deliberating and judging, we call a citizen of that city; and a city is a multitude of such citizens that possesses the things sufficient for life.” For political life, namely, which is discerned in sovereignty over the greatest matter and in liberty dependent upon no one.
A city must therefore be constituted from these persons, and it is called a free commonwealth—whether it is a kingdom, an aristocracy, or a polity strictly so called—if it is endowed from itself and within itself with the power of supreme magistracies and judgments. This is one body moving and nourishing itself, not a part of another body. In this commonwealth, greatness or smallness makes no distinction. For just as the compact and industrious little body of an ant is no less complete in all its parts than the vast bulk of an elephant, so also a small commonwealth can obtain its own perfection and need not yield to immense monarchies in the just ordering and administration of laws and magistrates, if regard is had for the advantage of each and all of the citizens.
For that commonwealth is most flourishing in which individuals flourish. Just as a body is healthy, strong, and beautiful if there is a proper temperament of all the humors, a measure of the members, a symmetry and joining together consonant with nature, and a pleasantness of color, so in a commonwealth the fitting connection of all its parts with one another, and a certain life belonging to law and an integrity of administration, render all persons flourishing, wealthy, peaceful, and happy.