After his fairly brief account in Chapters vi and vii of how oligarchy may be made to work best, we expect Aristotle to turn to other constitutions, as he promised in the third paragraph of Chapter i. Instead, we have a review of officials and procedures, which, like so much else in Book VI, looks back to Book IV; in particular, it supplements the discussion of IV xv and xvi.
The various headings under which the officials are grouped speak for themselves, but amid the welter of detail two points emerge as major preoccupations: (a) What offices must a state have, others being either unimportant, or important for one kind of state but not for another? (b) The difficulty Greek states had in enforcing the verdicts of their courts. Officials were essentially temporary part-timers, and in the course of their duties (for example in collecting a fine) could easily be caught up in embittered personal feelings, and (no doubt) be led into corrupt practices. Today we are able to avoid these predicaments at least partly because of a tradition of impersonal administration by a permanent full-time civil service. Impersonality and disinterestedness are what Aristotle is groping his way towards in the ingenious suggestions he makes for coping with the problem.
1321b4 Following upon what has been said comes the topic of the proper differentiation of offices – what offices and how many, and in what sphere each is to operate. This topic has been discussed already.1 Without the essential offices there can be no state at all; without those concerned with good order and good conduct there can be no well-governed one. And in smaller states the offices will need to be fewer, but more numerous in the large, as has indeed been stated earlier.2 We must therefore not neglect to consider which of them can appropriately be merged into one and which ought to be kept separate.
1321b12 The first essential responsibility is control of the market-place: there must be some official charged with the duty of seeing that honest dealing and good order prevail. For one of the well-nigh essential activities of all states is the buying and selling of goods to meet their mutual basic needs; this is the quickest way to self-sufficiency, which seems to be what moves men to combine under a single constitution. Another and closely connected responsibility is for public and private properties within the town, the aim being to keep them in good shape; dilapidated streets and buildings have to be maintained and rebuilt, boundaries between properties fixed beyond dispute, and other matters of a like kind connected with this sphere of responsibility have to be seen to. Most people call this sort of office ‘wardenship of the city’, and it includes a number of branches. Where the number of inhabitants of the state is very large, the branches are administered separately, e.g. by Wall-Repairers, Harbour Guards and Superintendents of Springs. There is another essential and closely similar responsibility, with the same functions, but covering the countryside and the districts outside the town; the officials are called by some ‘Country-Wardens’, by others ‘Foresters’. That makes three responsibilities so far.
1321b31 Next, that office which receives the revenues of public life, keeps them safe and distributes them to the various branches of the administration; names such as Receivers or Treasurers are given to these officials. Fifthly there is the office which keeps the records that have to be made of contracts made between private persons, and of law-court decisions; and this same office ought also to be the place for the registration of prosecutions and for the introduction of suits. (Sometimes this office also is divided, and in some places a single supreme office covers them all.) The officials are called Keepers of Sacred Records, Controllers, Recorders, and other such names.
1321b40 Next, there is a connected office which is pretty well the most essential and the hardest of all, namely that of carrying out the sentences of the courts, of collecting moneys publicly declared to be due to the state, and of keeping prisoners in custody. This work is difficult, because it gives rise to much resentment. So, unless it is very profitable, people either refuse to undertake it, or if they do so, are reluctant to fulfil the demands of the laws. Yet it is essential: it is no good having trials on matters of justice if they are to have no effect. If it is impossible for men to live in a society in which there are no trials, it is also impossible where the verdicts are not carried out. It is therefore better that this work should not be assigned to a single official, but to various persons from the various courts; and an attempt should be made to distribute the work of publicly posting the fines to be paid. So too in the exaction of penalties: in some cases the officials should perform this duty, and in particular new officials should exact those imposed by their predecessors; and while they are in office the penalties should be exacted by a different official from the one who imposed them, the fines of Market-Officers being collected by the City-Wardens and theirs in turn by others. For the less resentment there is against the exactors, the better the chances of the exactions being paid in full. It doubles the resentment to have the same persons impose the penalties and exact them; when everything3 is done by the same people, they are everyone’s enemies.
1322a19 In many places the office of keeping custody of prisoners has been separated from that of exacting penalties, as at Athens in the case of the office of those called The Eleven. It is therefore better here also to separate the two, and to look for the best way of applying the same stratagem to the performance of this office4 as well, which is just as essential as the one we have been speaking of.5 But respectable people try to avoid this office above all, and it is dangerous to commit it to the sovereign authority of the bad, who are themselves more in need of guarding than capable of guarding others. Therefore there ought not to be one specific single and perpetual office charged with the care of prisoners, but use should be made, where the system exists, of the young men doing military service and garrison duty in a particular year. And different sets of officials should undertake this responsibility in turn.
1322a29 The above-mentioned offices must be put first, as most essential; next, equally essential and of higher rank, as calling for much experience and great trustworthiness, are all those connected with the defence of the state, and those organized with a view to its needs in time of war. In war and peace alike there must be men charged with superintending the protection of walls and gates, and with inspecting and marshalling the citizens. In some states several separate offices look after all these matters, in others fewer; in small states, for instance, one office covers them all. Names given to the holders of such offices are General and War-Leader. If there are cavalry, light-armed troops, bowmen, and sailors, then for these too there are sometimes separate officials – called Commanders of Ships, of Cavalry, and of Battalions, and junior ranks in each case: Captains of Triremes, of Companies and of Tribes, and so on down to the smaller units. But they all belong to a single class discharging military responsibilities.
1322b6 There we leave this office. Now since some, if not all, of the offices handle great quantities of public property, it is essential to have yet another office, to receive accounts and carry out additional scrutinies; and it will have no function other than financial. Various names are given to these officials: Scrutineers, Accountants, Auditors, Advocates.
1322b12 As well as all the offices which we have mentioned there is the authority which is sovereign over all matters, in that often the same official (i) introduces business and brings it to completion, (ii) presides over the populace in places where the people is sovereign. The convening element is bound to be the sovereign element of the constitution.6 This office is sometimes called the Pre-Council, because it deliberates beforehand, but in democracies7 it is usually just called a Council.
1322b17 This pretty well covers the offices of the state, but there is another type8 of responsibility, namely for religion. Here the officials are (for example) priests and supervisors of matters affecting the temples; and their task is to maintain buildings in good condition, repair dilapidated ones, and to take charge of whatever else is connected with the worship of the gods. Sometimes all this can be looked after by a single official, in small states for example. But sometimes we find, kept separate from the priesthood, a large number of other officials: Sacrificers, Temple-Guardians, Treasurers of Sacred Funds. Connected with this sphere of responsibility there is the special superintendence of all public sacrifices which by law are not entrusted to the priests but derive their prestige from the common hearth. The officials concerned are sometimes called Kings, sometimes Archons, sometimes Presidents.
1322b29 These then are the necessary responsibilities. We may recapitulate them as follows: religion, warfare, income and expenditure, the market, the town and its harbours, the countryside, the courts, registration of contracts, prisons, the exaction of penalties, computing and auditing of accounts, additional scrutinies of holders of office, and finally those concerned with the element that deliberates about public affairs.
1322b37 Some responsibilities are peculiar to states where leisure and prosperity are above the average and where attention is also paid to orderly behaviour. Such are control of women, control of children, guardianship of the laws, and management of gymnasia; and to these we should add the supervision of contests, both athletic and dramatic, and of any other similar public spectacles that there may be. Some of these offices are obviously not at all democratic, for example the control of women and children, because the poor, not having any slaves, are obliged to use their women and children as servants. Of the three offices (that of Guardians of the Laws, of Pre-Councillors and of Council), which some use to direct the election of sovereign officials, the Guardians of the Laws are aristocratic, the Pre-Councillors oligarchic, and a Council democratic. We have now sketched in outline pretty well all the offices.