Politics

​How, then, one must establish democracies and oligarchies, let it be defined in this manner. What follows upon what has been said is to have divided well the matters concerning the offices—how many, what they are, and of what things—just as was also said before. For without the necessary offices it is impossible for a city to exist, and without those directed toward good order and adornment it is impossible for it to be well inhabited. Furthermore, it is necessary that in small cities the offices be fewer, and in large ones more numerous, just as it happens to have been said before. Therefore, which kinds of offices it is fitting to combine and which to separate must not escape our notice. First, then, among the necessary supervisions is that concerning the market, over which there must be some office to oversee both contracts and good order. For it is virtually necessary for all cities to buy some things and sell others for one another’s necessary needs, and this is the readiest way to self-sufficiency, for the sake of which people seem to have come together into a single constitution. Another supervision, adjacent to and near this one, is that of public and private matters concerning the town, in order that there may be good order, and the preservation and repair of falling buildings and roads, and of boundaries between one another, so that they may be free from dispute, and all other such matters of supervision similar to these. Most people call such an office town-guardianship, but it has several parts in number, for each of which they appoint different persons in more populous cities, such as wall-builders, superintendents of fountains, and guardians of harbors. Another office is both necessary and close to this one; for it concerns the same matters, but is for the countryside and the areas outside the town; and these officers some call country-wardens and others forest-wardens. These, then, are three supervisions of these matters; and there is another office to which the revenues of the public funds are brought, by whom they are guarded and distributed to each administration; and they call these receivers and treasurers. Another office is that in which private contracts and judgments from the courts must be recorded; and before these same officers, the filings of lawsuits and their introductions must also take place. In some places, then, they divide this office too into several, but there are places where one is sovereign over all these; and they are called sacred recorders, presidents, recorders, and other names close to these. After this one, connected with it and virtually the most necessary and yet most difficult of the offices, is that concerning the executions of those condemned and of those posted according to the registrations, and concerning the custodies of bodies.