8.5. 5. Of the Corruption of the Principle of Aristocracy.
Aristocracy is corrupted if the power of the nobles becomes
arbitrary: when this is the case, there can no longer be any virtue
either in the governors or the governed.
If the reigning families observe the laws, it is a monarchy with
several monarchs, and in its own nature one of the most excellent; for
almost all these monarchs are tied down by the laws. But when they do
not observe them, it is a despotic state swayed by a great many despotic
princes.
In the latter case, the republic consists only in the nobles. The
body governing is the republic; and the body governed is the despotic
state; which forms two of the most heterogeneous bodies in the world.
The extremity of corruption is when the power of the nobles becomes
hereditary;
[6]
for then they can hardly have any moderation. If they are
only a few, their power is greater, but their security less: if they are
a larger number, their power is less, and their security greater,
insomuch that power goes on increasing, and security diminishing, up to
the very despotic prince who is encircled with excess of power and danger.
The great number, therefore, of nobles in an hereditary aristocracy
renders the government less violent: but as there is less virtue, they
fall into a spirit of supineness and negligence, by which the state
loses all its strength and activity.
[7]
An aristocracy may maintain the full vigour of its constitution if
the laws be such as are apt to render the nobles more sensible of the
perils and fatigues than of the pleasure of command: and if the
government be in such a situation as to have something to dread, while
security shelters under its protection, and uncertainty threatens from
abroad.
As a certain kind of confidence forms the glory and stability of
monarchies, republics, on the contrary, must have something to
apprehend.
[8]
A fear of the Persians supported the laws of Greece.
Carthage and Rome were alarmed, and strengthened by each other. Strange,
that the greater security those states enjoyed, the more, like stagnated
waters, they were subject to corruption!
Footnotes
[6]
The aristocracy is changed into an oligarchy.
[7]
Venice is one of those republics that has enacted the best laws
for correcting the inconveniences of an hereditary aristocracy.
[8]
Justin attributes the extinction of Athenian virtue to the death
of Epaminondas. Having no further emulation, they spent their revenues
in feasts, frequentius coenam, quam castra visentes. Then it was that
the Macedonians emerged from obscurity, 9, 1. 6.
