Aristotle, Politics

[1298a] [1] second the one connected with the magistracies, that is, what there are to be and what matters they are to control, and what is to be the method of their election, and a third is, what is to be the judiciary.

The deliberative factor is sovereign about war and peace and the formation and dissolution of alliances, and about laws, and about sentences of death and exile and confiscation of property, and about the audits of magistrates. And necessarily either all these decisions must be assigned to all the citizens, or all to some of them （for instance to some one magistracy or to several）, or different ones to different magistracies, or some of them to all the citizens and some to certain persons.

For all the citizens to be members of the deliberative body and to decide all these matters is a mark of a popular government, for the common people seek for equality of this nature. But there are several modes of such universal membership. One is for the citizens to serve in rotation and not all in a body （as is enacted in the constitution of the Milesian Telecles,¹ and in other constitutions also the boards of magistrates deliberate in joint assemblies but all the citizens enter into the magistracies from the tribes or from the very smallest sections of the citizen-body in rotation until office has gone through the whole body）, and for there to be joint assemblies only to consider legislation and reforms of the constitution and to hear the reports submitted by the magistrates. Another mode is [20] for all to assemble in a body, but only for the purpose of electing magistrates, enacting laws, considering the declaration of war and the conclusion of peace and holding the audit of magistrates, but for all other matters to be considered by the magistrates appointed to deal with each respectively and elected by suffrage or by lot from all the citizens. Another mode is for the citizens to meet about the magistracies and the audits and in order to deliberate about declaring war and concluding an alliance, but for all other matters to be dealt with by the magistrates, elected by suffrage in as many cases as circumstances allow,² and such magistracies are all those which must of necessity be filled by experts. A fourth mode is for all to meet in council about all matters, and for the magistracies to decide about nothing but only to make preliminary decisions; this is the mode in which democracy in its last form is administered at the present day—the form of democracy which we pronounce to correspond to dynastic oligarchy and to tyrannical monarchy. These modes then are all of them democratic. On the other hand for some persons to deliberate upon all matters is oligarchic. But this also has several variations. For when the members of the deliberative body are elected on comparatively moderate property-qualifications, and the eligible persons are comparatively numerous because of the moderateness of the qualification, and when they do not make changes in things in which the law forbids it but follow the law, and when anybody acquiring the property-qualification is allowed to become a member, a constitution of this sort is indeed an oligarchy, but one of the nature of constitutional government, because of its moderation. When on the other hand not everybody thus qualified participates in deliberation but only certain persons previously chosen by election,