The
legislator should see to this and should not appoint the same person
to be a flute-player and a shoemaker. Hence, where the state is large,
it is more in accordance both with constitutional and with democratic
principles that the offices of state should be distributed among many
persons. For, as I said, this arrangement is fairer to all, and any
action familiarized by repetition is better and sooner performed.
We have a proof in military and naval matters; the duties of command
and of obedience in both these services extend to all.
The government of the Carthaginians is oligarchical, but they
successfully escape the evils of oligarchy by enriching one portion of
the people after another by sending them to their colonies. This is
their panacea and the means by which they give stability to the state.
Accident favors them, but the legislator should be able to provide
against revolution without trusting to accidents. As things are, if
any misfortune occurred, and the bulk of the subjects revolted,
there would be no way of restoring peace by legal methods.
Such is the character of the Lacedaemonian, Cretan, and Carthaginian
constitutions, which are justly celebrated.
XII
Of those who have treated of governments, some have never taken
any part at all in public affairs, but have passed their lives in a
private station; about most of them, what was worth telling has been
already told.
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