Politics: A Treatise on Government eBook

As Philolaus gave them laws concerning many other things, so did he upon adoption, which they call adoptive laws; and this he in particular did to preserve the number of families.  Charondas did nothing new, except in actions for perjury, which he was the first person who took into particular consideration.  He also drew up his laws with greater elegance and accuracy than even any of our present legislators.  Philolaus introduced the law for the equal distribution of goods; Plato that for the community of women, children, and goods, and also for public tables for the women; and one concerning drunkenness, that they might observe sobriety in their symposiums.  He also made a law concerning their warlike exercises; that they should acquire a habit of using both hands alike, as it was necessary that one hand should be as useful as the other.

As for Draco’s laws, they were published when the government was already established, and they have nothing particular in them worth mentioning, except their severity on account of the enormity of their punishments.  Pittacus was the author of some laws, but never drew up any form of government; one of which was this, that if a drunken man beat any person he should be punished more than if he did it when sober; for as people are more apt to be abusive when drunk than sober, he paid no consideration to the excuse which drunkenness might claim, but regarded only the common benefit.  Andromadas Regmus was also a lawgiver to the Thracian talcidians.  There are some laws of his concerning murders and heiresses extant, but these contain nothing that any one can say is new and his own.  And thus much for different sorts of governments, as well those which really exist as those which different persons have proposed.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

Every one who inquires into the nature of government, and what are its different forms, should make this almost his first question, What is a city?  For upon this there is a dispute:  for some persons say the city did this or that, while others say, not the city, but the oligarchy, or the tyranny.  We see that the city is the only object which both the politician and legislator have in view in all they do:  but government is a certain ordering of those who inhabit a city.  As a city is a collective body, and, like other wholes, composed of many parts, it is evident our first inquiry must be, what a citizen is:  for a city is a certain number of citizens.  So that we must consider whom we ought to call citizen, and who is one; for this is often doubtful:  for every one will not allow that this character is applicable to the same person; for that man who would be a citizen in a republic would very often not be one in an oligarchy.  We do not include in this inquiry many of those who acquire this appellation out of the ordinary way, as honorary persons, for instance, but those only who have a natural right to it.