§ 1. The military Tribunes were altogether equal to the Consuls and were therefore called military Tribunes with consular power. The Decemvirs for writing the laws employed the same absolute power, although a greater power was given to them by which they might compose and enact laws. But their power was abolished in a tumult because, although they promulgated the most equitable laws, they treated the citizens most injuriously and judged most unjustly.
§ 2. The Prefect of the City was nearly equal to, and afterward superior to, the Consuls. It was an ancient Roman Magistracy and instituted by the Kings themselves, for when the Kings departed for war they appointed a Prefect for the city. This afterward continued, except that under the Emperors their power was greater and they discharged their office even when Augustus was present. Tacitus, Annals, book 6: “At the same time Lucius Piso the Pontiff—something rare amid such distinction—died by fate. He was voluntarily the author of no servile opinion and, whenever necessity pressed, wisely moderate. I have related that his father was a Censor; his age advanced to his eightieth year. He had earned triumphal distinction in Thrace. But his chief glory came from this: that, as the recently appointed Prefect of the City, he wonderfully moderated a continuous power, made more burdensome by the insolence of obedience. For formerly, when the Kings, and soon afterward the Magistrates, departed from home, lest the city be without government, a man was chosen for a time to administer justice and govern the subjects. They say that Denter Romulius was appointed by Romulus, then Numa Marcius by Tullus Hostilius, and Spurius Lucretius by Tarquin the Proud. Afterward the Consuls gave the commission; and its image remains whenever, because of the Latin Festival, a man is appointed to assume the consular function.
“But during the civil wars Augustus placed Cilnius Maecenas, of the equestrian order, over all at Rome and throughout Italy. Soon, having gained possession of affairs, because of the size of the people and the slow assistance of the laws, he selected from the Consulars a man to restrain the slaves and that element among the citizens which was turbulent in its audacity unless it feared force. Messalla Corvinus was the first to receive that power and relinquished it within a few days, as though ignorant how to exercise it. Then Taurus Statilius, although of advanced age, bore it excellently. Next Piso, equally approved through twenty years, was celebrated by a public funeral by decree of the Senate.”
§ 3. Under the free state the office of Prefect of the City was not of long duration. For after Praetors were created, command, when the Consuls were absent, was transferred to them. It nevertheless remained when the Consuls had departed from the city because of the Latin Festival. Dionysius, book 4, speaks thus concerning the Latin Festival: “So that this treaty might remain perpetual, Tarquin proposed to assign a common sanctuary of the Romans, Latins, Hernici, and Volsci—of those, that is, who had been received into alliance—at which they might assemble for a market each year, feast together, and enjoy common sacred rites. This pleased all. A place for the gathering was appointed almost in the midst of these nations, a high mountain overlooking Alba; there each year the festival was to be celebrated, and during that interval, because of the sanctity of the place and the law enacted concerning it, all were to abstain from every conflict, sacrifice together to Jupiter Latiaris, and devote themselves to feasts, after it had first been determined how much each people ought to furnish for those rites and how great a portion it ought to receive. Forty-seven peoples participated in that festival and sacrifice; the Romans celebrate it in our own age also and call it the Latin Festival. The peoples participating in the rites contribute to it: some lambs, some cheeses, some a fixed measure of milk, and some milk-cakes. The victim is one bull common to all; of its entrails each people receives its portion. The sacrifice is made on behalf of all, and the Romans preside over it.”
So great was that superstition—or rather renewal of the treaty—that it was regarded as impious and ominous for Consuls to go to their provinces unless they had first proclaimed the Latin Festival on the Alban Mount. Livy frequently notes this. Livy speaks of the repetition of the Latin Festival in books 32, 37, and 41. The officer created because of the Latin Festival was therefore called Prefect of the City; at first he possessed consular power and, before the Consuls, viceregal power.
After the Praetorship was instituted, a Prefect of the City was appointed only for the sake of religion; Tacitus calls this an “image.” Hence arises what Aulus Gellius records in book 15, chapter 8: whether the Prefect of the City for the sake of the Latin Festival possesses the right of transacting with the Fathers or the people. Formerly he possessed it; but when he was the image of a Magistrate, he did not. Indeed, he was an image of a Magistrate precisely because the right of convening the Senate and summoning the people of the Quirites was denied him.
At first the Magistracy lasted a few days, for one day had been instituted by Tarquin; afterward there were more. Dionysius, book 6: “The Senate decreed supplications because the plebs had returned to favor, and added a third day to the Latin Festival, although previously there had been only two: the first consecrated by King Tarquin at the time when he conquered Etruria; the other added by the people when, after the Kings were expelled, it obtained liberty; but the third was then added after the plebs had been reconciled with the Fathers.”
Afterward, when disputes about admitting the plebs to the Consulship had been settled, a fourth day was added. Thus, if you consider the departure and return of the Consuls, you will assign six days to that imaginary Prefect. All rightly censure this care for superstition. But I add this also: although the Consuls were absent for a lawful reason—the renewal of friendship and confirmation of the treaty through the cheerfulness of banquets—a sudden and brief Magistracy was nevertheless not expedient. First, because he was named not by any votes but by the voice of the Consuls; then, because authority could not become established in so brief a government. This reason therefore moved the Romans to entrust the care of governing the city to the Praetors, for theirs was an annual Magistracy and next to the Consul.
Yet an error was made in this: that afterward they bestowed the name of Magistracy upon the Prefect for the sake of the Latin Festival. To number dead images among dignities by the name of Magistracies and fit insignia to them is not only ridiculous but insulting even to true powers. For as soon as the force of some government begins to be diminished, or a spirit unequal to the government begins to arise, men soon possess something with which to compare it and ridicule a dignity necessary to the state in its image. A Dictator for the purpose of instituting the Latin Festival—Quintus Ogulnius with Marcus Laetorius Plancianus as Master of Horse—is no less ridiculous than a Prefect of the City for the same festival.
§ 4. The Prefect of the City was instituted by Augustus on the advice of Maecenas; for it had seemed best to leave honor to the Consuls and take away their power, although it was not proper to leave the city ἄναρχον, “without a ruler.” That new and then ordinary Magistracy was therefore created. The first was either Maecenas, the author of the advice, or Agrippa; then Messalla, Taurus, and Piso. He judged cases to which appeal applied and capital causes; heard the complaints of Patrons, Freedmen, Slaves, and Masters; took cognizance of offenses by tutors and curators; judged monetary and banking affairs; cared for the meat supply; provided for quiet among the people; restrained unlawful associations; and supervised the discipline of spectacles. He possessed the right of excluding a man from Italy and the city and of deporting him to an island.
His dignity was equal to the honor of the Praetorian Prefect and the Masters of Horse and Foot. Code, book 12, title 4: “We regard the Prefect of the City, the Praetorian Prefect, and the Masters of Horse and Foot as possessing undistinguished dignity—to such a degree that, when they have withdrawn to private life, we will that the place of the man who preceded the others at the time of promotion and receipt of his letters patent be superior.”
The Digest, however, book 1, title 12, describes his duties for us. “The Prefecture of the City claimed altogether all crimes for itself: not only those committed within the city, but also those committed outside the city within Italy, as is declared by the epistle of the Divine Severus sent to Fabius Cilo, Prefect of the City.
“He shall hear slaves who have fled to statues, or who, having been purchased with their own money so that they might be manumitted, complain of their Masters.
“He shall also hear needy Patrons complaining of their Freedmen, especially if they say that they are sick and desire to be supported by their Freedmen.
“He has license to relegate and deport a man to the island which the Emperor has assigned.
“At the beginning of the same epistle it is written thus: ‘Since we have entrusted our city to your fidelity, whatever is committed within the city therefore appears to pertain to the Prefect of the City.’
“But if anything is committed within the hundredth milestone, it pertains to the Prefect of the City.
“If it is beyond that milestone, it has passed outside the cognizance of the Prefect of the City.
“If anyone says that his slave committed adultery with his wife, he must be heard before the Prefect of the City.
“He may also hear cases under the interdicts What Is Done by Force or Secretly and Whence by Force.
“Tutors or curators who have conducted themselves badly in a tutelage or curatorship are customarily remitted to the Prefecture of the City when they need a graver punishment than the infamy of being suspected: those who can be proved to have obtained the tutelage by money given, or, after receiving a reward, to have labored so that an unsuitable tutor should be given to someone; or deliberately to have diminished the amount in rendering the account of a patrimony; or by evident fraud to have alienated the ward’s goods.
“What has been said, however—that the Prefect should hear slaves complaining of their Masters—we shall understand thus: not that they accuse their Masters, for this is by no means to be permitted to a slave except for accepted causes; but that they respectfully remonstrate. If they complain of savagery, harshness, hunger by which they are oppressed, or obscenity into which they have been or are being compelled, let them set it forth before the Prefect of the City. This office also was given to the Prefect of the City by the Divine Severus: that he protect slaves from being prostituted.
“Furthermore, the Prefect of the City will have to take care that money-changers conduct themselves uprightly in all their business and refrain from those things which are forbidden.
“When a Patron says that he is held in contempt by a Freedman, or complains that his Freedman is insulting to him, or that he himself, his children, or his wife has suffered abuse from him, or alleges something similar, the Prefect of the City is customarily approached; and according to the measure of the complaint he is accustomed to correct him, threaten him, chastise him with clubs, or proceed farther in his punishment.
“For Freedmen generally must be punished. Certainly, if the Patron proves that he was informed against by a Freedman or that the Freedman conspired against him with enemies, even the punishment of the mines must be imposed upon him.
“The care that all meat be furnished at a just price pertains to the Prefecture, and therefore the swine market is under his care. The other livestock or herds which relate to a supply of this kind likewise pertain to his care.
“The quiet of the populace and the discipline of spectacles also appear to pertain to the care of the Prefect of the City. He ought indeed to have stationarii soldiers disposed for guarding the quiet of the people and reporting to him what is done in the city.
“The Prefect of the City can prohibit a person from the city and from the other customary regions, from trade, profession, advocacy, the forum, and spectacles, both for a time and
perpetually; and if he relegates anyone from Italy, he may remove him from his own province also.
“The Divine Severus declared by rescript that those accused of assembling an unlawful association must also be prosecuted before the Prefect of the City.”
The Prefecture, therefore, was an Urban Magistracy which also took cognizance as far as the hundredth milestone outside the city. Dio, book 52, where the most learned Lipsius, in his commentary on Tacitus, correctly reads πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑπτακοσίων σταδίων in place of πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑξακοσίων σταδίων—seven hundred and fifty stadia.
It appears that, at the beginning and while the servitude of the nobles was still raw, the Emperors took care to choose men who were faithful and by no means ready for revolution: thus Agrippa and Maecenas; Supinus; and Messalla the Tranquil, whom Eusebius in the Chronicle wishes to have been the first and to have resigned on the sixth day, complaining that that Magistracy was uncivil. I think that for this reason others omit him. Tiberius appointed Piso because he seemed to him to have deserved it by drinking continuously. Pliny, book 14, says: “I believe that Lucius Piso was chosen by him for the care of the city of Rome upon this recommendation: that in the Prince’s company he had continued drinking without interruption for two days and two nights.” Suetonius says the same in chapter 42. Piso was Prefect of the City for twenty years—or ten, as Lipsius corrects it. His successor also was almost always drunk. Seneca, epistle 84: “Lucius Piso, guardian of the city, was drunk from the moment he was once made such. He spent the greater part of the night at a banquet and generally slept until the sixth hour; that was his morning. Yet he administered most diligently his office, in which the protection of the city was contained. Both the Divine Augustus gave him secret instructions when he placed him over Thrace, which he subdued, and Tiberius when departing for Campania, although he left behind in the city many matters both suspicious and hated.” I think that, because Piso’s drunkenness had turned out well for him, he afterward made Cossus Prefect of the City—a grave and moderate man, but submerged and soaked in wine.
The power of the Prefect of the City was therefore under the Prince, as that of the Consul was under the Senate and people; it was not annual but at the Prince’s pleasure, and almost always longer than a year. Yet the honor of the Consulship was regarded as greater, although without strength. That it was not unlike it, though differing in some things, is evident from the fact that Sidonius calls him Prefect of the Senate; for he consulted the Fathers, judged concerning them, and protected them. Cassiodorus, book 6. Sidonius administered the Prefecture:
Receiving the honor Which once alone governed together The rights of Fathers and plebs.
And Rutilius:
If it did not displease that I governed the rights of Quirinus, If I cultivated the sacred men and consulted the Fathers.
The Prefect of the City was regarded as next to the Emperor. Statius:
The neck nearest stands beneath The burden’s immense weight.
And Ausonius:
Whether the peoples of Italy or the north-born Britons, They held beneath the second title of Prefectures; Whoever ruled the head of affairs, Rome, its people and Fathers, Almost under the first name.
Cassiodorus, book 6, formula 4: “Not only Rome is entrusted to your dominion, although all things are contained in it, but ancient laws willed that you extend your power to the hundredth milestone. You also take cognizance of appeals from the provinces designated by law. Above all Consulars you deliver your opinion first, and in that hall of liberty you are beheld with reverence, in which you are approved to hold the principal men entrusted to you.” Hence he possessed the chair, fasces, and other ornaments.
§ 5. The power of the Interreges was the same as that of the Kings and Consuls, except that, outside the ordinary order, they discharged the office while an ordinary Magistrate was being created. It began at the death of Romulus. Dionysius, book 2: “In the following year no one reigned at Rome, the administration of the state having been transferred to the new Magistracy of Interreges in this manner: the two hundred Conscript Fathers, from whom the Senate had been constituted by King Romulus, were distributed into decuries and entrusted the government of the city by lot to Decemvirs. These men possessed the Lictors and the other royal insignia not simultaneously, but one after another for five days each; these were handed on, as it were, from hand to hand, from the first continually to the last. Then that five-day Magistracy passed to the next decury, and in turn to another.”
Interregna were also frequent in the time of the Consuls when elections were obstructed or Consuls had been irregularly created. If anyone asks what I think of the Prefect of the City, I answer that his government was better and more moderate than that of the Consuls, although altogether less and more subject to another Magistrate. With greater prudence the Lacedaemonians, by the institution of Lycurgus, chose a King, but one with consular and prefectorial power. Xenophon says concerning them:
Καὶ ἔφορας δὲ πάντες ὑπανίστανται βασιλεῖ πλὴν οὐκ ἔφοροι ἀπὸ τῶν ἐφορικῶν δίφρων. Καὶ ὅρκους δ᾽ ἀλλήλοις κατὰ μῆνα ποιοῦνται ἔφοροι μὲν ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως, βασιλεὺς δ᾽ ὑπὲρ ἑαυτοῦ· ὁ δὲ ὅρκος ἐστὶ τῷ μὲν βασιλεῖ, κατὰ τοὺς τῆς πόλεως κειμένους νόμους βασιλεύσειν, τῇ δὲ πόλει ἐμπεδοῦντι ἐκεῖνον ἀνυπεύθυνον τὴν βασιλείαν παρέξειν. Αὗται μὲν οὖν αἱ τιμαὶ οἴκοι ζῶντι βασιλεῖ δέδονται, οὐδὲν ὑπολὺ ὑπερφέρουσαι τῶν ἰδιωτικῶν. Οὐ γὰρ ἐβουλήθη οὔτε τοῖς βασιλεῦσι τυραννικὸν φρόνημα παραστῆσαι, οὔτε τοῖς πολίταις φθόνον ἐμποιῆσαι τῆς δυνάμεως.
All rise from their seats before a King, except that the Ephors do not rise from their official seats. Each month the Ephors and King exchange oaths: the Ephors on behalf of the city and the King on his own behalf. The King swears to reign according to the established laws of the city; the city, if he abides by his oath, swears to preserve his kingship unshaken. These honors are paid to a living King at home and exceed those paid to private men by very little; for Lycurgus wished neither to implant a tyrannical spirit in the Kings nor to engender envy of their power in the citizens.
The government of the Athenians, however, was always turbulent because every Magistracy was beneath the power of the Roman Consuls and was therefore unequal to the vices of the people.
§ 6. The highest Magistrate of the Carthaginians was the Sufes. Livy, book 30. They therefore called the Suffetes the Senate, because among them it possessed, as it were, consular government. They administer justice, book 34. In other cities of the Phoenicians also, with a change of Magistracy, they called the highest Magistrates Suffetes. Livy, book 28, attributes Suffetes to the people of Gades. When Mago had returned to Gades, was shut out from it, and had sailed with his fleet to Cimbis—a place not far from Gades—he sent Legates to complain that the gates had been closed to him, an ally and friend. When they excused the act as caused by a gathering of the multitude, hostile because certain property had been carried off by soldiers embarking on the ships, he enticed their Suffetes, the highest Magistrate among the Phoenicians, together with the Quaestor, to a conference, mangled them with scourges, and ordered them to be affixed to crosses.
I think they were so called as though from סופא, which in Isaiah 43 and Joshua 22 signifies an end, extremity, or corner; for it is the highest summit of Magistracy. I do not doubt that the Sophim of the Persians were so called in the same manner; nor badly from סף, which signifies an edge, order, or threshold, whence Sophiat of the Persians, as many pronounce it. Yet if one prefers to derive it from the Hebrew יסף, which also means to add or abound, I shall not contend against it.
§ 7. The Πρυτανεία was an Athenian Magistracy; and although the πρυτάνεις, “Prytanes,” were more numerous than the Consuls, their power was nevertheless almost the same—that is, supreme, but dependent upon the people. In Demosthenes πρυτανεύειν means to rule or govern. Nazianzen calls God τῆς ἀληθείας πρύτανιν, “the governor of truth.” They wish Πρυτανεῖον to have been said as though τοῦ πυρὸς ταμεῖον, “the treasury of fire.” Whether this is so or is a dream of grammarians, it is established that the Prytanes were accustomed to feast in the Prytaneum and that it was the highest honor if food in the Prytaneum was decreed to anyone. Cimon, because of his magnificence and hospitality, is said to have maintained, as it were, a πρυτανεῖον, a Prytaneum, at home. Plutarch, in his life.
Plutarch likewise confirms that the house of Lucullus was ὅλως ἑστίαν, καὶ πρυτανεῖον ἑλληνικόν, altogether a hearth and Greek Prytaneum. But let us return to the Prytanes. After the Thirty Tyrants had been expelled, ten were appointed by Thrasybulus; when they had been rejected, fifty others were afterward placed over the city. Harpocration:
πρυτάνεις πεντήκοντα ἄνδρες ἀπὸ μιᾶς φυλῆς, οἱ διοικοῦντες πάντα τὰ ὑπὸ τῆς βουλῆς ταττόμενα
Prytanes are fifty men from one tribe who administer all things decreed by the Senate. The Magistrate of the Rhodians also is called πρύτανις by Livy, book 42; Hegesilus then bore that office. The same author in book 41 testifies that the Cyzicenes also possessed a Prytaneum and calls it the inner sanctuary of the city. Yet its use was the same as at Athens, for those to whom that honor had been given feasted in it. Perseus placed upon it the golden vessels of one table.
That Athenian method of governing the state was altogether useless, as Xenophon shows in their Constitution and Aristotle in book 2, chapter 12 of the Politics. “Some indeed think that Solon was a good lawgiver. For they say that he abolished the domination of the few, which was unmixed and immoderate; liberated the enslaved people; and constituted the ancestral and hereditary liberty and power of the people by suitably arranging and mingling in order the various kinds of administering the state. For the Areopagite Senate pertained to the rule of the few or Oligarchy; Magistrates being created by election, to the government of the best or Aristocracy; and the courts being popular. Yet Solon appears not to have abolished the things that existed before—the Senate and election of Magistrates—but to have established the liberty of the people afresh by granting to all citizens, if selected by lot, the power of judging affairs.
“For this reason some also censure him, saying that he dissolved and enervated the other part of the state by transferring all authority and power to a judgment entrusted to lot. For after this acquired force, men who granted and indulged all things to the people for the sake of favor, as to a tyrant, reduced the condition of the state to the present power of the people. Ephialtes and Pericles mutilated and curtailed the Areopagite Senate; Pericles made the courts salaried. In this way each of the flattering leaders of the people, by augmenting the majesty of the people, advanced and promoted it to the present state of popular power.
“Yet this appears not to have arisen from Solon’s counsel but rather to have happened by chance. For because the people was the cause of dominion and naval victory in the Persian War, it assumed greater spirit than usual and accepted wicked and turbulent flattering Orators as leaders and teachers in place of good and moderate administrators. Solon, indeed, appears to have granted the people a most necessary power: that of choosing Magistrates and demanding accounts from them. For if the people does not possess even this power, besides being enslaved it will also be hostile. Yet he created all Magistrates from distinguished and wealthy citizens: namely, from those who received five hundred medimni each year from their fields; from those who were bound to a yoke, called Zeugitae; and from the equestrian order, which belongs to the third assessment and third class. The citizens of the fourth class are wage laborers and workmen, participants in no Magistracy. Zaleucus, moreover, was lawgiver to the Locrians dwelling toward the west, whom the Greeks call Epizephyrians; and Charondas of Catana to his fellow citizens and the other Chalcidian cities throughout Italy and Sicily.”
The multitude is therefore deservedly censured in these matters, for it is hostile to the accomplishment of affairs and the preservation of concord. Then men selected by lot judged concerning all these things, which was to subject the Magistracy to the judgment of every most worthless man. Their object therefore had to be not that they should administer well, but that they should not displease the people.
If, therefore, we consider the matter, we shall find the Magistracy of the Carthaginians constituted much better than that of the Athenians. For it possesses more supports for defending itself against enemies and seditions. I do not know whether any state equaled its duration together with liberty and power. Aristotle describes that state in book 2, chapter 11 of the Politics in this manner: “The Carthaginians also appear to employ a right and excellent method of administering the state, exceptional and outstanding in many things when compared with others, yet in some respects very similar and almost twin to that of the Lacedaemonians. For these three forms of administering a state are in some manner similar to one another and far excel the others: the Cretan, the Laconian, and, third, the Carthaginian. Many things constituted among the Carthaginians are excellent. An argument that this state has been well designed is that, although it possesses a people having power over affairs, it remains within the design and ordering of the state, and no sedition worthy of mention has ever arisen in it, nor has any tyrant existed.
“It has the following things similar to the Laconian state: first, the banquets of the associations correspond to the Phiditia; next, the government of the Hundred and Four to the power of the Ephors, except that the government of the Hundred and Four is better than that power. For the Ephors consist of men presented by chance and fortune; these men are chosen for this government according as each excels in virtue and dignity. Finally, it has Kings and a Senate corresponding by a certain comparison and proportion to the Kings and Senate of the Lacedaemonians. It is indeed better that Kings be taken neither perpetually from the same family nor from any family presented by mere chance, but from some distinguished family; and that they be chosen not because they excel in age, but in virtue. For when men who are despised, abject, and of no worth are made lords and possessors of great affairs, they inflict great injuries, and have already inflicted them upon the city of the Lacedaemonians.
“Most of those things which have been censured because of deviations from the right state were common to this state and to the other forms of administration which we have mentioned. Of the features which have the rule of the best and constitutional government as their proposed end, some incline more toward the power of the people and others toward the domination of the few. For the Kings together with the Senators possess power to refer one matter to the people and not another; and if all are of one opinion in deciding some matter, it is ratified, but if not, judgment and power rest with the people. The matters which they bring before the people they do not merely announce, so that the people may hear what the Princes of the city have decreed; rather, anyone of the people is also permitted to speak against the proposals, which is not so in other forms of administering states.
“But the fact that the Five Men, who possess and judge many great affairs, choose themselves and elect the Magistracy of the Hundred, which is the most ample, and that these men administer their Magistracy longer than the others—for they govern the state both after discharging a Magistracy and before entering it—pertains to the power of the few. But the fact that they are appointed without payment and without lot must be judged to pertain to the rule of the best, as must anything else of this kind. The fact that all disputes and controversies are judged by the men who hold a Magistracy, not different cases by different men as at Lacedaemon, likewise touches the rule of the best.
“The constitution of the Carthaginian state departs most from the rule of the best toward the power of the few because of a certain thought and opinion of the multitude. For they think that Magistrates ought to be chosen not only from virtue but also from wealth. They suppose that a man who lacks the resources of a household cannot rightly discharge a Magistracy and enjoy leisure. If, therefore, choosing Magistrates from wealth and assessment pertains to the power of the few, but choosing them from virtue to the rule of the best, this will be the third method and design by which the Carthaginians administer their state. For in choosing Magistrates, and especially the greatest—Kings and Commanders—they look to these two things.”
Kings are not otherwise mentioned; but Aristotle thus calls their Suffetes because they possessed a government as though royal, just as the Consuls at Rome were said to possess royal government.
§ 8. It is admitted that the state of the Lacedaemonians possessed Kings in addition to a Senate and Ephorate. But the King possessed consular power. Both histories teach that the Kings of the Spartans possessed a meager and curtailed power, and Aristotle gives the reason:
Καὶ διὰ τὸ τὴν ἀρχὴν εἶναι λίαν μεγάλην, καὶ ἰσοτύραννον, δημαγωγεῖν αὐτοὺς ἠναγκάζοντο καὶ οἱ βασιλεῖς.
Because this Magistracy of the Ephors was great and not unequal to the kingdom, even the Kings had to flatter them. For the Ephors, thinking that the accounts of all affairs pertained to themselves, demanded them from all men. There were five Ephors; besides them there was a Senate; the King was, as it were, Commander in war. Accordingly, if they had chosen Ephors distinguished by prudence and probity, they would have constituted the state well. But this could not be done by the corrupted votes of the people. Aristotle, book 2, chapter 9 of the Politics: “Furthermore, those things which pertain to the Ephorate also are not well arranged. For since the government of the Ephors itself possesses power over the greatest affairs, all the Ephors are created from the plebs. Thus very poor and needy men are often unexpectedly advanced to this power, and because of their need they were venal and purchasable. They have often shown this before, and most recently in the banquets of the men which they call Andria. For certain Ephors, corrupted by money, destroyed the whole city so far as lay in them.”
From this it is evident that, according to its first institution, the state of the Lacedaemonians was ordered more prudently than that of the Romans. For they possessed a Senate after the Roman manner; then Ephors furnished in some fashion with the power of Consuls, Censors, Judges, and Quaestors; finally, a Commander in war, or King, who administered all external affairs. Thus there was not so great a change as at Rome; they were not agitated by seditions or in danger of tyranny. Aristotle shows this beautifully:
Δεῖ γὰρ τὴν πολιτείαν τὴν μέλλουσαν σῴζεσθαι, πάσας βούλεσθαι τὰ μέρη τῆς πόλεως, εἶναι καὶ διαμένειν ταὐτά. Οἱ μὲν οὖν βασιλεῖς διὰ τὴν αὐτῶν τιμὴν οὕτως ἔχουσιν· οἱ δὲ καλοὶ κἀγαθοὶ διὰ τὴν γερουσίαν, ἆθλον γὰρ ἡ ἀρχὴ αὕτη τῆς ἀρετῆς ἐστίν· ὁ δὲ δῆμος διὰ τὴν ἐφορείαν.
For that form of administering the state which is to remain safe must be one which all parts of the city wish both to exist and to remain the same. The Kings are so disposed because of the honor with which they have been adorned; honorable and good men because of senatorial dignity, for this Magistracy is the reward of virtue; and the people because of the Ephorate.
§ 9. Yet nothing is more similar to the Roman Magistracy than the Cretan. They possessed a Senate, which they called βουλήν. Next there were ten men with supreme power called κόσμοι, “Cosmi,” who ordered affairs; they were so called just as the Carthaginians had Suffetes and the Romans Consuls or military Tribunes with consular power. They next possessed a King who conducted wars; but, when royal power had been abolished, like the Romans they employed the κόσμοις, the Cosmi, as Commanders in war. The Senate is most usefully ruled by those who have discharged the office of κόσμου, a Cosmus.
Finally, the Cretans struggled with the same disadvantages as the Romans. “But what is useful to the condition of the state there,” Aristotle says in book 2, chapter 10, “is not so here. For there, because the election is made from all, the people, being a participant in the highest government, desires that the state remain. Here, however, the Cosmi are not chosen from all but from certain families, and the Senators from those who have discharged the office of Cosmus. One could say the same things concerning them as concerning those created at Lacedaemon. For not to be held to the judgment of rendering accounts and to administer a Magistracy throughout life is a greater honor than accords with their dignity; and for a man to govern not according to a prescription of written law but at his own judgment is dangerous.
“The fact that the people remains quiet even though it does not participate in this Magistracy is no argument that the state is well ordered. For no opportunity of profiting from the Magistracy is given to the Cosmi, as it is to the Ephors, since on an island they are far removed from those who would corrupt them. But the remedy which they apply to correct and preserve this error is both absurd and not even constitutional, but consonant with the power of one or a few—that is, with a dynasty or oligarchy. For certain men, either colleagues or private persons, frequently form a conspiracy and expel them. A man is also permitted to resign the Magistracy before his term. It is better that all these things be done by law than by the will of men, for this is not a safe rule.
“The worst of all remedies is the vacancy of this most ample Magistracy and the disturbance of the whole condition of the state, which powerful men frequently introduce when they do not wish to undergo judgment or pay penalties. From this one may understand that in this design for administering the state there is something of a constitutional state—that is, a polity—but that it is nevertheless not a constitutional administration of the state, but rather a power of a few, that is, an oligarchy, or the power of one, that is, a dynasty. For they are accustomed, after distributing and disposing the people and their friends, to subject the whole state to the government of one, excite sedition, and fight and contend with one another.”
§ 10. In free states also there are Magistrates who represent the Consul, but in different ways. Venice has a Duke, but one who possesses neither a distinguished court nor power. For he cannot leave the city, open letters, or decree that anything be increased; all things depend upon the Senate, which consists of forty Senators, among whom the principal men are the nine who are called Procurators of Saint Mark. They also possess perpetual government and therefore are in the highest authority, for a government which quickly ends is deserted even while it exists. Other Magistrates are joined to them, and the Great Council generally appoints them. They prudently deprive their Duke of power because in this manner he cannot invade a tyranny.
The perpetuity of the six Procurators also prevents error from inexperience in affairs. This is dangerous: that they wage wars through hired Commanders who, because they fight for money and not for their fatherland, conduct all things slowly. The Prince therefore occupies the place of the Consuls, although with less power; the others sit and judge as though they were the Senate.
§ 11. The state of the Genoese has made provision still more carefully than all others. It chooses a Duke, neither annual nor perpetual, but for a government of two years. For the same period eight Governors joined to him possess control of affairs. The office of the Duke is very similar to the consular function: he convenes the Senate and refers matters to it; all things are transacted through him; and in the government of the city he possesses much greater authority than the Venetian. For the Venetians took authority from their Duke because they added to his term; the Genoese permit theirs much because, on account of the brevity of his government, he cannot seize a tyranny.
Two Governors, however, dwell with the Duke in the palace by turns, so that pairs are absent from home for three months and all perform their turns in the course of a year. Their method of election contains great caution. On the third day of January the Greater and Lesser Councils assemble. The man who was Duke in the preceding years does not attend; for when his two-year term has elapsed, on the Kalends of January he withdraws to his home and, as a private man, is called only a Procurator for the rest of his life. From each of these councils twenty-eight nobles—one, that is, from each family—are chosen. Those chosen are enclosed in a certain place of the palace and, together with those Senators who are ineligible for the ducal dignity either because of age or the disgrace of their family, choose eighteen from their own number, but not more than one from one family. Those eighteen in turn choose another twenty-eight, who, together with the aforesaid Senators, select the men whom they wish to propose to the Greater Council for elevation to the ducal dignity.
But here it must be noted that no more than four may be proposed to the Greater Council, and in the election those twenty-eight men together with the aforesaid Senators must agree by a two-thirds vote. When this act is finished, before they leave the conclave, the same men choose another twenty-eight, one from each family. These vote together concerning those four and may remove two-thirds from their selection and substitute in place of those rejected one or more men who are nevertheless Senators. When these things have been completed, the Council or Senate is convened and the four are proposed; the man who receives the most votes is created Prince or Duke.
Yet the government is not altogether changed. For Procurators are made from the Governors and even from the Dukes, but in such a manner that those who are Procurators from among the Governors are numbered in the College of Procurators for two years, while those from among the Dukes are numbered in it for life. Thus the state always abounds in a great number of experienced men, since first they are in the Greater Council, then in the Lesser, afterward are designated Governors and Dukes, and finally discharge for two years or perpetually the authority of Procurators, by which all affairs are transacted.
§ 12. The communities of the Helvetians and Rhaetians who dwell in the Alps are most similar to the Athenian state. Their ancestors, harassed by the nobility, introduced popular government. Their histories speak thus: “The mountain Helvetians are so democratic—the Uri, I say, the Schwyzers, Unterwaldeners, Zugers, Glarusers, and Appenzellers—that not only is the highest power of the state in the hands of all men, provided they are of age, but all Magistracies and all the greatest governments are also assigned to artisans and craftsmen; and the cities are not even fortified with walls, villages, or strongholds. The others are less democratic. For although the people of Bern and Zurich constitute their Senate chiefly from craftsmen, they nevertheless are accustomed to create the highest Magistrates in the state from patricians or at least from those who are more distinguished by the antiquity of their family. Thus these men are more stable and less exposed to seditions than the former. But the assemblies of the Rhaetians, being excessively democratic, are governed with the greatest difficulty and, once disturbed, scarcely pacified.
“For this is the summit of popular liberty: that all men can be made equal to all and are unwilling to obey except on condition that they in turn may command those whom they obeyed. Not even so can they be retained in duty unless they are soothed by very necessary and just commands, by largesses, or by the enticements of words. But since many cannot excel many others in virtue, resources, and nobility, it generally happens that the multitude persecutes the noble, wealthy, and virtuous with a certain envy and with a spirit suffused by ill will. Then, if anyone of generous and excellent spirit dares to place restraints upon the passion of a plebs intemperately abusing liberty, they do not hesitate to condemn him to a fine, exile, proscription, and finally death—especially if he is wealthy, so that he may appear to aspire to government. This tendency flows from the utterly corrupt Athenian state.”
Satraps or Amptmanni therefore occupy the place of Consuls. They are chosen in the assemblies, not after the Roman manner—that is, by centuries—but by the Athenian χειροτονίᾳ, “show of hands,” so that it lies in the judgment of every most worthless man to give a Magistrate to his fatherland. Hence the same history relates that, when a Consul is readily enticed by money and other means, the whole nation is led away. Hence, since their magnates are not very wealthy, neighboring Kings who desire to obtain something contend by gifts.
So much concerning Consuls and Magistrates constituted by consular laws or not greatly unlike the Consulship. I am not ignorant that excellent provisions have been established elsewhere, but these suffice for knowledge of politics.