Aristotle on the Carthaginian State

[Excerpted from Aristotle, The Politics Of Aristotle, J.E.C. Welldon, tr. (New York: Macmillan, 1893), bk. 2, ch. 11]

It is a general opinion that the Carthaginians live under a polity which is excellent and in many respects superior to all others, while there are some points in which it most resembles the Lacedaemonian. The fact is that these three polities, the Cretan, the Lacedaemonian and the Carthaginian have a sort of family likeness and differ widely from all others, and not a few of their institutions are excellent. It may be inferred that a polity is well ordered, when the commons are ever loyal to the political system, and no civil conflict worth speaking of has arisen, nor has anyone succeeded in making himself tyrant. The points in which the Carthaginian polity resembles the Lacedaemonian are that the common meals of the Clubs correspond to the Phiditia and the office of the Hundred-and-Four to the Ephoralty, with this advantage that the Hundred-and-Four are elected for their personal merit, whereas the Ephors are taken from any ordinary people, and lastly the Kings and Senators in the one to the Kings and Senators in the other. It is a point of superiority in the Carthaginian polity that the Kings do not belong to a separate family and this one of no particular merit, and that, although they must belong to one of certain distinguished families, they succeed to the throne by election and not by seniority. For as the Kings are constituted the supreme authorities in important matters, the result is that, if they are worthless persons, they do serious injury and in fact have done it to the Lacedaemonian State.

Of the points which may fairly be censured as deviations from the best polity nearly all are common to the three polities mentioned above; whereas those which are censurable as offending against the primary conception of an Aristocracy or a Polity which the State proposes to itself are errors partly on the side of Democracy and partly of Oligarchy. For instance, it is within the competence of the Kings and the Senate, provided that they are unanimous, to decide whether business shall or shall not be brought before the Commons; although, if they disagree, it is necessarily referred to the Commons. On the other hand, whenever they submit business to the Commons, the popular assembly is thereby empowered not merely to listen to all the resolutions of the government, but it has authority also to pronounce judgment upon them, and anyone who chooses is at liberty to object to the proposals - which is not the case in the Lacedaemonian and Cretan polities. So far the polity of Carthage is democratical. But there is an oligarchical element in the power of cooption enjoyed by the Pentarchies, which are boards of high and various authority, in their right of electing the Hundred who are the highest officers of State and in their tenure of official power for a longer period than any other board of officers, as their power begins before they actually enter upon office and continues after they have actually gone out of it. The unpaid character of the Pentarchies, their appointment by other means than by lot, and other similar features of the polity may be regarded as aristocratical; so too is the rule by which all cases alike are tried by certain fixed boards of magistrates, instead of being divided among different boards as at Lacedaemon. The point in which the Carthaginian system departs most widely from Aristocracy on the side of Oligarchy is in the popular idea that wealth as well as merit deserves to be considered in the election of officers of State, as it is impossible for a poor man to enjoy the leisure necessary for the proper performance of official duties. Assuming then that election by wealth is oligarchical and election by merit aristocratical, we may reckon as a third method the one which obtains in the constitutional system of the Carthaginians who in the election of officers of State generally and especially of the highest officers, viz. the Kings and the Generals, pay regard not to wealth only nor to merit only but to both. This departure from the principles of Aristocracy must be regarded as an error of the legislator. It is a point of primary importance to provide in the first instance that the best citizens, not only during their period of office but in all their private life, may be able to enjoy leisure and be free from degrading duties. But granting that it is right to have regard not only to merit but also to affluence as a means of securing leisure, we may still censure the arrangement by which at Carthage the highest offices of State, viz. the Kingship and Generalship, are put up to sale. The effect of such a law is that wealth is more highly esteemed than virtue, and the whole State is avaricious. Whenever the ruling class regards a thing as honourable, the opinion of the citizens generally is sure to follow suit. No polity however can be permanently aristocratical where merit is not held in supreme honour. Nor is it unreasonable that people, if they pay for the privilege, should get the habit of making their official status a source of pecuniary profit, when they have been put to heavy expenses in order to hold it. If a poor man of good character will aspire to be the gainer by his office, the same will be true, a fortiori, of one whose character stands lower, as is the case with the purchaser of official power, when he has already been put to great expense. It follows that the offices of State ought to be in the hands of the persons who are able to fill them best. But even if the legislator did not trouble himself about the poverty of the higher class of citizens, it would be worth while to make provision for their leisure at least during the time that they hold office.

Another objectionable point is the concentration of several offices in the same hands, which is a favourite plan of the Carthaginians. For a single work is best performed by a single person. It is the legislator's business to secure this division of labour and not appoint the same man to be flute-player and cobbler. Thus in any state of considerable size a division of offices among a number of people is the more statesmanlike and popular arrangement; not only does it admit a larger number of citizens to official power, but, as we said, the same work is more successfully and rapidly performed, as may be seen in naval and military affairs, in both of which the principle of rule and subjection may be said to pervade the whole force. But despite the oligarchical character of the polity the Carthaginians are most successful in avoiding civil disturbance by sending out from time to time a certain number of the common people to their subject States and thereby enabling them to acquire riches. This is their means of healing the wounds of the polity and placing it on a permanent basis. But we may fairly object that this is but the work of Fortune, and that it is the legislator who ought to prevent civil war; while as things are, in the event of some calamity and a general revolt of the subject class, the laws afford no means of securing peace. Such then are the conditions of the Lacedaemonian, the Cretan and the Carthaginian polities which have all a just and high reputation.