HKB
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Often appears with: forms of government · political legitimacy and consent · constitutions and founding law · the position of women · slavery as natural instrument · slavery and bondage · rank, class, and social order · private property distribution · pisistratus · monarchy and royal succession · lycurgus · lacedaemon (sparta)
Usually: argument (5) · detachment (3) · the fall of the great (2) · commentary or gloss (1) · crisis of belief (1) · exhortation (1) · praise (1)
“For where we have a monarchy, an aristocracy, and a democracy existing together in the same city, each of the three serves as a check upon the other.” Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius · precept
Machiavelli argues that all six government forms are pernicious—good ones short-lived and bad ones inherently flawed—and recommends a mixed constitution where monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy mutually check each other, citing Sparta and Athens.
respect to civil rights what had been a government of the best into a government of the few; and so very soon met with the same fate as the tyrant. For the multitude loathing its rulers, lent itself to any who ventured, in whatever way, to attack them; when some one man speedily arose who with the aid of the people overthrew them. But the recollection of the tyrant and of the wrongs suffered at his hands being still…
It notes compromises in Aristotle: citizens should be leisure-capable rational thinkers, yet artisans and slaves enable citizenship; it also discusses Aristotle’s wavering between aristocracy, kingship, and mixed constitutional rule.
in which Aristotle approaches political problems, but in working out its application to men and institutions as they are, Aristotle admits certain compromises which are not really consistent with it. 1. Aristotle thinks of membership of a state as community in pursuit of the good. He wishes to confine membership in it to those who are capable of that pursuit in the highest and most explicit manner. His citizens, the…
Aristotle praises Carthage’s mixed constitution as stable and compares it with Sparta and Crete, detailing its magistracies, kingship selection, and mechanisms balancing aristocracy and democracy.
The government of Carthage seems well established, and in many respects superior to others; in some particulars it bears a near resemblance to the Lacedaemonians; and indeed these three states, the Cretans, the Lacedaemonians and the Carthaginians are in some things very like each other, in others they differ greatly. Amongst many excellent constitutions this may show how well their government is framed, that althoug…
He describes how a free state arises through blending democracy and oligarchy by combining shared rules, using a middle census between extremes, and mixing selection methods, using Lacedaemon as an example of a stable “medium.”
We shall next proceed to show how that government which is peculiarly called a state arises alongside of democracy and oligarchy, and how it ought to be established; and this will at the same time show what are the proper boundaries of both these governments, for we must mark out wherein they differ from one another, and then from both these compose a state of such parts of each of them as will show from whence they …
After discord, Plato says gold-and-silver people keep virtue while iron-and-brass pursue money; they eventually compromise by distributing land to individuals and enslaving former allies, producing a mixed regime between aristocracy and oligarchy.
all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us. Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly. Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the Muses speak falsely? And what do the Muses say next? When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways: the iron and brass fell to acqu…
Polybius concludes that the mutual support among Rome’s classes makes the constitution unusually strong, and that internal equilibrium prevents one group from becoming excessively arrogant or contentious.
[Sidenote: 2. Arms of the *Hastati*, *Principes*, and *Triarii*.] The second rank, the *Hastati*, are ordered to have the complete panoply. This to a Roman means, first, a large shield (*scutum*), the surface of which is curved outwards, its breadth two and a half feet, its length four feet,—though there is also an extra sized shield in which these measures are increased by a palm’s breadth. It consists of two layer…