[
1309a]
[1]
for it would then be possible
for the notables and also the multitude both to have what they want; for it is
the democratic principle for all to have the right to hold office and the
aristocratic one for the offices to be filled by the notables, and this will be
the case when it is impossible to make money from office; for the poor will not
want to hold office because of making nothing out of it, but rather to attend to
their own affairs, while the wealthy will be able to hold office because they
have no need to add to their resources from the public funds; so that the result
will be that the poor will become well-off through spending their time upon
their work, and the notables will not be governed by any casual persons.
Therefore to prevent peculation
of the public property, let the transfer of the funds take place in the presence
of all the citizens, and let copies of the lists be deposited for each
brotherhood,
1 company
2 and tribe; and to get men to hold office without
profit there must be honors assigned by law to officials of good repute. And in
democracies it is necessary to be sparing of the wealthy not only by not causing
properties to be divided up, but not incomes either (which under some
constitutions takes place unnoticed), and it is better to prevent men
from undertaking costly but useless public services like equipping choruses and
torch-races
3 and all other similar
services, even if they wish to;
[20]
in an oligarchy on the other
hand it is necessary to take much care of the poor, and to allot to them the
offices of profit, and the penalty if one of the rich commits an outrage against
them must be greater than if it is done by one of themselves,
4 and inheritance must not go
by bequest but by family, and the same man must not inherit more than one
estate, for so estates would be more on a level, and more of the poor would
establish themselves as prosperous. And it is expedient both in a democracy and in an oligarchy to assign to those
who have a smaller share in the government—in a democracy to the
wealthy and in an oligarchy to the poor—either equality or precedence
in all other things excepting the supreme offices of state; but these should be
entrusted to those prescribed by the constitution exclusively, or to them for
the most part.
There are some three qualities which those who are to hold the
supreme magistracies ought to possess, first, loyalty to the established
constitution, next, very great capacity to do the duties of the office, and
third, virtue and justice—in each constitution the sort of justice
suited to the constitution (for if the rules of justice are not the
same under all constitutions, it follows that there must be differences in the
nature of justice also). It is a difficult question how the choice
ought to be made when it happens that all these qualities are not found in the
same person;