§ 1. I propose a question debated not only in the senate house and in an assembly of the people, but also in scholastic exercises. The reason is that it supplies abundant material to ingenious and eloquent human beings for speaking against tyranny, anarchy, and servitude, and in favor of liberty and equality. Accordingly, some inveigh against the excessive power of one man, others against the ambition and dissensions of equals, and others against the confusion and rashness of the common crowd. They do this with all the greater applause because examples of affairs badly administered are lacking in no age, and indeed abound in most. But let us speak of this matter politically and in a manner suited to the institutions of the commonwealth.
§ 2. First, when we compare the three forms of commonwealth with one another and inquire into the best, it is evident that this must be done by a prudent and suitable analogy. For the vices and injuries of one government must not be compared with the virtues and benefits of another, but goods with goods, evils with evils, lesser goods with lesser, and greater with greater; likewise, evils must be weighed with an equal balance. The best monarchy must be compared with the best aristocracy and polity, the middling with the middling, and the worst with the worst.
When, therefore, the matter stands at the same degree, it is asked which commonwealth is better, firmer, and happier. Is that government which is described in Judges 2:6—“Therefore Joshua dismissed the people, and the children of Israel departed, each into his own possession, that they might obtain it. And they served the Lord all his days and all the days of the elders who lived for a long time after him and knew all the works of the Lord which he had done with Israel”—is that aristocracy of elders to be preferred to the monarchy of David or Solomon or another king who regards the common good?
§ 3. Next, all things in this disputation are not to be discussed minutely and mathematically. Rather, because we are treating of the commonwealth, they must be treated in a moral and civil manner. For in vain do we form and construct in thought some Platonic or Utopian city if we give counsel to our cities, in which there are many imprudent, improvident, and wicked human beings, and frequently those very persons whose office it is to protect justice and equity are such.
The founder of a commonwealth ought not to regard one human being or one certain and definite period, but to embrace the whole duration. For although it may happen that one particular prince is excellent and the best men at some time praiseworthy, nevertheless conduct is frequently changed in power, and wicked rulers more frequently succeed good ones. Accordingly, that form of commonwealth must be established in which magistrates are permitted to do the greatest amount of good and the least amount of evil, so that the people may be safe by its laws and not by the virtue of one human being.
The lawgiver, therefore, will not fear to abandon many excellent goods in order to avert the most dangerous evils. Nor will he judge the form of that city most excellent in which one particular thing has been arranged excellently unless provision has been made from every direction concerning all things. All moderate things must rather be chosen than extremes attended by great danger. For amid such great desires, faithlessness, and ambition among human beings, it is impossible to establish a commonwealth in which there is no danger. I shall therefore speak distinctly concerning the best form of commonwealth.
§ 4. FIRST. A despotic form of commonwealth, in which the prince is absolute lord of all things, is unworthy of praise, inequitable, and not long-lasting. I call that form despotic which belongs today to the emperor of the Turks, which seems formerly to have belonged to Nebuchadnezzar and the kings of the Egyptians, and which now belongs to certain barbarians. The inhabitants of the Turkish Empire call themselves slaves of their emperor. No one is secure in fortune or life; all things depend upon the nod of the most cruel, most arrogant, and most lustful tyrant. They even refer the very air which they breathe as something received from the great lord.
It is unnecessary to bring forward arguments. For there is no one who does not flee servitude and embrace liberty; but in that empire everyone, even wives and children, serves servitude. Indeed, divine Scripture numbers being oppressed by servitude among the greatest punishments but regards being asserted into liberty as the highest benefit. Isaiah 19:4: “And I shall hand Egypt into the hand of cruel lords.” And when God had subjected the Jews to Shishak, or Sesostris the Egyptian, he said: “Nevertheless they shall serve him, that they may know the distance between my servitude and the servitude of the kingdoms of the lands.”
Nor can a supporter of tyranny respond and say that an absolute lord can take account of the common good and that such a commonwealth will be like a great household. For if he is lord, he therefore expends the slaves for his own utility, and all the subjects are the possession of the great lord. Accordingly, they are held to care for the advantages of the lord, not their own.
I am not ignorant that the barbarism of certain nations, from native slowness and stupidity of disposition, is such that they seem born for servitude. If they have been captured in a just war, so that they can be reduced into servitude, I do not deny that they ought to possess the same man as king and lord. But this pertains to a few, since, although there are many who have surrendered within a great nation, few have merited servitude. Provision must be made for the whole nation in a royal manner, so that its people may be rightly instructed in religion, humanity, and civil order. It belongs to barbarians, however, to abuse the weakness and stupidity of wretched people for their own gain.
§ 5. This government cannot be long-lasting because it is violent and because everyone condemns it, even those who live amid the highest honor and pleasures. Those whose fortune is most wretched attempt extreme things; and since they consider all things better than those which they suffer, impelled by a slight movement, they dare something great and unexpected. For although they hope for nothing, they nevertheless possess nothing about which they may despair, since to remain in a most afflicted condition is the part of the despairing, but to move and disturb something is the mark of a spirit that is not ignoble.
Seneca therefore spoke wisely in truth: “Power which is exercised to the injury of many cannot stand for long,” book 3 of On Anger, chapter 16. Phalaris reigned for more than thirty-two years, but after his first frenzy had raged itself out, he cultivated justice and clemency. He possessed ability and force for seizing power,
but moderation was needed for retaining it. Although all hold tenaciously that one ought to leave a tyranny dragged by the feet, not seated upon a horse—Livy, book 24—nevertheless, very many who abused excessive power have been cast down and readily shaken off.
For since a human being is a political animal, while the most absolute monarchy is violent dominion and more suitable for wild beasts, it is not according to nature and therefore cannot be perpetual. Finally, since so great a power readily exceeds the limits of reason and crushes peoples, it comes about that it corrupts the commonwealth itself. All are free by nature; disaster introduced the name of servitude. Therefore a commonwealth in which there is no liberty is contrary to nature.
§ 6. The Turkish Empire is customarily objected against this, because it has now persevered for many years in the family of the Ottomans, although they oppress all those subject to it with inequitable and burdensome dominion. In that kingdom no one serves more abjectly or more dangerously than the man who moves amid the greatest dignity and power.
I indeed acknowledge that the iron yoke imposed by the Ottomans upon the peoples of Asia and many parts of Europe and Africa has almost grown old, so that it could seem a just government. The complaints of so many nations and the groans of cities testify to it. That tyranny has now persevered for three hundred years; for it was established in the year 1300 by the industry and fraud of Ottoman. It is therefore a savage and long-lasting sovereignty. Nor—shame!—are there lacking among Christians those who suggest Mohammedan counsels to their princes, in order to establish the strength and longevity of principalities by such barbarian examples.
§ 7. But I by no means attribute the stability of that monarchy to its unjust and barbarous domination, but principally to the just vengeance of the divine power, which rules and crushes with an iron rod nations that are impious, apostate, impure, and ignorant of being ruled. It both permits the tyrant to rage and corrupts the counsels and removes the courage of wretched nations, lest they rise to vengeance.
Next, the mutual enmities and wars of its neighbors raised that monarchy to be fearful to everyone. But because the long-lasting power of the Turks dazzles the eyes of many political thinkers, I intend to consider the matter more deeply.
In the year 1300 Ottoman struck down in various battles the petty rulers of the Turks, who were weakened by discord, and from the spoils of many he himself became a great emperor. He presided over the sovereignty for twenty-seven years, a man of great counsel and, when sudden circumstances occurred, of rash but nevertheless fortunate audacity.
Ottoman’s son Orchan began his sovereignty with the parricide of two elder brothers. He conducted it somewhat better than he began it. He added a great part of the Empire of Constantinople to his own kingdom, assisted not by his own virtue but by the long dissensions and civil wars of the two Andronici, grandfather and grandson, and then of Cantacuzenus and Palaeologus. For while they contended in crime, faithlessness, and mutual slaughter, he readily occupied regions deprived of aid. Drawn into assisting the parties, as is customary for magnates, he converted the calamities of his neighbors into an opportunity for growth.
Amurath succeeded Orchan. In ambition, endurance of labors, cunning, military discipline, strength, equity, affability, moderation, and blandishments he was superior to all the leaders of the Turks. Access to him was easy; his countenance was mild; in distributing honors and addressing men he displayed the greatest humanity. Therefore at that time the face of the sovereignty was different, and under the growing monarchy there was, if not unimpaired liberty, nevertheless great security. Yet he did not break the Empire of Constantinople by his own martial power. He was summoned by Palaeologus, whom the Greek leading men, assisted by the Bulgarians, were oppressing, and he defeated them. Then again one of his soldiers, carried into Europe by the avarice of a Christian shipmaster, gained an easy victory over the Greeks.
Amurath’s son Baiazet, the killer of his brother Solyman, was more ferocious. He stripped Sigismund, king of Hungary, of his camp, but in that battle the fault was rather with our men than courageously conducted by the Turks. For while the French, contrary to the wishes of their leaders, rushed forward without counsel, they were surrounded by cavalry and utterly destroyed. In 1402, he was defeated by Tamerlane and enclosed in a cage; at that time the Turkish Empire was affected by a great disaster. For besides the 140,000 who fell in the battle line, one hundred and twenty thousand were crushed by cavalry.
Calepinus, son of Baiazet, restored the collapsed affairs. After gathering the veterans and being assisted by Greek princes, he then established them by a successful battle against Sigismund of Hungary. For the cavalry of the Christians, borne against the enemy in a rash attack, was driven into flight before aid could be carried to it by the infantry, and it exposed the disordered infantry line to be destroyed by hostile arrows.
Moses killed Orchan, the son of Calepinus, after surrounding him with ambushes; Machomet killed Moses. Machomet was the first to render harsher and more atrocious the kingdom which until that point had been in some fashion political. For by force, fraud, and arms he oppressed and stripped of their dominions the petty kings and princes of the Turks who were suspect to him for any reason whatever. That destruction extended so widely that a little afterward there were no princes, but mere slaves. He died in the year 1419. From this one may gather that until that time the Turkish monarchy had been tempered by the power of the best men.
Another Amurath followed, whom John Hunyadi defeated in five battles and whom Scanderbeg, after driving him away from the siege of Croia, compelled to die. He inflicted disasters upon the Greeks, but their sloth was so great that, when about to fight, they selected as commander no one from their own nation but Mustapha, Amurath’s paternal uncle; and when he had been defeated, they placed in command of the army another Mustapha, Amurath’s thirteen-year-old brother. What wonder is it, therefore, if Amurath increased in power when the other Christians were inactive, certain ones even betraying them, and the Greeks entrusted the fortune of their sovereignty to an exiled boy?
This sovereignty degenerated into a perfect tyranny under Machomet II, who occupied Constantinople in 1453—not by the courage of his own Turks, but by the faithless labor and avarice of the Illyrians, Wallachians, Dardanians, Serbians, and Bulgarians. For these nations had come to him in the hope of military plunder. Savage toward his own people, a despiser of every right, oath, and divine power, he acted as a most absolute tyrant after the rival king at Constantinople had been removed. That beast died in 1481.
Then it became evident with how little counsel that kingdom had been established. For the purple-clad pashas and Janissaries disagreed concerning the successor, so that they came to battles and slaughters. The Janissaries, with men of that family striving in his favor, declared Baiazeth emperor. Others chose Corchutus, the son of Baiazeth, so that, with a boy as king, they themselves might be lords of affairs. But the youth yielded to his father, and the soldiers were placated by a largess. His brother Gemes brought no less a war against him and, defeated in three battles, fled to the Christians. Baiazeth inflicted many disasters upon the Venetians, but soon, after being repressed, was compelled to make peace. From the Persians, however, he suffered greater disasters, so that little was lacking before he lost northern Asia in a single expedition.
Meanwhile, his three sons, Selymus, Acomathes, and Corchutus, contended for sovereignty. Selymus obtained it with the assistance of the Janissaries and killed his father with poison. He killed not only his brothers but the sons of his brothers. He crushed the Persians, but with one hundred thousand of his own men lost.
Solimannus followed Selymus, and Selymus III followed Solimannus; they surpassed their ancestors in savagery and rapacity.
§ 8. After examining these things well, we shall discover that this sovereignty had endured for one hundred and sixty years from the time when it began to be most absolute and plainly tyrannical. Yet it was most unhappy. First, within the Ottoman stock itself, from which one man is destined for the kingdom either by the blandishments of some concubine or by a military disturbance, the entire remaining house is compelled by its death to furnish security to the man who reigns. A crowd of brothers and nephews is slaughtered so that one man may command without fear. Yet that has never occurred. For the sons and descendants of Baiazet were worn down by civil and foreign wars.
Evils are therefore perpetual in this kingdom. First, since there are many sons, as is natural amid the great license of many marriages, all nevertheless conceive a hope of sovereignty, either from the favor of their father or that of the Praetorian soldiers. Next, the fear of death joined to it sharpens that hope, since nothing intermediate is left between throne and tomb, between diadem and noose. What, therefore, should men about to die fear? Extreme fear produces confidence and the pursuit of an honorable and glorious death.
Third, that fear and hope render sons suspect and hostile to their father. For when they have learned by the slightest sign that one is preferred to the others, they now judge themselves condemned to death by their father. I add that they reduce the entire imperial house to one head; if anything human should happen to him, either no heir or a boy will then exist.
Innumerable calamities for the subjects arise from this. Agriculture is altogether abandoned. They plunder the regions so thoroughly that scarcely the necessities of life are left to them. No farmer thinks about private property, for even noble and very fertile fields lie uncultivated far and wide, and through the injury of those who reign all things tend toward devastation. Arms are taken from everyone; only a few men, as if they were robbers, are permitted everything. From this it is evident that this kingdom is most weak and has stood through the discord of its neighbors—if to be stained with so many calamities and slaughters is to have stood. I therefore conclude that that absolute and despotic monarchy is destructive, brief, full of fear and blood, and exposed to everyone who attacks it.
§ 9. It must therefore be established, second, that a tempered monarchy is to be preferred, one in which the authority of the best men, or of the senate, possesses force and in which the cities and other orders possess some power. Yet in it this must be guarded against: that the king should not command on sufferance; rather, when he has judged justly and according to the laws, his power should be supreme. For if the vigor of the supreme power withers, it is necessary that the property of the subjects be plundered and carried away, since without fear of the laws the injuries of the more powerful continually increase.
The first reason is that we see that most wise men judged thus: Plato in the Statesman; Aristotle in book 3 of the Politics, chapter 5, and book 8, chapter 10; Herodotus, book 3. Indeed, that Homeric saying has been approved by everyone:
Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη· εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω. The dominion of many is not good; let there be one lord.
Philo, in the book On the Confusion of Tongues; Plutarch, in the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men and likewise On Monarchy, Oligarchy, and Democracy; Demosthenes, Against Androtion and Against Timocrates; Maecenas in the presence of Augustus; Philostratus in the presence of Vespasian; Isocrates, in the Nicocles; Stobaeus, discourse 45. The holy Fathers possessed the same opinion: Justin, Exhortation to the Greeks; Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols; Athanasius, Oration Against the Idols; Jerome, the letter to the monk Rusticus; Saint Thomas, book 4 of Against the Gentiles.
Indeed, you will not readily find a dissenter even among those who, educated in a free commonwealth, held honors and magistracies. Cicero certainly admits that at one time the government of one man pleased the city and that the royal kind of constitution was rejected not because of the kingdom but because of the vices of the king. Book 3 of On the Laws.
§ 10. Not only is this the opinion and consensus of the wise, but it is also the practice of the whole world. For all ancient nations first obeyed kings. Cicero, book 3 of On the Laws. Justin, book 1: “In the beginning of affairs and nations sovereignty was in the hands of kings.” Seneca judges the royal kind of constitution to be according to nature in book 1 of On Clemency: “For nature devised a king. This may be recognized from other animals and from bees, whose king possesses the most spacious chamber in the middle and safest place. Moreover, he is free from labor, the exactor of the works of others; and when the king is lost, the entire swarm falls apart.”
Antiquity and sacred and profane history have confirmed the same thing for us by their authority. For after, while Noah and his sons were still living, the construction of the insane tower introduced the confusion of tongues, individual families began to possess kings. Indeed, even Nimrod, son of Cush and grandson of Ham, born near the very ark which had enclosed the whole human race within narrow spaces, planned a kingdom against his neighbors. For “he began to be powerful upon the earth and a mighty hunter before the Lord.”
Certainly, from the flood to Peleg there are 101 years. But he received his name from the fact that in his days the earth was divided, Genesis 10:25. From Peleg to Abraham there are 191 years. But at that time all things were already full of kings and cities; indeed, alliances and servitudes of kings were already known. For the kings of Canaan served Chedorlaomer, king of the Elamites, for twelve years, and the king of Shinar, or Babylon, was allied with him.
The Elamites are Persians. Thus it is marvelous that, while Noah and indeed Shem, Japheth, and Ham were surviving, and while even Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, and Peleg, who had been educated under one grandfather and beneath one roof, were looking on, their descendants waged such great wars that they came all the way from Persia with a hostile army, struck the Rephaim, Karnaim, Zuzim, Emim, and Horites, and rushed as far as the wilderness of Paran.
Therefore, when they no longer lived under a true father of the household, they nevertheless did not wish to exist without a single magistrate, but placed over themselves men in whose integrity, prudence, and courage they trusted. Nor did that custom afterward cease to exist. Thus in 1 Kings 8 the Israelites request a king: “Establish a king for us, that he may judge us, just as all nations possess.” The liberty of commonwealths existed in Greece and in a few Italian and Punic cities. For few desire liberty; the greater part desire just lords.
§ 11. The second reason by which monarchy is commended to us is longevity. The kingdom of the Assyrians persevered for 1,240 years; that of the Medes, 260; that of the Persians, 233 and, after the power of the Greeks had been abolished, 480; Sparta, 500; and the kingdoms of the Moabites, Ammonites, and Egyptians for very many years. Of all cities which possessed aristocracy or polity, the government was exceedingly brief, followed by tyranny or destruction.
Tyrants infamous for cruelty, avarice, and outrage existed in Greece and Italy because they judged that the brief power of the people must be worn down by burdensome servitude.
The Sicilian cities were free, but at intervals of time they were given as plunder to tyrants. How often did Athens, Corinth, and the other cities of the Greeks suffer tyrants? During the four hundred years between the kings and the Caesars in which Rome professed that it possessed liberty, did it not live as if in a perpetual contest and disturbance? Hence came secessions; hence the broken fasces of the consuls and, through hatred of a commander, victory furnished to the enemy; hence tribunician power, the sharing of marriages and honors, military tribunes, decemvirs for writing the laws, dictators, and masters of the horse. What year passed without disturbance, except when a common fear from an enemy threatened the parties? The inhabitants of the Roman city therefore collided with one another until the commonwealth arrived at one man.
The Republic of Venice alone, although it belongs to the best men, now numbers one thousand years, which is the sole example of a long-lasting aristocracy. But because it possesses a perpetual duke whom they call great, its government customarily seems to me as monarchical as aristocratic.
For although the authority of deciding and commanding is in the hands of the senate or Great Council, the duke is nevertheless the head of the senate and of the whole commonwealth. First, that magistracy or principate is perpetual, a thing which lovers of aristocracy are certainly accustomed greatly to dread. Therefore Antony, in order to conciliate the affections of human beings, abolished by an enacted law the name and power of dictator in perpetuity, because Julius Caesar had accepted a perpetual dictatorship.
Next, it belongs to the Venetian duke to summon the senate and consult it. Although he himself determines nothing except from a decree of the senate, this is the same as if at Rome he held a perpetual consulship. That kind of commonwealth certainly draws very much from the royal kind of government. Third, since at Venice there are easily sixty-nine councils, tribunals, or orders of judges, the duke can attend and preside over all of them; no one is ignorant of how important this is within a commonwealth. Fourth, royal honor is conferred upon him, whether you consider his public retinue or the observance of others toward him.
Finally, the fear of the best men shows how great the duke’s power is. For they are accustomed to raise to that summit a man advanced in age, moderate, loving the commonwealth, and of a civil disposition, and to strive with the greatest care lest he be able to become more powerful either by conciliating popular favor to himself or by courting the friendships of princes. For if some Sulla, Marius, or Julius obtained the authority with which the duke of Venice is endowed, he would subject the whole commonwealth to himself without a difficult outcome. In that matter he would be assisted not a little by the very form of the decrees, all of which are written out and published in the duke’s name.
He who weighs these things will readily understand that the longevity of the aristocracy comes from its conjunction with monarchy. For perpetuity of dignity; the right to summon and consult the senate; the right to approach all councils and assemblies of judges with dignity and prerogative; princely honor and splendor; and the power of publishing decrees in his own name are so proper to monarchy that the Romans abominated each as though royal.
What else did Pompey, although chief of the senate, desire than to belong to one who reigns? What did Caesar desire except that account should be taken of him while absent? How great were the wars which arose between father-in-law and son-in-law, because
Caesar could not endure a superior, nor Pompey an equal?
Why was Caesar sacrificed with so many wounds before the statue of Pompey? Because he retained a perpetual dictatorship. But the great duke of Venice must deservedly be regarded as a perpetual consul or dictator, in whose name all things are conducted and to whom ambassadors direct their speech in the council. Although his power is not altogether dictatorial, his honor is nevertheless royal.
Accordingly, in this respect I prefer the Republic of Venice to the Roman commonwealth. For it is free from innumerable dangers which arose from the rivalries of ambitious men; nor in it
do the yearly contests return for sale upon the Field.
§ 12. The third reason why I prefer monarchy is that in it concord and the conjunction of minds can be preserved most fully and readily. No commonwealth can subsist without concord; scarcely any has perished without discord. Unity is readily preserved under one man. Accordingly, God also willed in his Church to remove occasions of dissension and schism by establishing one governor and head. This was also the mind and opinion of political writers. Tacitus, Annals 1: “There was no other remedy for a discordant fatherland than that it should be ruled by one man.”
Nature itself dictates the reason to us. For in government by the best, power is scattered among several men. Since it is tossed by diverse opinions and affections, it tears the commonwealth apart. Where one man commands, the minds of individuals accommodate themselves to his commands and cannot divide the city, being subjected to one greater power.
If we consider the dissensions of the best men in the Roman city, we shall find them both perpetual and most destructive. At Athens, where the popular kind of constitution prevailed, the discord and mutual hatred of the leading men were so great that no one among the best men escaped exile or a fine. For contests among powerful men always exist unless some greater power restrains and binds the strength and desire of each. Two consular colleagues were rarely harmonious; ten tribunes, most rarely. The Italian cities in the times of Frederick and afterward were almost exhausted by continual contests among magistrates, while they imposed and suffered exiles in turn. At Florence neighbors fought against neighbors from towers; at Milan nobles and common people raged mutually against one another; the people of Padua, Verona, and elsewhere, through hatred and disgust for their own citizens, preferred foreign judges.
§ 13. The fourth reason: not only can concord be guarded more readily, but justice also, if one body of government is ruled by one soul. For when the best men command, they have regard for one another, forgive themselves, and indulge one another so that they themselves may enjoy equal impunity. Meanwhile,
Whatever madness kings commit, the Greeks are punished.
Kings possess greater care and more effective authority for preserving justice, and less cause for violating it. For either the prince himself pronounces the law, and thus does not readily depart from integrity and rectitude, or he establishes judges whom the obligation to render an account readily holds in their duty. They can neither oppress an accused man nor gratify relatives or powerful men, since appeal to the prince and examination of the sentence pronounced not only commend observance of the laws but also announce immediate punishment to a transgressor.
For princes most readily punish wicked judges,
although they themselves may not be lovers of justice. The reason for this is that, to their greatest glory, they punish them as public robbers; next, they also conciliate to themselves the love of their subjects as a protection, since they themselves are enemies of those whom everyone hates; finally, it is an ancient practice to enrich the treasury by the deaths and confiscations of wealthy magistrates. Since judges established by kings therefore are not ignorant that they themselves must at some time undergo judgment, they take great care lest by their own condemnation they be compelled to render the prince’s reputation celebrated and increase the fisc.
The despotic government of the Ottomans is harsh, but nevertheless, amid so crude a tyranny, the prefects of provinces and cities vehemently dread every appearance of injustice. Many are slaughtered in individual years for the smallest offenses after their goods have been confiscated. That savagery renders the cruelty of the tyrant more tolerable to the peoples, since they understand that the instruments of tyranny are punished.
No one will estimate more readily the great indignity and violence with which justice and laws are harassed among the best men than one who weighs the deeds of the Romans, who were regarded as the most just of nations. Let us hear from a Roman consul what justice suffered among those lords of the earth. He says in the fifth oration Against Verres: “An opinion destructive to the commonwealth and dangerous to you has now become inveterate. It has grown widespread in the speech of everyone, not only at Rome but also among foreign nations: with the courts as they now exist, no wealthy human being, however guilty, can be condemned.”
Nor did Verres boast without cause: “Those men ought to fear who stole enough only for themselves; I have plundered enough that it can suffice for many. Nothing is so sacred that it cannot be violated, nothing so fortified that it cannot be taken by money.”
Nor did Cicero hesitate to profess this publicly before the Quirites when he spoke in favor of the Manilian law: “It is difficult to say, Quirites, in how great a hatred we exist among foreign nations because of the injuries and lusts of those whom in these years we have sent to them with command. For what sanctuary in those lands do you judge to have been sacred to our magistrates? What city holy? What house sufficiently closed and fortified? Rich and abundant cities are now sought against which a cause of war may be brought because of the desire to plunder.” And: “Do you judge that you send an army for allies against enemies, or, under the pretense of enemies, against allies and friends? What city exists in Asia which can contain the minds and spirits not merely of a commander or legate, but of one military tribune?”
The same man exclaims: “There is no severity in the courts, no religious scruple; finally, the courts are now judged not to exist at all.” Nothing, however, demonstrates the corruption of the courts more than what Cicero dared to recall at Rome before an assembly. He judged that foreign nations would send ambassadors to the Roman people requesting that the law and court concerning extorted money be abolished. For if there were no courts, they thought that each man would take only as much as he judged sufficient for himself and his children. Now, because courts of this kind existed, each man took as much as would be sufficient for himself, his patrons, advocates, praetors, and judges. This certainly was infinite: it was possible to satisfy the desire of the most avaricious human being, but not that of a most harmful victory. “O courts worthy of commemoration, and illustrious reputation of our order, when the allies of the Roman people do not wish courts concerning extorted money to exist, although they were established by our ancestors for the sake of the allies!” Thus a Roman consul spoke concerning his own commonwealth.
The aristocratic form of the commonwealth was the cause of so great a wickedness and shamefulness. For since the best men were joined to one another by kinship or affinity, were entangled in the same faults or desired indulgence for themselves from others, lived avariciously, needily, and prodigally, and finally conciliated the favor of powerful men to themselves through shameful deeds and flatteries, they destroyed the people, provinces, commonwealth, and at last themselves.
For the world, which could satisfy the desire of even any single most avaricious man, did not suffice for so many thousands, especially when new robbers were sent every year. Having squandered their patrimonies, they judged that by the vote of the people they had obtained the right to harass and despoil the provinces. Justice is therefore difficult under the rule of the best men and of the people; it is preserved more readily even under an inequitable king. One man also restrains desire more readily, either by abundance or disgust, than many.
§ 14. The sixth reason. Although the complaint concerning the rarity of good princes is ancient, and is circulated either through the malice of the common crowd, which willingly disparages the magistrate, or because it is true—namely, that all good princes could be inscribed upon one ring—I nevertheless find more commonwealths administered rightly by kings and monarchs than by the best men or the people. For one man tenacious of what is right and honorable is found more readily than many.
Cicero censures Cato’s imprudence because he expressed his opinion amid the dregs of Romulus as though he were in Plato’s commonwealth. Who, therefore, was a good man in so vast a senate house, in so numerous an army of conscript fathers? Shall I indeed number Cato himself among the good? I do so with the agreement of Tullius, who in his letters complains that Cato had been malicious toward him. But he is not a good senator who is malicious toward the father of the fatherland.
Since there is, therefore, a great rarity of good, constant, and prudent men, it is necessary that, where many are employed in magistracies, those commonwealths should generally be administered by wicked, fickle, and foolish men. This is all the more so because the wicked open a path for themselves through canvassing, largess, fraud, audacity, and violence; the good rely upon virtue alone, which nevertheless is frequently oppressed by slanders and is often hateful. But the multitude of distinguished men which we see today in certain commonwealths is the work of the Christian faith, not of political discipline.
§ 15. The seventh reason is drawn from the nature of the people, who are accustomed to fear a king but envy the best men. For a king, as though a god, seems to have been placed above envy; the best men seem to be citizens and, in their own manner, equals. But spite blazes among “ὁμοίους” and equals. Hence a king is accustomed to be better disposed toward the people than the best men; and, conversely, histories relate the marvelous affections of peoples toward their kings. With how great a joy do they receive them? With what weeping do they accompany them when dead? Evidently they trust the kings but regard the best men with suspicion.
For it belongs to the king to protect the people, and he is generally formidable only to the powerful. “Βούλεται δὲ,” says Aristotle, “ὁ βασιλεὺς εἶναι φύλαξ, ὅπως οἱ μὲν κεκτημένοι τὰς οὐσίας μηδὲν ἄδικον πάσχωσιν, ὁ δὲ δῆμος μὴ ὑβρίζηται μηδέν. The office of a king is to take care that the wealthy suffer no injury and that the people are subjected to outrage in no matter.” Princes generally do this; but in another kind of commonwealth the rich aspire to immeasurable resources through the harassment and outrages of those of small means. Since, however, that city in which ruler and subjects are joined by mutual charity and concord is firmer and better than one in which subjects hate the magistrates, there can be no doubt that monarchy ought to be preferred to the other forms of commonwealth.
§ 16. The eighth reason. Nothing is more shameful or destructive in a commonwealth than contempt for magistrates. It occurs most rarely in a kingdom and always in popular government and the government of magnates. If a prince is fickle, foolish, poor, fearful, or lustful, he is accustomed to be despised. For these vices are accustomed to excite the biting sayings and disdain of peoples more than hatred. Yet, because the audacity of wicked and seditious men is strengthened by these things, that prince is readily overthrown. For the man commands on sufferance whom good men pity and wicked men despise.
But although all these things are present in a prince or monarchy, they are nevertheless not readily recognized or assessed. He can perform many things by himself and many through his servants spiritedly, prudently, magnificently, and chastely, which conciliate a reputation for honor and the stability of the kingdom.
Alexander the Great, a most shameful man, attained great praise by guarding the wife and daughters of Darius chastely. Claudius, fickle, foolish, and timid, was protected for a long time by the magnitude of the sovereignty; for men revere so great a power even in the most contemptible little man. Thus at the beginning of his reign he was certainly most pleasing. But if those disgraces are detected among the best men, they are published without fear by rivals, received most greedily by peoples, and, since there is nothing by which authority may be retained, they are held in the greatest contempt among everyone. This occurs even more in a democracy, when vices born amid domestic filth seize the helm of the commonwealth and display mimes and buffoons rather than rulers to the peoples.
§ 17. The ninth reason. Monarchy possesses united forces; other kinds of commonwealth possess dispersed forces. Themistocles envies Aristides and is tormented by his trophies. Pompey is burned by Caesar’s glory and would destroy his father-in-law even with the loss of the Gauls. Cato barks at Scipio, and Hanno at Hannibal; they prefer to lack victory rather than to see a fellow citizen glorious through victory.
Hence a commonwealth of the best men or of the people is never “αὐτάρκης” and sufficient to itself. Rather, when it is necessary to exercise power, when it is assailed by a disturbance or war, they designate a monarch. In war they place one commander in charge; in danger a consul names a dictator. Let us therefore conclude this part and establish with ourselves: there ought to be one God in the world, one sun, and one leader in one commonwealth. But now let us hear those who think otherwise.