§ 1. Not only the altercations of those who dispute, but also the judgments and practices of the greatest empires, render the question difficult. The Germans who possess the imperial government, the Poles, and others elect kings; the Spaniards, French, English, and most others possess hereditary lords. Whose institutions and laws, therefore, are to be approved? Is it fitting for me to judge concerning the ancient compacts and customs of kingdoms?
It is indeed fitting, if the purpose is to give counsel to the state. Nor will the heirs of kingdoms bear it ill if I prefer elected rulers, because they are friends of elected rulers; nor will elected rulers grow angry with one who praises hereditary kingdoms, since they too possess many hereditary things. For if either the emperor or the electors of emperors prefer all things to be established by free votes, let them themselves yield their inheritances and dominions and commit them to the decision of election. I shall therefore explain my judgment clearly and briefly in a few propositions.
§ 2. Proposition 1. A polity, or popular government, necessarily requires election. For since access to honors ought to lie open to all citizens, while those who can command must be few, a distinction must be made by election.
§ 3. Proposition 2. In an aristocracy also, election is necessary. For there are more of the best men than can be in magistracy. But if some obtained dignities by right of birth, the others would be excluded, and the state would degenerate into the domination of a few.
§ 4. Proposition 3. In general, I prefer hereditary succession to election.
The reasons which induce me to judge thus are various, and I bring them forward into the midst for everyone to consider.
§ 5. The first reason. In antiquity kings were born, not elected; but that which is most ancient in the state ought not readily to be changed. For the dignity of kings is most similar to paternal power. Those who were more prudent among the fathers governed the family; next, the firstborn were lords of their brothers, and the sons of their mother bowed before them. Isaac, his eyes growing dim but obeying the divine oracle, gave Jacob dominion over the brother who had preceded the supplanter by a brief interval of birth. “I have established him as your lord,” he says, “and I have subjected all his brothers to his servitude.” Genesis 27:37.
Concerning Reuben also he says the same: “First in gifts, greater in command,” because he too was the firstborn, but had fallen from his dignity through incest. Therefore the heads of families held that position by the valuation of primogeniture, not by the election of their brothers; and the first kingdoms were nothing other than great families. To Ishmael also were born twelve princes of their tribes, Genesis 25:1. At the same time also the Horites on Mount Seir entered upon their leadership by inheritance, as is established from Genesis 36:20.
Indeed, that custom remained afterward. For the king of the Moabites seized his firstborn son, who was to reign in his place, and offered him as a holocaust upon the wall. The kingdoms of the Assyrians, Chaldaeans, Egyptians, Medes, and Persians were also hereditary. By divine gift also princes were born from the stock of David; and among the Israelites, even in the schism itself, the sons of tyrants were the successors of their fathers unless, when another tyrant pressed upon them, they were slaughtered before obtaining government.
Nevertheless, the election of kings was not unknown even in that age. For in Genesis 36, from verse 31, eight kings of the Idumaeans are enumerated, none of whom obtained the kingdom by inheritance. Nor is it credible that they all obtained the kingdom of a warlike nation by adoption or tyranny; therefore they were elected.
§ 6. Therefore those prudent and great men ought not to be heard who maintain that election is more ancient and that in those heroic times kings were made in scarcely any other way, principates in peace or war being assigned by the prerogative of valor or strength. For they say that it belongs to nature to subject inferior things to superior ones. Hence Brazilians, when brought to Charles IX, king of France, marveled that strong and tall Swiss obeyed a small and tender king.
Those great men err. For in the heroic ages we see that those who fought at Troy were kings and sons of kings; most even referred their descent to the gods. If the matter is to be determined by fables and demigods are to be adduced, I shall collect in Egypt, through fifteen dynasties and 3,317 years, many kings, and the first eight as heirs by a continuous succession of children. Afterward, women also were admitted to the succession by a law enacted.
But I pass over those things. In the time of Moses, Dardanus reigned at Troy; his descendants were Erichthonius, Tros, Ilus, Laomedon, and Priam. Who would deny that the government of Troy was hereditary? The kings of Tyre were Abibaal, Hiram, then Astarthus, Asserimus, and Pheles. The kings of Mycenae were Pelops, Eurystheus, Atreus, Agamemnon, Orestes, and Penthilus, the last of the Pelopidae.
Of the kings of the Athenians, Erichthonius, son of Vulcan, founded a family which held government for 285 years. Then, after the government had been transferred to Melanthus, it had fourteen kings, so that a son always succeeded his father. In the Spartan kingdom there was greater variation, heirs being driven out by tyrants; but many things show that it too was held by succession. It was not only hereditary but even dotal, for Menelaus, son of Atreus, received Sparta as dowry after marrying Helen. Afterward, the kingdom of the Heraclidae endured through an uninterrupted series of descendants longer than any other.
Among the Corinthians also in the age of the heroes, kings were born: Sisyphus, son of Aeolus, Ornition, Thoas, Damophon, Propodas, and Doridas; the Sisyphidae reigned for 259 years. I refrain from speaking of Janus, Saturn, Faunus, Picus, and Latinus, kings of the Aborigines, lest I seem to wish to establish the matter even by fables. But that ancient opinion of certain men who affirm that kings were formerly made by election and that the kingdom was granted by the prerogative of valor or strength must be plucked out. Certainly the kings themselves would deny it and would say, “I am a son of wise men, a son of ancient kings.” Nevertheless, I do not abolish every election: namely, if they should begin a new kingdom, if the royal stock should fail, or if an heir should be judged unfit for the kingdom.
§ 7. The second reason is taken from election itself, which is exposed to tumult and the new machinations of seditious persons. For transitions of affairs are opportune for evil attempts. And since the future outcome is uncertain, the spirits of many are raised and the hopes of many are inflated—all of which are restrained if the successor is not uncertain. The canvassings of the Roman assemblies, when a consul—indeed, an aedile—was elected, were turbulent and attended with blood, although that magistracy was annual. What if they had contended for a perpetual dictatorship?
How greatly dominions are endangered at the time of a new election is demonstrated by the very anxiety of human beings, and so many examples have taught it down to the present. And it is assuredly wretched that not only in a political
magistracy but also in ecclesiastical offices and among sacred men an election sometimes cannot be conducted without a great wound to the Church and state. But no one acquainted with history is ignorant of what disasters election introduced into the Roman Empire. Nero rages at Rome; Galba brings savagery and avarice from Spain, Vitellius from Gaul, and Otho sets out from the city. They were equal in strength and vices; meanwhile Vespasian is elected in another region. If you regard the times of the Antonines and Gallienus, thirty tyrants invaded the government simultaneously. For while fortune permits and while it is lawful to hope, anyone attempts what can be done and judges that he has attained what he dreamed while awake.
§ 8. The third reason. The foundation and safety of government is the authority of the ruler; contempt is its ultimate destruction. But the dignity and authority of those who are born from kings is greater. He who owes the kingdom to the vote—that is, to the benefaction—of others is compelled to attribute many things and indulge many things to the authors of his majesty, and to dissemble concerning their offenses lest he seem ungrateful. Electors also provide for their liberty by many compacts and guarantees, so that they attribute as little power as possible over themselves to the man whom they have determined to elect. As much as they diminish from his power and arrogate to their own privileges, so much they detract from his authority; for authority is unstable when it is not supported by solid power.
Next, they do not value highly a man whom they have at some time seen as an equal and at another time as inferior to themselves. The Romans despised Tiberius, whom they had seen as an exile and cloaked after the custom of petty Greeks; from this arose suspicions, slanders, conspiracies, and the butchery of nobles. Galba was held in contempt as a man who previously, burdened by debt, had scarcely been able to remain at Rome; therefore the briefest government and a most shameful end befell him.
The soldiers killed Aelius Pertinax, Macrinus, Maximinus, Balbinus, Pupienus, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus with his sons almost in mockery, just as they had created them emperors. Nor was there greater reverence toward them than toward fellow soldiers who had deserved the cudgel. For once the insignia and name of Augustus had been taken away, since they excelled by no distinction or prerogative of virtue or lineage, the soldiers slaughtered most of them with exquisite punishments as the lowest and most guilty of human beings. From equality, therefore, comes contempt; from contempt, when something is commanded rather harshly, come indignation and the communication of one’s grief with others; from these come plots and the destruction of one party, and more often of both.
Third, it is necessary that a king, unless he possesses extraordinary strength of spirit, should command timidly, not without cause fearing the rivalries and enmities of powerful and audacious human beings. For when he weighs the brevity of life and the variability of fortune, he will not readily offend, however deserving they may be, those whom he suspects will someday command. He will not judge it wise to leave many enemies to his family, sons, and wife. From this follows the great power of magnates, their greater impunity, the oppression and outrages of inferiors, the slowness of judgments, the delay of causes, and the difficult execution of pronounced sentences and adjudged matters.
I am not ignorant that by the providence of kings who possess a heroic spirit and an unstained equity in judging, the wicked attempts of all can be resisted; but I give warning of what follows from the nature of election. Fourth, if the man who has been elected by the votes of the state has sons, who does not see that the father will canvass all those possessing the right to vote on behalf of his sons and do all those things which eloquent and humble candidates are accustomed to do? Cicero judged it most alien to his circumstances to accuse Verres when he was seeking a magistracy, for all the friends of Verres would oppose his candidacy. And it is necessary that a prince who designates his son as his successor by the votes of others should often lay aside his majesty and conduct himself as equal or inferior to his subjects.
But if his spirit is insufficiently firm and he thinks himself a father more than a king, he will often concede many things and dissemble many things so that he may prepare voters for his son. Many things will also be requested from the father through the son who is a candidate for the kingdom, things which custom, reason, and equity will prohibit him from furnishing; and nothing will readily be denied to the person from whom the kingdom is sought. Nor will kings be lacking who, by giving and indulging beyond due measure, take greater account of their own blood than of justice.
§ 9. The fourth reason. What if the condition of that kingdom in which the king fears that he will be the last of his family is not even safe? Nature has so arranged it that parents are no less industrious and keen in procuring honors for their children than for themselves. Ptolemy, king of Egypt, after he had established his son as king in his own place, stood among his bodyguards as his guardian; to such a degree did he judge that to be the father of a king was something more august than to be a king.
Severus slaughtered, for the sake of his sons, all whom he suspected would attempt some novelty. Gordian, hearing that his son had been killed by the Maximini, was overcome by grief and strangled himself with a noose. Nero’s mother judged that her son’s government was well purchased by her own life; for when seers had foretold that, if he should rule, he would kill his mother, she said: “Let him kill me, provided that he rules.” Demetrius yielded his wife to his enamored son, with a signal outrage to the three. Since, therefore, so great is the force of human affection and blood, they ought certainly to fear that a father will strive by force, fraud, and blandishments to bring it about that his son cannot be barred from the kingdom. Nor do I see why this should be difficult, especially if the son shows himself fit for the kingdom and the father draws part of the nobles to his judgment.
§ 10. The fifth reason. If you regard the advantage of the kingdom, succession possesses many advantages in which election is deficient. He who hopes that he will leave heirs of his majesty cares for all the business of the kingdom as his own, provides for his heirs, and takes thought for the treasury, arsenals, and safety of the citizens. Thus David arranged all things carefully for Solomon.
But he who at his death will end government in his family has no great cause to provide for the protection and dignity of the kingdom far into the future, since it will soon be in the hands of others and perhaps even of enemies. Rather, he will direct every thought toward furnishing defenses and security for his children and family, to whom he leaves envy and many enmities, so that, once private persons, they do not suffer not only the mockeries and commands of the new king but also a shortage of necessary things.
§ 11. The sixth reason. The officials and ministers of those who have been elected are less faithful and in some measure more rapacious. For since they are not ignorant that their functions too will die with the life of the prince, they hasten toward resources and honors. For after the principate has been changed and transferred into another family, the old ministers are either dismissed or placed after others, because each man rightly judges that his own people, whom he possessed as faithful men and friends when he was a private person, ought also to enjoy the honors of their lord.
§ 12. The seventh reason. Affection toward a hereditary prince is greater, because from him not only, but also from his ancestors and descendants, every private person expects benefits. They are accustomed to disdain new rulers before they begin to love them; and after all their benefits
the rulers attain much if a successor is awaited civilly, together with the honor of another family.
§ 13. The eighth reason. A single reason is given for election: that it is possible to select from thousands the best and most prudent man, the most distinguished when fortitude and justice are considered. But this matter failed so often formerly—and now also, I fear—that it is rarely secure. I do not wish to blame the voters, as though they had elected wicked men. Human weakness, sudden felicity, arrogance made more insolent by emergence from slender circumstances, suspicions, opinion, contempt, and fear of a successor can cast even a well-founded mind out of its mind.
If they did not know crimes, the kingdom taught them; a flatterer instilled them; a minister induced them. Kingdoms made many good men wicked; few were made better in a kingdom. The reason why voters chose wrongly was love, hatred, and hope. These passions have been brought into every assembly and will not readily go into exile in the future.
Alexius, about to die without an heir, deliberated concerning a successor. Accordingly, different men were named by different persons in various ways, but all named those who would be opportune and useful to themselves. No one possessed any care or thought concerning the election of the man who would command best and according to the public advantage. Choniates, On Alexius.
The excuse for the Neronian election among the Romans, in Tacitus, book 13, is more honorable: “Others, on the contrary, said that it had turned out better than if Claudius, feeble from old age and sloth, were called to the labors of military service and were to obey servile commands. Burrus and Seneca, nevertheless, were known by experience of many affairs; and how much strength did the emperor lack, since at the eighteenth year of his age Cn. Pompey, and at the nineteenth Caesar Octavianus, had sustained civil wars? Most affairs in supreme fortune are conducted by auspices and counsels rather than by weapons and hands. He would plainly give proof whether he employed honorable friends or otherwise; whether, after envy had been removed, he selected an outstanding commander, rather than a destructive one supported by favor through canvassing.”
This excuse concerning Nero is more modest and rests upon some hope. Otherwise, scarcely any successions designated by the vote of the senate or soldiers were praiseworthy. Claudius was a blockhead and a monster, and lively only when he ordered men to be led away unheard. Nero was chosen by the senate; Galba, Otho, and Vitellius by the soldier. Titus succeeded his father and was accordingly among the good princes. Nerva lacked strength and age, not goodness. Trajan was both most shameful and cruel; I do not intend to collect the monsters that followed. Charlemagne and his progeny were better. Never were there so many good emperors in one series as from Albert II, from one family, down to Matthias I, who now sustains the honor of the empire.
Therefore those who approve election stir up great contests in a state. They render all things venal when morals are corrupt. Julian—not that apostate, but the one who preceded Severus—openly promised money to the praetorians if he were elected. Otho professed that he would possess only that which the soldiers had left him. Severus ordered the soldier to be cultivated and advised that the others be despised. The soldiers raised to government only each most loathsome man and one under whom they might conduct themselves more licentiously.
I know that Probus is excepted, whom they proclaimed prince; but soon, offended by his probity, they killed him. Nevertheless, they marked their own crime and the emperor’s integrity with an epitaph: “Here lies Probus the emperor, truly probus.” They therefore confessed that they were wicked men who had removed Probus.
What was more turbulent than the elected kings of the Goths in Italy—Athalaric, Theodahad, Witiges, Ildibad, Alaric, Totila, and Teia? All were wicked, badly elected, reigned badly, and perished badly, killed by their own people; captivity freed Witiges from that disgrace. The Goths who were in Spain possessed kings far worse than the Italian ones. Therefore I appeal to examples; the multitude of examples and the antiquity of ages have taught that the best men are not always carried up to the royal throne by election.
§ 14. I am not ignorant that various things are objected to me. First: The sons of kings, educated amid delights and flatteries, are inflated by pride, broken by pleasures, and do not know how to estimate the necessities of their subjects. Second: They readily burst forth into tyranny and regard the kingdom as though it were a patrimony, their subjects as though they were slaves. Third: In election a field is opened to virtue, and many will endeavor to prove themselves to their fatherland if they see that access to supreme government lies open to good men. Fourth: Succession took its beginning from flattery and evil arts. Fifth: Through succession it is often necessary to possess as prince a boy, a woman, a fool, an avaricious man, or a cruel man. A good man can certainly be elected; this lies within the power of the electors. Sixth: It is equitable that one who will command all should be elected from all. Seventh: Poland, a most flourishing kingdom, rich in men and virtues and warlike, creates its king by election, and quite often a foreigner. The imperial government of Germany is given by the vote of electors and is nevertheless governed by the best laws.
Eighth: Hereditary successions have possessed their own certain and great vices. For the sons of heroes have generally been banes. Solomon departs from the piety of David, and Rehoboam from the wisdom of Solomon. Jehoshaphat, a good king, intervenes; but Jehoram, Athaliah, Joash, and Amaziah were impious. Jotham fears God, but Ahaz made a secession from God and religion. Hezekiah, a most holy king, possessed in Manasseh and Amon a most wicked son and grandson. The fervent piety of Josiah is praised, but his degenerate posterity paid for its crimes by destruction and captivity.
Finally, nowhere is labor expended with so much zeal in procuring succession without sedition as in the monarchy of the Turks, but nowhere is it more unhappy. To recount a few things: Bayezid II slaughters the sons of his fleeing brother; the sons of Bayezid make war concerning the succession while their father is alive; at last Selim, as victor, kills his absent father, and his suppliant brothers and their sons in his own sight, by the noose. That tyranny is never reached without the slaughter of blood relatives. Therefore election seems to be better than hereditary succession.
§ 15. These things have been answered in part, but I shall explain the matter more clearly.
Proposition 4. Election rather than succession is suitable to certain peoples, not because the former is to be preferred to the latter simply, but either by reason of their customs and regions or by reason of the parts of the state constituted long ago, which it belongs neither to a good man nor, therefore, to a political writer to change.
Accordingly, to elect some one king in a very broad kingdom is not unsuitable and does not possess all those disadvantages which I recalled above, if that kingdom embraces many princes and, as it were, lesser kings, as we see occurs by custom in Germany. For when this empire was first transferred into Germany, it did not seem good to bind it to some one house, but that it should be a benefit common to all. Nevertheless, the disadvantages of election down to the present have been very numerous, as have discords and wars; but the small number of electors removes very many dissensions. For there are six, and if the number of votes is equal, the king of Bohemia is added as arbiter and elector. Of these, three are archbishops, who cannot aspire to the kingdom; four are secular electors, who can themselves be elected, but there is always someone among them who cannot be elected on account of age or other causes.
Thus the election is by no means turbulent, nor are the other princes, although powerful, indignant that they are excluded from the votes; rather, they acquiesce in the laws. Next, the election of the Germans is joined with succession, not by a prescribed right or custom
which possesses the force of law, but by the prudence, moderation, and affection toward the fatherland of the princes who are electors. Let us recount the monuments of antiquity: we shall find almost no emperor’s son passed over in a peaceful election, although they were adolescents; nor do I think that it will readily happen in the future that supreme government will be conferred upon anyone other than the emperor’s son.
Formerly Augustus, Tiberius, and others endeavored through adoptions of stepsons or grandsons to retain the diadem within their own family. Sons of emperors commanded: Titus, Domitian, Commodus, Caracalla, Heliogabalus, Gallienus, Carinus, Numerianus, Constans, Constantine, Constantius, Gratian, Valentinian the Younger, Arcadius, Honorius, Theodosius the Younger; then the progeny of Charlemagne and of the Ottos, a few others, and now that of the Austrians. Thus in the Roman Empire election was mingled with succession. In this manner the disadvantages of the fourth and fifth reasons were generally absent. For if the emperor possesses sons—or indeed if he is without children, provided that he possesses brothers worthy of government—he seems certain concerning the succession. Thus he will neither diminish the vigor of the government through anxiety nor neglect the affairs of the empire as though they were to be alienated from his family.
§ 16. The Germans also remove contempt for the ruler, for they generally elect the most powerful princes and those of the most illustrious name, such as Maximilian I, duke of Austria, and so forth; Charles V, the most powerful monarch of all Europe; Ferdinand; Maximilian II; Rudolf; and Matthias. For it is established that those princes were most noble and powerful.
Since, therefore, the order of election is accurately observed, since succession—although without prejudice to the freest election—is joined to election, and since great princes are elected, they avoid many detriments of election and attain many of its advantages. But this must be attributed to the gravity of the nation, its sincerity, love of peace, and zeal for the fatherland, especially because the princes of Germany, although most tenacious of their own right and dignity, nevertheless are not desirous or ambitious for what belongs to another. Accordingly, we owe peace and concord to their customs, not to the nature of election or the form of the state.
Look upon the customs of the Turks: see the mutual slanders and slaughters of brothers; see decrepit fathers slaughter sons in their sight and these fathers be removed by those sons with poison. How great would be the discords, what corruptions of commanders and soldiers, if election should fall amid those customs? Let the moderation of the most august Austrian house be an example for us. The Emperor Matthias lives; his brother Maximilian lives, and another brother, Albert, prince of the Belgian provinces. The emperor has now yielded the Kingdom of Bohemia, Silesia, and Moravia to Ferdinand and will soon yield the remaining territories. Maximilian and Albert, whose right and succession is the nearest, assist that cession. Charles V himself and Philip, king of the Spains, had formerly yielded those regions to Ferdinand.
Compare the desires, frauds, and slaughters of the ancients with these things. See Romulus and Remus, whose kingdom was one hearth and merely the hope of a rustic city, and nevertheless:
“The first walls were drenched with a brother’s blood.”
But although the moderation, prudence, and gravity of the German princes is such, they nevertheless do not bring it about that during the time of an interregnum all are not in great fear lest most grievous wars someday wear down the fatherland. Recall to memory the Henrys, Louises, Fredericks, and Alberts; you will see:
“Standards, equal eagles, and javelins threatening javelins.”
Nicetas, a foreign writer concerning us, judges thus: “O how much worse is the vote and election of many than that of one! You, illustrious Roman Empire and majesty to be adored by nations, what tyrants have you endured? What sort of lovers have sought you? To whom, prostrate, have you given access to yourself? What sort of men have you adorned with crown, diadem, and purple garment?”
But let complaints cease. Let us pay vows to God for those princes and furnish such morals as deserve and bear good princes.
The Poles also have approved election, but in truth they too have often suffered enormous losses: they were deserted by Henry, king of France, and at one time elected two men through contrary partisan zeal. But in this part also the Poles conduct the matter moderately and prudently. First, they never excluded or passed over an heir and did not transfer the kingdom into another family, except when they deposed Ladislaus and substituted Wenceslaus of Bohemia in his place; nevertheless, they afterward restored Ladislaus.
They took account of royal daughters no less prudently than humanely. Hedwig, from the stock of the extinct royal family, was placed in marriage with Jagiello, who was prince of Lithuania, so that at least in this manner they might display their affection toward their kings; that deed occurred in the year 1380. They did not withdraw from the Jagiellonian family so long as heirs from it lived. When they had died, this also was arranged: that Anna, who remained from the royal stock, should marry Stephen, a distinguished hero. The fact that Sigismund III was born from Catherine, Anna’s sister, rendered him commendable to them.
Therefore they prudently mingle election with succession, so that although the votes of the electors are entirely free, nevertheless so great an affection toward the children of their kings remains as if the kingdom were hereditary. By this one thing they protect the peace, tranquility, honor, and majesty of the kingdom. Nevertheless, they have not lacked enormous disadvantages. For since the nobility is magnanimous and warlike, if they were willing to endure a hereditary king, one to whom the kingdom belonged as his own, they could with easier business than any nation occupy all territories as far as the Euxine Sea and invade either the territory of Constantinople after crossing the Danube or Asia after crossing the Black Sea. The Turk assuredly fears this; and therefore he dissembles, as much as he can, the losses inflicted by the Poles and is content to purchase peace in whatever manner.
§ 17. I have discoursed concerning election and succession; now those who prefer the liberty of election must be answered. I shall not refute them in such a manner that I do not concede that there are many advantages of election in which succession is deficient, but in such a manner that, when all the advantages and detriments have been collected into one, I show that there are more detriments in election and more advantages in succession.
First, the arrogance and delights of kings who were born and educated in the purple are objected without cause. The pride of those who came to the kingdom from a private fortune was more intolerable. For a sudden and unaccustomed raising on high makes men swollen. And just as the eyes of those around whom a great light is suddenly poured when they rise from sleep grow dim, so private persons, stunned by the novel splendor of unexperienced majesty, forget themselves. Indeed, nature is so arranged that solar rays falling upon an opposing face drive out memory, especially from those accustomed to shade.
Thus Aristotle also, no poor teacher of kings, admonishes us in book 5 of the Politics, chapter 8: “The common method of preserving every state is to adorn no one beyond measure, but rather to attribute honors that are small and of long duration than great ones swiftly; for through such things men become worse. And not all can bear prosperous fortune.” Certainly not all—indeed, few. Otho was the best servant before government and the worst master, as was said of him in a proverb that circulated.
On the contrary, an emperor spoke prudently when, having been carried from command to the imperial summit by the soldiers’ impetus, he cried: “O fellow soldiers, you have lost a good commander, nor yet have you made a good emperor.” I do not deny that there is danger in the children of kings. “Most men command their own desires less amid the obsequious favors of fortune.” Curtius, book 8. Nevertheless, because tender dispositions are most readily incited toward love of the honorable and right, and because the natural quality of a human being is such that he is not born good or evil from the stock itself—I speak of that evil which is outside the inherited guilt of origin—but receives a disposition inclined toward each, all can be rendered better by care, work, and unwearied labor, even contrary to the inclination of nature.
§ 18. Nevertheless, in our age the children of princes have always possessed the least license. Formerly that manner prevailed, when their tender age was compelled to behold blood not only in the amphitheater but even at a banquet, and when, without their knowing it, things harmful to every kind of morals were displayed upon the stage. Now princes generally select those who are to instruct their children with almost as much judgment as many states do not employ even in placing a prince over themselves. Meanwhile they are taught to moderate their passions, love justice, pity suppliants, and benefit all. But education must be treated in another place. I come to the second objection, which concerns the danger of tyranny.
I said above that tyranny is to be feared in every kind of government. I also added this: an elected prince possesses more cause to change the principate into tyranny than does one who commands by hereditary right. For the former shears and flays more greedily because he is soon to depart; the latter awaits the produce of the following year also and plants pear trees for his grandchildren to pluck.
§ 19. But third, they say, by election a field is opened to virtues. First, how many can hope? Out of one hundred myriads scarcely one commands. Next, what kind of virtue is it to hope for a kingdom as the reward of virtue? That hope will make dissemblers and candidates for the purple, not cultivators of true piety and justice. But what if the worst men are selected after the good have been passed over?
I do not speak of the Ethiopians, who placed over themselves as king a man selected from bodily beauty, a fallacious and fleeting thing; nor of others who estimated that dignity by the mass and magnitude of bodies. For it is easy to ridicule them, as also the Auruncans, peoples of Peru, who placed a heavy log upon the shoulders of several men: the one who had carried it longer before collapsing was proclaimed king. Nevertheless, we who mock barbarians discern these and fouler things among the most cultivated peoples.
The Quirites elected Romulus, a fratricide; most of them were robbers and men who had escaped punishment by the asylum. After his death, they summoned Numa, a magician and impostor, from the Sabines. In Tullus Hostilius there was an appearance of fortitude, but the deeds of a robber, since without any right he stirred men at rest to arms. Ancus, the most ambitious of the men of his time, received the kingdom by artifice. Priscus also imposed upon a rustic people through Greek arts. Servius, truly a slave, obtained the kingdom by fraud; Tarquin killed him.
There were seven kings. Romulus was changed into a tyrant and torn apart by the senate. Numa occupied the government by a simulation of piety. Tullus administered it tyrannically. Priscus thrust himself in by deceptions; Servius by the fraud of a woman; Tarquin by the slaughter of his father-in-law. Behold, consider these things and give virtue hope of honor. See Claudius, lifted into the camp by the shout of one soldier, command; see Otho purchase the government of the world for a few coins; one man selects Vitellius, and the stupor of the soldiers follows. Probus, while he is commended to the army so that they may name a brave, clement, and upright emperor, becomes Augustus through the prerogative of his name. Regillianus from his name, Proculus from a game, are imposed upon the world as robbers rather than princes.
§ 20. What is said in the fourth place—that succession arose from flattery—I refuted above when I showed that it is most ancient and was approved even among the people of God. But often a boy unequal to so great a burden will put on the purple. That will be rare; nevertheless, Solomon also was a boy and possessed adult brothers when all Israel marveled at his prudence. The boyhood of kings can be ruled by the prudence of mothers, guardians, and kinsmen. Joash also, as a boy, did what was right before the Lord all the days in which Jehoiada the priest taught him. The five-year period of Nero himself, with Seneca and Burrus as guides, surpassed many good princes. Boys too can command, but with the support and guidance of old men.
Theodosius the Younger was a boy, but what prince equaled the government of the boy? I dread the danger of the age, and I hear God saying: “Woe to the land whose king is a boy.” But I join Benaiahs, Jehoiadas, Senecas, Burruses, and Pulcherias for supporting weakness. For this reason Scripture does not reject tender age simply, but measures a land’s unhappiness by two things: namely, if its king is a boy and its princes eat in the morning. For if you place beside youth, which is inclined toward amusements and delights, voluptuous princes and artificers of enticements and banquets, truly not even safety itself could preserve that land.
§ 21. The seventh objection was that it is equitable that one who will command all should be elected by all. This is plebeian and, as Aristotle is accustomed to speak, ἀρχαῖον, “primitive.” It has been taken from tribunician declamations; now it has been refuted by laws, practice, reason, and the advantage of the state itself. It is certainly established that there is no people which as a whole elects its prince, except perhaps among Peruvians, cannibals, or wandering Ethiopians; nor did that ὀχλοχειρία, or “mob election,” ever turn out rightly for them.
I pronounce that these things are generally so, for I have never judged that the best princes selected from the common people should be placed after Sardanapaluses and purple-born plagues. Otherwise, there is in nobility a certain disposition toward great things and, if it is polished, honorable ones. They see the images of their ancestors in the archive so that they may imitate them. Father Aeneas and maternal uncle Hector are a great incitement toward virtue. Euripides says nobly:
“οὐκ ἔστι τοῦδε παισὶ κάλλιον γέρας,”
“ἢ πατρὸς ἐσθλοῦ κἀγαθοῦ πεφυκέναι.”
“No distinction is more beautiful for children than to have sprung from a good and honorable father.”
But only so that the progeny is no less of virtue than of blood; otherwise, the greatness of the father does not bring the son forward but overwhelms him. What Spartianus says is false and odious, but received by the inclined ears of the common crowd: “Almost none of the great men left behind a son who was excellent and useful; most left such sons that it would have been better to depart without posterity.” It is false. Many left good sons and many middling ones; many corrupted them by error and many by neglect of education; some corrupted themselves willingly.
Heliogabalus was a monster of government. “If I have an heir,” he says, “I shall give him a guardian who will compel him to do those things which I myself have done and which I am about to do.” Therefore it is frequently the fault of fathers; often the depravity of sons is obstinate against every labor of education.
§ 22. Those who leave kings free judgment in selecting a successor to the kingdom from among their children fill all things with slaughters. Plutarch writes concerning Pyrrhus, and others concerning others. No firstborn will permit himself to be excluded; and if he is excluded, avengers will not be lacking. The case of Pertinax is different, who wished election to be seen as reserved to the senate.
Hereditary succession is not a benefit of the dead man, but a prerogative of the family. Thus Philip pressed his right in Portugal; thus the Britons rendered Edward’s testament void.
A firstborn son born while his father was not yet king is preferred to the others, although they were born in the purple. Thus the jurists hand down by consensus. Ulpian, in law 5, On Senators. For the rationale is the same.