§ 1. The second species of commonwealth exists when several persons command. It is divided into two: either a few and the best men, or the whole people, participate in sovereignty.
In agreement with what has been said, “Ἀριστοκρατίαν” may be defined as “Τὴν ἀρχὴν τῶν ἀρίστων πρὸς τὸ τῶν ἀρχομένων συμφέρον,” government by the best which regards the utility of those who obey. Aristotle, book 4 of the Politics, chapter 7, requires in this government men who are best without qualification: “Ἀριστοκρατίαν μὲν οὖν καλῶς ἔχει καλεῖν, περὶ ἧς διήλθομεν ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις λόγοις, τὴν γὰρ οὖσαν τῶν ἀρίστων ἁπλῶς, κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν πολιτείαν, καὶ μὴ πρὸς ὑπόθεσιν τινὰ ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν, μόνην δίκαιον προσαγορεύειν ἀριστοκρατίαν· ἐν μόνῃ γὰρ ἁπλῶς ὁ αὐτὸς ἀνὴρ καὶ πολίτης ἀγαθός ἐστιν. We may therefore call that constitution an aristocracy—as we treated it before—which is composed of men who are best without qualification and according to virtue, not those who are good according to a hypothesis or for some definite end. For in this commonwealth alone the man who is good without qualification and the good citizen are the same.”
It will indeed be difficult not to explain its definition but to put it into use, if we consider human affairs. For who will recognize only the best men? Who will raise them to magistracies? Cato suffered an electoral rejection. Aristides was driven out by ostracism. Therefore no rather than many such “ἄριστοι,” or best men, command. Yet the Philosopher responds in book 3, chapter 7, that “Ἀριστοκρατίαν” is said to be “διὰ τὸ τοὺς ἀρίστους ἄρχειν, ἢ διὰ τὸ πρὸς τὸ ἄριστον τῇ πόλει, καὶ τοῖς κοινωνοῦσιν αὐτῆς.” A government may be called an aristocracy, or government of the best, either because the best men command or because they refer all things to that which is best for the city and its citizens. Yet this can also agree with other forms, for the best is sought in kingship and popular government. And a man who is not the best, yet is not unjust, can have this proposed to himself.
§ 2. We shall therefore call those men the best who, in comparison with others, are less wicked, or in whom more proofs of virtues are found than among the common people. But since the selection of men who are best without qualification is difficult—for every most worthless man very easily creeps toward the helm by simulating probity, and, once in power, reveals poorly concealed vices to the destruction of the commonwealth—an administration is not to be censured as corrupt if nobles and rich men frequently undertake a magistracy while better and more prudent men from the common people are passed over. For so long as an account of the common good is maintained, the form of the commonwealth remains legitimate.
Account must indeed be taken of nobles and rich men. For they prevail in birth, education, natural disposition, and power. They therefore possess a greater spirit for repelling enemies and a sharper stimulus for defending the fatherland, in which they possess fortunes and honors. In a public danger they fear that they will privately lose more; for when their fatherland has been oppressed or destroyed, they cannot be so honored elsewhere. The reasoning concerning the poor is different. For those who sustain life by their labor and industry do not judge themselves to owe much to the fatherland and easily find another fatherland where nourishment is supplied to their labor and art. Since, therefore, nobles are more loving toward their fatherland, braver, and more faithful, and it is in their interest that the condition of the commonwealth remain, those who excel in these things are generally deservedly judged the best men.
§ 3. Aristocratic commonwealths have been few and not long-lasting. The Spartan commonwealth belonged to the best men, but it was so intermingled with royal and popular government that it was by no means a pure aristocracy. The Carthaginian commonwealth joined longevity and power—a rare work, which none except the Venetian has thus far been able to imitate. Yet not even the latter is purely aristocratic, but rather a harmony composed of all forms. The power of the principate is in one duke, the chief of the senate. The Great Council, or senate, consists of the nobility; all nobles are admitted to it when they reach their twenty-fifth year. Nevertheless, commoners too are assumed into various courts and offices.
I omit the free cities of Germany—Nuremberg, Ulm, and Frankfurt—which are governed by the patrician nobility, because they are not absolute commonwealths but parts of the Roman Empire and obey the Emperor.
The Roman aristocracy endured for a brief time, from the expulsion of the Tarquins until their death. For when fear of the kings had been removed, it degenerated into an oligarchy. Then the common people, inflamed by the injuries of the fathers, extorted tribunes, magistracies, and sovereignty through various seditions.
Many things are necessary for defending an aristocracy because there are very many causes why it perishes. For that reason it is not readily long-lasting.
§ 4. First, therefore, the best men must strive and exert themselves with the greatest force actually and truly to be “ἄριστοι,” the best. For the eternal divine power favors virtue and advances it, and human beings do not disdain to be ruled by better men. This is the foundation without which all the other arts of politicians construct nothing but ruin. Therefore let them employ right, equity, clemency, affability, and liberality toward the citizens; among themselves, with harmonious opinions, let them regard the public good.
Nevertheless, because there are always many wicked, ambitious, and restless men in a commonwealth, and all are inclined to disparage those who command, virtue also employs political counsels and a stratagem that is not dishonorable; it removes inexperienced and destructive rulers from the helm. Yet I advise that this be done in such a way that the first account is taken of virtue, and every simulation is removed as a stain and plague.
Many of those who strive to establish a commonwealth of the best go astray not only because they attribute too much to the wealthy, but also by oppressing and harassing the common people. In the course of time, however, it is necessary that a true evil arise from false goods. For the resources and prerogatives of the rich dissolve the commonwealth more readily than those of the common people, as Aristotle truly warns in book 1 of the Politics, chapter 12. Good counsels for preserving aristocracy therefore proceed from virtue and tend toward the common good.
§ 5. The second measure is that some share of magistracies, offices, and honorable functions should be entrusted to many from the people. Yet these should be of such a kind that they either burden those who sustain them with expense—which rich men, enticed by the sweetness of honor, nevertheless readily bear—or possess something of envy; and then they should conciliate no power or favor among the people. There are also many functions whose administration possesses no dignity but profit. It is fitting that these be entrusted to industrious citizens who are under obligation to the rulers. For nothing is more dangerous than for a few men to draw all things to themselves.
The admonition of the philosopher-politician in book 3 of the Politics, chapter 11, is excellent: “To entrust no magistracies to them, however, and for them to participate in none is horrible and fearful. For when many are without honor and poor, it is necessary that the city be full of enemies. It remains, therefore, that they should participate in deliberating and judging. For this reason Solon and certain other lawgivers place them in charge of the assemblies for creating magistrates and of demanding accounts from those who have held magistracies; but they do not permit them to hold a magistracy by themselves and alone. For when they have all been collected and gathered together they possess sufficient understanding, and, mixed with better men, they benefit cities, just as impure nourishment joined with pure nourishment makes the whole more useful than a small quantity of the pure. For each man separately is imperfect and maimed in judging.”
Hence these advantages follow. First, the people do not judge the government to be an aristocracy but a popular commonwealth, when they see their fellow tribesmen taking part in public affairs. Next,
many, enticed by hope, favor the best men and are faithful to them, since they themselves also expect equal things from them. Of this kind are the care of provisions, wine, grain, shops, roads, courts, and private lawsuits, in which they can be colleagues of the best men.
An example may be seen in the Republic of Venice. For although the whole authority and power—that is, the right of judging and commanding—is in the hands of the senate, that is, approximately two thousand five hundred nobles, they nevertheless admit commoners too to many functions and honors, such as the prefectures of certain arts and the offices of scribes and secretaries. Yet the nature of these offices is such that through them the commoners are bound more and more to the nobility and are, as it were, made its slaves.
Nor is this institution of the Venetians new. The Romans and Carthaginians formerly employed it, and those free cities which protect a domestic aristocracy under the eagle of the Empire also employ it now.
§ 6. The third measure is that provision should be made for the grain supply. For this is the tightest bond by which the multitude is held. I do not approve Roman customs, for by supplying bread to the multitude from the public resources they exhausted the treasury and nourished a useless and most vicious crowd; but I recommend moderate care.
The Venetian senate expends a great sum of money every year so that the things necessary for sustenance are both imported abundantly and procured at a low price. Scarcely any other thing establishes government more firmly. For when the people, who are generally led by advantages, observe that those men take counsel for the city so paternally, they honor and love them in the manner of sons. Indeed, this is also most agreeable to justice. For since the best men are raised to the highest honors and possess the greatest emoluments from magistracies, it is equitable that some things from the public goods should also be directed toward citizens of small means and the people, who have no share in the highest honor.
§ 7. The ingrained evil of nobility, pride, must be guarded against. For nothing exasperates more among equals or those who are almost equals. It must be guarded against in sons and little grandsons too, lest they become accustomed to despise companions and citizens.
At Rome the laughter of a little woman struck the consulship from the nobility. There were two sisters, one married to a patrician and the other to a plebeian. The latter had visited the former. But while the husband, a consul, was returning home and the lictor, according to custom, struck the door with the fasces, the woman who was in the plebeian marriage became frightened at the unfamiliar noise and was laughed at by her sister with a reproach concerning her ignoble marriage. Without delay the wife impelled her husband to hope for and seek magistracies; he impelled his fellow citizens, and thus the aristocracy, already declining, was converted into democracy.
Unless this is guarded against, there arises a city of slaves and masters, not of free persons, and of human beings who partly envy and partly despise one another. These are very far removed from friendship, society, and civil communion. For society is a communion pertaining to friendship. Indeed, we do not wish to enter into the fellowship of a journey with enemies.
§ 8. Liberality, which belongs to private persons, also possesses very great importance: that they should concede to citizens of smaller means the use of their possessions. It is indeed excellent also to imitate the counsels of the Tarentines. For by sharing with the needy the use of their beasts of burden and possessions, they procured for themselves the benevolence of the multitude. Therefore the nobles will employ the labor of the more industrious citizens in caring for villas, fields, and other things, will attend them with a liberal and honorable wage, and will admit them to their table. If individual best men employ this method, they will hold a great part of the city bound to themselves by sharing their household property.
§ 9. If the commonwealth is powerful, wages war, and commands various provinces, there is a great opportunity to benefit others in great fortune; for they will be able to enrich very many. Aristotle, book 6 of the Politics, chapter 5, testifies that the Carthaginians did this. His words are: “Administering the commonwealth in a certain such manner, the Carthaginians gathered the goodwill of the people toward themselves. For whenever they send some from the common people to the surrounding cities, they enrich them. This too belongs to the humanity of cultivated, refined, and prudent nobles: after distributing the needy among themselves, to supply them with assistance for making a livelihood and to exhort and rouse them to perform work.”
Nor was the judgment of the Romans different, who drained the refuse of the city and the army into colonies.
§ 10. The Philosopher proposes another counsel to us as though it were cunning. Namely, if the tribes are diverse and some persons from them possess the right to pronounce an opinion in the council, equality should exist in appearance in this manner: the nobles and rich should be compelled to attend, or a pledge should be seized; an excuse should not be accepted; and then, when asked, they should be required to explain their opinion and the judgments of their mind. The others should neither be compelled to assemble nor, if present, to express an opinion; neither an excuse nor a fine should be exacted from them.
By that stratagem they bring it about that the citizens judge themselves to be in a better condition than the nobles, because they possess an equal right of coming and deciding but by no means possess an obligation to come. Accordingly, they can attend to their own affairs according to their judgment; and if they please to come, they are free to remain silent in an invidious or hateful matter and to express an opinion in other matters. In appearance, therefore, the poor seem to be relieved and the rich burdened by that law. But in reality the matter is conducted by artifice. For this is what is sought: that the nobles should assemble in great numbers and be exercised in public affairs, while the common people are excluded through the appearance of privilege.
They are accustomed to summon the senate very frequently, draw out time by speaking, and deliberate about the smallest matters until the citizens, through weariness and contempt, cease to present themselves; then, when the opportunity arises, they treat of the highest affairs of the commonwealth. If they do this to defraud the commonwealth, they must now be called not the best men but oligarchs and tyrants within their own polity. If those counsels are directed toward preventing inexperienced, turbulent, and wicked human beings from violating the laws with their vote and bringing the commonwealth into danger, they are established without injury. For the right of that law is this: that a wise and upright senator should be commanded to assist the fatherland with counsel, while the inexperienced and wicked man should be freed by law from judging.
The other provisions tend toward the same thing:
Let not a noble or rich man refuse a magistracy, or let him pay a great fine; let it be free for a plebeian to renounce every magistracy.
Let nobles be compelled to judge causes; let citizens be assumed only if willing and pleased.
Let nobles bear arms, let them be exercised in them, and let them go first against the enemy; let the other citizens possess the care of their own home.
These provisions are not inequitable if they possess a legitimate end. For the poor are freed from labor, burden, and envy, yet are not barred from magistracy, judgments, or military service.
§ 11. A similar stratagem is that, where the common people plot against an aristocracy and desire that some of their own be inserted into the nobility, the best men should arrange that all the best and most pleasing men from the nobility should be competitors, while the candidates from the common people should be the more contemptible. For thus the people will reverence the dignity of the magnates, despise the worthlessness of the others by comparison,
and in addition envy their equals.
This was done at Rome. Military tribunes with consular power were created, and access to that magistracy lay open to plebeians as well as patricians. In order to strike reverence into the common people, the patricians produced the foremost and most eminent of the fathers as candidates. Thus they often prevailed so that no plebeian was designated by the common people.
But this is not firm. For the dignity of the best men often excites hatred and envy, striking malignant eyes by its light alone. At Rome, although at first the common people created patricians as magistrates, content that account had been taken of their own people, they nevertheless gradually became bolder and mingled some from their own body with them; at times they chose all from their own order; and frequently they also assisted by their vote bold and cunning human beings whom they hoped would oppose the patricians most strongly. Nevertheless, it possesses great force for the security and authority of the best men if it is evident that others are not more suitable, and that other human beings would exist, but not other conduct.
What Livy narrates in decade 3, book 3, concerning Pacuvius Calavius is distinguished. Since he happened to be in the highest magistracy in the year when the affair at Lake Trasimene was conducted badly, and since the common people had long been hostile to the senate, he judged that on the occasion of revolution they would dare a great crime: if Hannibal should come to those places with his victorious army, they would slaughter the senate and hand Capua over to the Carthaginians. He was a wicked man, but not utterly ruined. Since he preferred to rule in a commonwealth that was intact rather than overthrown, and believed that no city deprived of public counsel could be intact, he entered upon a plan by which he might both preserve the senate and render it subject to himself and the common people.
After summoning the senate, he prefaced that the counsel of defecting from the Romans would in no way please him unless it had been necessary, since he had children by the daughter of Appius Claudius and had given his daughter in marriage at Rome to Livius. But he said that a greater and far more fearful danger threatened. For now the common people, through defection, intended to remove the senate from the city and, by slaughtering the senate, wished to hand the commonwealth, emptied of it, over to Hannibal and the Carthaginians. He could free them from that danger if they entrusted themselves to him and, forgetting their contests within the commonwealth, trusted him.
When all, overcome by fear, entrusted themselves to him, he said: “I shall shut you in the senate house and, as if I myself were a participant in the contemplated crime, by approving counsels which I would oppose in vain I shall find a way to your safety. For this accept whatever pledge you yourselves wish.” Once the pledge had been given, he went out, ordered the senate house to be closed, and left a guard in the vestibule, lest anyone approach the senate house without his order or be able to depart from it.
Then, after summoning the people to an assembly, he said: “What you have often wished, Campanians—the power to exact punishment from a wicked and detestable senate—you now possess, not by storming the houses of individuals in a tumult, which they protect with guards of clients and servants, with the greatest danger to yourselves, but safely and freely. Receive them all, shut in the senate house, alone and unarmed. Do nothing in haste or perhaps rashly. I shall give you the right to pronounce judgment concerning the life of each, so that each may pay the penalties which he has merited. But above all you ought to indulge your anger in such a way that you hold your safety and utility preferable to anger.
“For you hate these senators, as I judge. But you do not wish to possess no senate at all, since you must have either a king—which is to be abominated—or a senate, which is the sole council of a free city. Therefore you must do two things simultaneously: remove the old senate and enroll a new one. I shall order the senators to be called individually and shall consult you concerning their lives; what you determine concerning each shall be done. But before punishment is exacted from the guilty man, you shall enroll in his place a brave and energetic man as a new senator.”
He then sat down and, after the names had been cast into an urn, ordered the man whose name first came out by lot to be summoned and brought out of the senate house. When the name was heard, every man shouted that he was wicked and worthless and worthy of punishment. Then Pacuvius said: “I see what judgment has been given concerning this man. He is cast out as wicked and worthless; choose a good and just senator.”
At first there was silence because of the lack of a better man to submit. Then, when someone had put aside shame and named someone, a much greater clamor immediately arose: some denied knowing him; others cast against him now reproaches, now his low condition and sordid poverty, or his shameful kind of trade or gain. This happened much more in the case of the second and third senator, so that it became apparent that the human beings regretted the former senator; but someone to substitute in his place was lacking. For it was not worthwhile that the same men be named again: they had been named for nothing other than hearing reproaches, and the remaining men were far lower and more obscure than those who first came to mind. Thus the human beings dispersed, saying that every most familiar evil was especially tolerable and ordering the senate to be released from custody.
Pacuvius, a man otherwise wicked, certainly acted wisely. For very many men reduced a magistracy into order; very few amended the commonwealth. This man made the senate acceptable to the citizens and made it more moderate.
§ 12. The seventh measure consists of the mutual rights of patrons and clients, and so great a bond that, during a space of six hundred years, dissensions between the patricians and the common people scarcely descended to blood. But after those bonds too had been removed and fraud joined to the client, the commonwealth perished by mutual slaughters and was handed over to one tyrant. That custom has not yet died out among the Venetians. The name of protectors and the ancient right which existed among the ancients also remain in Germany, by which many provinces were said to be in the clientship of powerful families.
§ 13. It is prudent to establish various orders and distinctions among citizens, yet with such moderation that injury is inflicted upon no one. Thus was
Martial Rome threefold in cavalry, common people, and senate.
That multitude and diversity brings it about that they do not readily conspire, and this is so in every form of commonwealth, but especially in an aristocracy. For the middle order, or that of the knights, vehemently desires that the authority of the senate be preserved safe and sound. If the common people remove the senate from the midst or undertake to diminish its right, the entire dignity of the equestrian order will also be destroyed. Nor will the common people rise so readily against the senate, from which it stands at a long interval and which it sees surrounded by squadrons of knights.
But neither ought the best men to fear the equestrian order. For if it attempts anything, it will not be difficult to restrain it by summoning the common people to their aid. I confess, nevertheless, that this diversity of orders is a nursery of many lawsuits and seditions. But this arises from the errors of those who govern, when law is pronounced unequally, one order is suppressed, and the other exalted to the detriment of the others.
These measures are generally observed in an aristocracy. In it this must especially be observed: that the few should command in such a manner that the many do not hate and abominate the constitution of the city. For a power which violently holds many unwilling persons is brief. Every aristocracy is therefore brief; nevertheless, where it exists, it is better that there be two other orders than one alone.
§ 14. It has been asked whether there was a monarchy when the Triumvirs oppressed Rome, when the two Antonines reigned, and when Maximian and Diocletian reigned with equal right. Bodin denies it in book 2, chapter 2 of Six Books of the Commonwealth; others affirm it. If you consider the words, it should be called a dyarchy or triarchy. If you consider the thing, it is a monarchy; for one of them always possesses primary authority and selects the other. But if their power is altogether equal, they nevertheless administer as though they were one; the whole government is as though that of one and will return to one. For when kings adopt their sons as partners in the kingdom, they are not judged to change the form of the kingdom but to establish the monarchy.
These things must therefore be estimated morally, not metaphysically. By the same reasoning, when daughters who are heirs of kingdoms marry foreign husbands and administer with equal right—as Ferdinand and Isabella administered Spain, and Albert and Eugenia Belgium—there is nevertheless no new form of commonwealth.
Those who deny that a head exists in an aristocracy, and therefore reject that kind of government, emphatically deny that they are political thinkers. For the greater part of the senate agreeing in one opinion is the head, since its counsel is united. Nor is the condition of a metaphorical and a physical head the same. Therefore neither the individual leading men nor senators are heads or possess sovereignty; rather, the entire senate together, or its greater part, does.