is no distinction between citizen and foreigner; a teacher is afraid of his pupils and truckles to them; they treat their teachers with contempt. Youngsters assume the authority of older men; the latter lower themselves to take part in youngsters’ amusements for fear of becoming unpopular and disliked. As a result even slaves behave with excessive freedom, wives enjoy the same rights as their husbands, and in this all-pervading freedom dogs and horses and even asses charge around so freely that one has to stand aside for them in the street. As this unlimited licence comes to a head,’ he says, ‘citizens become so tender and hypersensitive that at the slightest hint of authority they are enraged and cannot bear it. In consequence they begin to ignore the laws too; and the final outcome is total anarchy.’
67
LAELIUS : Yes, that’s a pretty accurate account of what he says.
68
SCIPIO : To revert, then, to my own conversational style, he goes on to say that this excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows. As the death of an aristocracy comes from its own excessive power, so freedom itself plunges an over-free populace into slavery. All excess, whether the over-luxuriance has occurred in the weather or on the land or in people’s bodies, turns as a rule into its opposite. The process is especially common in states. In communities and individuals alike, excessive freedom topples over into excessive slavery. Extreme freedom produces a tyrant, alongwith the extremely harsh and evil slavery that goes with him. For from that wild, and indeed savage, populace a chief is usually chosen to oppose the leaders who have now been persecuted and ousted from their position—a brazen dirty fellow, who has the impudence to harass people who in many cases have served their country well, a fellow who presents the people with other folks’ property as well as their own.
If he remains a private citizen, such a man faces many threats. So he is given powers, which are then extended. Like Peisistratus at Athens, he is surrounded by a bodyguard. He ends up by tyrannizing over the very people from whom he emerged. If that man is overthrown, as often happens, by decent citizens, constitutional government is restored. But if he is supplanted by unscrupulous thugs, then a junta is created which is just another form of tyranny. The same kind of group can also arise from an often excellent aristocratic government when some crookedness diverts the leaders from their course. And so political power passes like a ball from one group to another. Tyrants snatch it from kings; aristocrats or the people wrest it from them; and from them it moves to oligarchic cliques or back to tyrants. The same type of constitution never retains power for long.
69. A mixed constitution is the best
That is why, though monarchy is, in my view, much the most desirable of the three primary forms, monarchy is itself surpassed by an even and judicious blend of the three simple forms at their best. A state should possess an element of regal supremacy; something else * should be assigned and allotted to the authority of aristocrats; and certain affairs should be reserved for the judgement and desires of the masses. Such a constitution has, in the first place, a widespread element of equality which free men cannot long do without. Secondly, it has stability; for although those three original forms easily degenerate into their corrupt versions (producing a despot instead of a king, an oligarchy instead of an aristocracy, and a disorganized rabble instead of a democracy), and although those simple forms often change into others, such things rarely happen in a political structure which represents a combination and a judicious mixture—unless, that is, the politicians are deeplycorrupt. For there is no reason for change in a country where everyone is firmly established in his own place, and
67
LAELIUS : Yes, that’s a pretty accurate account of what he says.
68
SCIPIO : To revert, then, to my own conversational style, he goes on to say that this excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows. As the death of an aristocracy comes from its own excessive power, so freedom itself plunges an over-free populace into slavery. All excess, whether the over-luxuriance has occurred in the weather or on the land or in people’s bodies, turns as a rule into its opposite. The process is especially common in states. In communities and individuals alike, excessive freedom topples over into excessive slavery. Extreme freedom produces a tyrant, alongwith the extremely harsh and evil slavery that goes with him. For from that wild, and indeed savage, populace a chief is usually chosen to oppose the leaders who have now been persecuted and ousted from their position—a brazen dirty fellow, who has the impudence to harass people who in many cases have served their country well, a fellow who presents the people with other folks’ property as well as their own.
If he remains a private citizen, such a man faces many threats. So he is given powers, which are then extended. Like Peisistratus at Athens, he is surrounded by a bodyguard. He ends up by tyrannizing over the very people from whom he emerged. If that man is overthrown, as often happens, by decent citizens, constitutional government is restored. But if he is supplanted by unscrupulous thugs, then a junta is created which is just another form of tyranny. The same kind of group can also arise from an often excellent aristocratic government when some crookedness diverts the leaders from their course. And so political power passes like a ball from one group to another. Tyrants snatch it from kings; aristocrats or the people wrest it from them; and from them it moves to oligarchic cliques or back to tyrants. The same type of constitution never retains power for long.
69. A mixed constitution is the best
That is why, though monarchy is, in my view, much the most desirable of the three primary forms, monarchy is itself surpassed by an even and judicious blend of the three simple forms at their best. A state should possess an element of regal supremacy; something else * should be assigned and allotted to the authority of aristocrats; and certain affairs should be reserved for the judgement and desires of the masses. Such a constitution has, in the first place, a widespread element of equality which free men cannot long do without. Secondly, it has stability; for although those three original forms easily degenerate into their corrupt versions (producing a despot instead of a king, an oligarchy instead of an aristocracy, and a disorganized rabble instead of a democracy), and although those simple forms often change into others, such things rarely happen in a political structure which represents a combination and a judicious mixture—unless, that is, the politicians are deeplycorrupt. For there is no reason for change in a country where everyone is firmly established in his own place, and
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