VI. 8. private contracts, and decisions of the courts, all public indictments, and also all preliminary proceedings. This office again is sometimes subdivided, in which case one officer is appointed over all the rest. These officers are called Recorders or Sacred Recorders, Presidents, and the like. (6) Executioner, and jailor. Next to these comes an office of which the duties are s the most necessary and also the most difficult, viz. that to which is committed the execution of punishments, or the exaction of fines from those who are posted up according to the registers; and also the custody of prisoners. 1322 a. The difficulty of this office arises out of the odium which 9 is attached to it; no one will undertake it unless great profits are to be made, and any one who does is loth to execute the law. Still the office is necessary; for judicial decisions are useless if they take no effect; and if society cannot exist without them, neither can it exist without the execution of them. It is an office which, being so 10 unpopular, should not be entrusted to one person, but divided among several taken from different courts. In like manner an effort should be made to distribute among different persons the writing up of those who are on the register of the condemned. Some sentences should be executed by officers who have other functions; penalties for new offences should be exacted by new offices; and as regards those which are not new, when one court has given judgment, another should exact the penalty; for example, the wardens of the city should exact the fines imposed by the wardens of the agora, and others again should exact the fines imposed by them. For penalties 11 are more likely to be exacted when less odium attaches to the exaction of them; but a double odium is incurred when the judges who have passed also execute the sentence, and if they are always the executioners, they will be the enemies of all. In many places one magistracy has the custody of the prisoners, while another executes the sentence, as, for example, 'the Eleven' at Athens. It is well to separate 12 OFFICES MILITARY AND CIVIL. 203 functions rendered off the jailorship, and try by some device to render the VI. 8. office less unpopular. For it is quite as necessary as How their that of the executioner; but good men do all they can to may be avoid it, and worthless persons cannot safely be trusted less odious. with it; for they themselves require a guard, and are not 13 fit to guard others. There ought not therefore to be a single or permanent officer set apart for this duty; but it should be entrusted to the young, wherever they are organized into a band or guard, and different magistrates acting in turn should take charge of it. offices. These are the indispensable officers, and should be ranked first:-next in order follow others, equally necessary, but of higher rank, and requiring great experience 14 and fidelity. Such are the offices to which are committed (7) Military the guard of the city, and other military functions. Not only in time of war but of peace their duty will be to defend the walls and gates, and to muster and marshal the citizens. In some states there are many such offices; in others there are a few only, while small states are con15 tent with one; these officers are called generals or com1322b manders. Again, if a state has cavalry or light-armed troops or archers or a naval force, it will sometimes happen that each of these departments has separate officers, who are called admirals, or generals of cavalry or of infantry. And there are subordinate officers called naval and military captains, and captains of horse; having others under them :-all these are included 16 in the department of war. Thus much of military command. ditors. But since many, not to say all, of these offices handle (8) Authe public money, there must of necessity be another office which examines and audits them, and has no other functions. Such officers are called by various names,17 Scrutineers, Auditors, Accountants, Controllers. Besides all these offices there is another which is supreme over them, and to this, which in a democracy presides over the assembly, is often entrusted both the introduction and the ratification of measures. For that power which or council VI. 8. convenes the people must of necessity be the head of the (9) Senators state. In some places they are called 'probuli,' because they hold previous deliberations, but in a democracy more commonly 'councillors. These are the chief political 18 offices. lors. (10) Priests. Summary of necessary offices. Another set of officers is concerned with the maintenance of religion; priests and guardians see to the preservation and repair of the temples of the gods and to other matters of religion. One office of this sort may be 19 enough in small places, but in larger ones there are a great many besides the priesthood; for example superintendents of sacrifices, guardians of shrines, treasurers of the sacred revenues. Nearly connected with these 20 there are also the officers appointed for the performance of the public sacrifices, except any which the law assigns to the priests; such officers derive their dignity from the public hearth of the city. They are sometimes called archons, sometimes kings, and sometimes prytanes. These, then, are the necessary offices, which may be 11 summed up as follows: offices concerned with matters of religion, with war, with the revenue and expenditure, with the market, with the city, with the harbours, with the country; also with the courts of law, with the records of contracts, with execution of sentences, with custody of prisoners, with audits and scrutinies and accounts of magistrates; lastly, there are those which preside over the public deliberations of the state. There are likewise 22 magistracies characteristic of states which are peaceful and prosperous, and at the same time have a regard to good order: such as the offices of guardians of women, guardians of the laws, guardians of children, and directors of gymnastics; also superintendents of gymnastic and 1323a. Dionysiac contests, and of other similar spectacles. Some 23 of these are clearly not democratic offices; for example, the guardianships of women and children -the poor, b Cp. iii. 14. § 14. * Cp. iv. 15. § 1. © Cp. iv. 15. § 13. not having any slaves, must employ both their women VI. 8. and children as servants. offices in 24 Once more: there are three forms of the highest Different elective offices in states-guardians of the law, probuli, different councillors, of these, the guardians of the law are an states. aristocratical, the probuli an oligarchical, the council a democratical institution. Enough of the different kinds of offices. The indivi dual and the state; BOOK VII. VII. I. HE who would duly enquire about the best form of a Proœmium. state ought first to determine which is the most eligible life; while this remains uncertain the best form of the state must also be uncertain; for, in the natural order of things, those may be expected to lead the best life who are governed in the best manner of which their circumstances admit. We ought therefore to ascertain, first of 2 all, which is the most generally eligible life, and then whether the same life is or is not best for the state and for individuals. what is the best life; and is it the same for both? For the best life all the three goods are required. Assuming that enough has been already said in exoteric discourses concerning the best life, we will now classes of only repeat the statements contained in them. Certainly 3 no one will dispute the propriety of that partition of goods which separates them into three classes, viz. external goods, goods of the body, and goods of the soul, or deny that the happy man must have all three. For no one 4 would maintain that he is happy who has not in him a particle of courage or temperance or justice or prudence, who is afraid of every insect which flutters past him, and will commit any crime, however great, in order to gratify his lust of meat or drink, who will sacrifice his dearest friend for the sake of half-a-farthing, and is as This would feeble and false in mind as a child or a madman. These 5 be generally admitted, propositions are universally acknowledged as soon as but people they are uttered, but men differ about the degree or the relative relative superiority of this or that good. Some think of them. that a very moderate amount of virtue is enough, but set no limit to their desires of wealth, property, power, differ about importance a Cp. N. Eth. i. 8. § 2. b Omitting onep, which is bracketted by Bekker in his second edition. |