1321b Let this then be a description of the proper way to organize the various forms of democracy and of oligarchy.

As a consequence of what has been said there follow satisfactory conclusions to the questions concerning magistracies—how many and what they should be and to whom they should belong, as has also been said before.¹ For without the indispensable² magistracies a state cannot exist, while without those that contribute to good order and seemliness it cannot be well governed. And furthermore the magistracies are bound to be fewer in the small states and more numerous in the large ones, as in fact has been said before³; it must therefore be kept in view what kinds of magistracies it is desirable to combine and what kinds to keep separate. First among the indispensable services is the superintendence of the market, over which there must be an official to superintend contracts and good order; since it is a necessity for almost all states that people shall sell some things and buy others according to one another’s necessary requirements, and this is the readiest means of securing self-sufficiency, which seems to be the reason for men’s having united into a single state. Another superintendency connected very closely with this one is the curatorship of public and private properties in the city,to secure good order and the preservation and rectification of falling buildings and roads, and of the bounds between different persons’ estates, so that disputes may not arise about them, and all the other duties of superintendence similar to these. An office of this nature is in most states entitled that of City-controller, but it has several departments, each of which is filled by separate officials in the states with larger populations, for instance Curators of Walls, Superintendents of Wells, Harbors-guardians. And another office also is indispensable and closely akin to these, for it controls the same matters but deals with the country and there regions outside the city; and these magistrates are called in some places Land-controllers and in others Custodians of Forests. These then are three departments of control over these matters, while another office is that to which the revenues of the public funds are paid in, the officials who guard them and by whom they are divided out to the several administrative departments; these magistrates are called Receivers and Stewards. Another magistracy is the one that has to receive a written return of private contracts and of the verdicts of the law-courts; and with these same officials the registration of legal proceedings and their institution have also to take place. In some states this office also is divided into several, but there are places where one magistracy controls all these matters; and these officials are called Sacred Recorders, Superintendents, Recorders, and other names akin to these. And after these is the office connectedwith it but perhaps the most indispensable and most difficult of all, the one concerned with the execution of judgement upon persons cast in suits and those posted as defaulters according to the lists, 1322a and with the custody of prisoners.

This is an irksome office because it involves great unpopularity, so that where it is not possible to make a great deal of profit out of it men will not undertake it, or when they have undertaken it are reluctant to carry out its functions according to the laws; but it is necessary, because there is no use in trials being held about men’s rights when the verdicts are not put into execution, so that if when no legal trial of disputes takes place social intercourse is impossible, so also is it when judgements are not executed. Hence it is better for this magistracy not to be a single office but to consist of several persons drawn from different courts, and it is desirable similarly to try to divide up the functions connected with the posting up of people registered as public debtors, and further also in some cases for the sentences to be executed by magistrates, especially by the newly elected ones preferably in suits tried by the outgoing ones, and in those tried by men actually in office for the magistrate executing the sentence to be different from the one that passed it, for instance the City-controllers to execute the judgements passed on from the Market-controllers and other magistrates those passed on by the City-controllers. For the less odium involved for those who execute the judgements, the more adequately the judgements will be carried out; so for the same magistrates to have imposed the sentence and to execute it involves a twofold odium, and for the same ones to execute it in all cases makes them the enemies of everybody. And in many places also the office of keeping custody of prisoners, forexample at Athens the office of the magistrates known as the Eleven⁴,is separate from the magistracy that executes sentences. It is better therefore to keep this also separate, and to attempt the same device with regard to this as well. For though it is no less necessary than the office of which I spoke, yet in practice respectable people avoid it most of all offices, while it is not safe to put it into the hands of the base, for they themselves need others to guard them instead of being able to keep guard over others. Hence there must not be one magistracy specially assigned to the custody of prisoners nor must the same magistracy perform this duty continuously, but it should be performed by the young, in places where there is a regiment of cadets⁵ or guards, and by the magistrates, in successive sections.

These magistracies therefore must be counted first as supremely necessary, and next to them must be put those that are not less necessary but are ranked on a higher grade of dignity, because they require much experience and trustworthiness; in this class would come the magistracies concerned with guarding the city and those assigned to military requirements. And both in peace and in war it is equally necessary for there to be magistrates to superintend the guarding of gates and walls and the inspection and drill of the citizen troops. In some places therefore there are more magistracies assigned to all these duties, and in others fewer—for instance in the small states there is one to deal with all of them. And the officers of this sort are entitled Generals or War-lords.

1322b And moreover if there are also cavalry or light infantry or archers or a navy, sometimes a magistracy is appointed to have charge of each of these arms also, and they carry the titles of Admiral, Cavalry-commander and Taxiarch, and also the divisional commissions subordinate to these of Captains of Triremes, Company-commanders and Captains of Tribes, and all the subdivisions of these commands. But the whole of this sort of officers constituted a single class, that of military command. This then is how the matter stands in regard to this office; but inasmuch as some of the magistracies, if not all, handle large sums of public money, there must be another office to receive an account and subject it to audit, which must itself handle no other business; and these officials are called Auditors by some people, Accountants by others, Examiners by others and Advocates by others. And by the side of all these offices is the one that is most supreme over all matters, for often the same magistracy has the execution of business that controls its introduction, or presides over the general assembly in places where the people are supreme; for the magistracy that convenes the sovereign assembly is bound to be the sovereign power in the state. It is styled in some places the Preliminary Council because it considers business in advance, but where there is a democracy⁶ it is more usually called a Council. This more or less completes the number of the offices of a political nature; but another kind of superintendence is that concerned with divine worship; in this class are priests and superintendents of mattersconnected with the temples, the preservation of existing buildings and the restoration of those that are ruinous, and the other duties relating to the gods. In practice this superintendence in some places forms a single office, for instance in the small cities, but in others it belongs to a number of officials who are not members of the priesthood, for example Sacrificial Officers and Temple-guardians and Stewards of Sacred Funds. And connected with this is the office devoted to the management of all the public festivals which the law does not assign to the priests but the officials in charge of which derive their honor from the common sacrificial hearth, and these officials are called in some places Archons, in others Kings and in others Presidents. To sum up therefore, the necessary offices of superintendence deal with the following matters : institutions of religion, military institutions, revenue and expenditure, control of the market, citadel, harbors and country, also the arrangements of the law-courts, registration of contracts, collection of fines, custodyof prisoners, supervision of accounts and inspections, and the auditing of officials, and lastly the offices connected with the body that deliberates about public affairs. On the other hand, peculiar to the states that have more leisure and prosperity, and also pay attention to public decorum, are the offices of Superintendent of Women, Guardian of the Laws, Superintendent of Children, Controller of Physical Training,

and in addition to these the superintendence of athletic and Dionysiac contests and of any similar displays that happen to be held. Some of these offices are obviously not of a popular character, for instance that of Superintendent of Women and of Children; for the poor having no slaves are forced to employ their women and children as servants. There are three offices which in some states supervise the election of the chief magistrates—Guardians of the Laws, Preliminary Councillors and Council; of these the Guardians of the Laws are an aristocratic institution, the Preliminary Councillors oligarchic, and a Council democratic.

We have now therefore spoken in outline about almost all the offices of state.