Caput septimum: De magistratibus et officiis.
The Prince's Duty to Choose Worthy Magistrates
The prince must demand integrity from his officials, oversee them carefully, and recognize that good laws fail without faithful magistrates.
The prince should demand from his own officials the same integrity he shows in himself — or at least something close to it. And he shouldn't consider it enough to have appointed magistrates; it matters greatly how he makes the appointment. Then he must stay watchful, so that they carry out their instructions without corruption.1 Aristotle wisely and seriously warns that it's pointless to enact good laws unless there are people whose work will faithfully preserve them. In fact, the opposite sometimes happens: the best-established laws, through the fault of magistrates, are turned into the utter destruction of the commonwealth.2
The Wisdom of Appointing Elders to Office
Magistrates should be chosen by wisdom and integrity, with preference for those advanced in years, following Plato's age guidelines for law-guardians and priests.
Although a magistrate shouldn't be chosen based on wealth, family portraits, or age, but rather on wisdom and integrity, it's still more fitting that those advanced in years be appointed to duties of this kind, on which the safety of the commonwealth depends — not only because elders bring a greater store of prudence drawn from experience of affairs, and their passions are more moderate, but also because old age wins no small measure of authority for them among the people. Accordingly, Plato forbids guardians of the laws to be appointed under fifty years of age, or over seventy. He does not want a priest to be less than sixty years of age: for just as there is a certain maturity of age, so there is a decline of age, which is owed release and relief from all duties.
Harmony and Disorder in the Commonwealth
A well-ordered commonwealth resembles a harmonious chorus where each person fulfills their proper role, while corruption and flattery produce shameful confusion.
Just as a chorus is a beautiful thing when it holds together in order and harmony, but a ridiculous spectacle when the gestures are thrown into confusion along with the voices, so a state or kingdom is a splendid thing, provided each person is given his proper place, provided each one carries out his own duty — that is, provided the Prince acts in a way worthy of himself, provided the magistrates fulfill their own roles, and provided the common people likewise obey good laws and upright magistrates. But where the Prince looks to his own interests and the magistrates do nothing but plunder the people, where the common people do not obey honorable laws but instead flatter the Prince and the magistrates — letting circumstances lead them whichever way — there, inevitably, is the most shameful confusion of all.
The Prince as Physician of the Commonwealth
The prince's highest duty is to serve the commonwealth by appointing upright magistrates, but he must himself be the most upright, ruling with wisdom above base passions while magistrates serve as intermediaries between prince and people.
A prince's first and highest concern must be to serve the commonwealth as well as possible. And there's no better way to do that than to make sure that offices and positions of authority are entrusted to men of the greatest integrity and the most devoted to the public good.34 What is a prince if not a physician to the commonwealth? Now it's not enough for a physician to have skilled assistants unless he himself is the most skilled and most vigilant of all. So too, it's not enough for a prince to have upright magistrates unless he himself is the most upright — the one through whom they are both chosen and corrected. Just as the parts of the mind are not all equally strong—some command and others obey, and yet only the body simply does what it's told—so the Prince, as the highest part of the commonwealth, ought to be deeply wise and as far removed as possible from all base passions. Closest to the Prince will be the magistrates, who partly obey and partly command: they obey the Prince and command the common people.5
Pure Appointment and Strict Accountability
The happiness of the commonwealth depends on pure appointment of magistrates, with legal remedies and severe punishment for misconduct in office.
Therefore, the happiness of the commonwealth depends especially on this: that magistrates be appointed purely, and that offices be entrusted purely. Next, let there be a remedy for misconduct in office — just as the ancients had the action for extortion. Finally, let the most severe punishment be established against these men, if they are convicted.
Choosing Magistrates by Merit, Not Favor
Magistrates must be selected based on upright character and fitness for duty, not through purchase, campaigning, family ties, or personal compatibility with the prince.
Magistrates will be chosen with integrity only if the Prince selects them — not those who buy their posts at the highest price, not those who campaign most shamelessly, not those who are closest by family ties, not those who are most suited to match his personal habits or his inclinations and desires, but those whose character is most upright and who are best fitted to carry out the duties of the office entrusted to them.6
The Corruption of Selling Offices
When princes sell offices, officials inevitably resell their authority for profit, a practice condemned even by pagans and countered by imperial laws providing judicial salaries.
But when a prince does this one thing — sells offices for the highest possible price — what can he expect from those officials in return, except that they'll just as eagerly resell what they've bought, patch up their losses however they can, and traffic in the very administration through which they obtained their positions, as though it were a business deal?789 Nor should this seem any less destructive to the commonwealth on the grounds that it has been accepted as a deeply entrenched custom among most nations — because even among the pagans it was regarded as something to be condemned, and imperial laws require those who preside over courts to be supported by a princely salary, so that they have no opportunity to turn their office into a source of profit.10111213
The Prince's Hypocrisy in Punishing Corruption
A prince who sells the right to judge cannot credibly punish corrupt judges, and he must show his magistrates the same justice he demands they show the people.
Corruption of judgment was once treated as the most serious crime. But with what confidence can a prince punish a judge who has been bribed to hand down a ruling, or who refused to rule, when that prince himself has sold the right to judge for mural money, and a prior has first taught his own judge this corruption?1415 Let the prince show toward his magistrates the same thing he wants them to show toward the common people.
Aristotle's Warning Against Profit from Office
Aristotle warns that allowing magistrates to profit monetarily from office attracts the most corrupt individuals and doubly harms the people through exclusion and robbery.
In his Politics, Aristotle wisely warns that above all else, care must be taken lest those holding public office profit from it in monetary ways. Otherwise, a twofold harm follows from this. For this is the first consequence: that the greediest and most corrupt individuals will be the ones who seek out — indeed, seize and usurp — public office. And the people will be tormented by a double burden: first, because they are shut out of positions of honor; second, because they are robbed of the profit that should have been theirs.
Read the original Latin
Princeps quam integritatem in se praestat, eamdem debet, aut certe proximam a suis officiariis exigere. Neque satis esse ducat, mandasse magistratus, sed plurimum refert, quomodo mandet, deinde uigilandum, ut incorrupte mandatis fungantur. Prudenter et grauiter admonet Aristoteles, frustra condi bonas leges, nisi sint quorum opera bene conditae seruentur, imo fit alioqui nonnumquam, ut optime conditae leges, uitio magistratuum in summam Reipublicae perniciem uertantur.
Quamquam magistratus non censu, non imaginibus, nec annis est eligendus, sed potius sapientia et integritate, tamen magis conuenit, ut natu grandes ad huiusmodi munia adhibeantur, unde Reipublicae pendet incolumitas, non tantum quod senibus et plus adest ex usu rerum prudentiae, et affectus sunt moderatiores, uerum etiam quod apud populum nonnihil auctoritatis illis conciliat senectus. Proinde Plato uetat, ne legum custodes adhibeantur minores annis quinquaginta, ne maiores septuaginta. Sacerdotem non uult esse minorem annis sexaginta: nam ut est aetatis maturitas quaedam, ita est aetatis processus, cui missio, muniumque omnium relaxatio debeatur.
Quemadmodum chorus res est elegans, si quidem ordine constet et harmonia, contra, ridiculum spectaculum, si gesticulationes una cum uocibus confundantur: Ita praeclara quaedam res est ciuitas aut regnum, si suus cuique detur locus, si suo quisque fungatur officio, hoc est, si Princeps quod se dignum est agat, si magistratus suas obeant partes, si plebes item bonis legibus et integris magistratibus obtemperet. At ubi suum negotium agit Princeps, et magistratus nihil aliud quam compilant populum, ubi plebes non obtemperat honestis legibus, sed Principi ac magistratibus, utcumque res tulerit, adulatur, ibi turpissima quaedam rerum confusio sit, oportet.
Primum ac summum Principis studium oportet esse, ut quam optime mereatur de Republica: at non alia re melius potest mereri, quam si curet ut magistratus et officia uiris integerrimis ac publici commodi studiosissimis committantur.
Princeps quid aliud est quam Medicus Reipublicae? At Medico non satis est, si ministros habeat peritos, nisi sit ipse peritissimus ac uigilantissimus: Ita Principi non sufficit, sit Magistratus habeat probos, nisi sit ipse probissimus, per quem illi et deliguntur et emendantur.
Ut animi partes non omnes perinde ualent, sed quaedam imperant, aliae parent, et tamen corpus tantum paret: Ita Principem summam Reipublicae partem plurimum sapere, et ab omnibus crassis affectibus alienissimum esse oportet. Ad hunc proxime accedent magistratus, qui partim parent, partira imperant: parent Principi, imperant plebi.
Ergo praecipue Reipublicae felicitas in hoc sita est, ut pure creentur magistratus, et pure mandentur officia. Deinde sit actio male gesti muneris, quemadmodum antiquis erat actio repetundarum. Postremo statuatur in hos seuerissima animaduersio, si conuicti fuerint.
Pure creabuntur Magistratus, si Princeps eos adsciscat, non qui plurimo emant, non qui improbissime ambiant, non qui cognatione coniunctiores, non qui ad illius mores aut affectus cupiditatesque maxime sint accomodi, sed qui moribus sint integerrimis, et ad functionem mandati muneris aptissimi.
Caeterum ubi Princeps unum hoc agit, ut quam plurimo uendat officia, quid tandem ab iis exspectet, nisi ut itidem reuendant, et quomodocumque damnum suum sarciant, et cauponentur in administrando, quemadmodum negociatione sunt consecuti. Nec hoc ideo minus perniciosum Reipublicae uideri oportet, quia consuetudine pessima apud plerasque nationes receptum est, cura Ethnicis etiam fuerit improbatum, et Caesareae leges iubeant eos, qui iudiciis praesunt, Principali salario esse inuitandos, ne qua sit illis ansa faciendi quaestus.
Olim grauissimum crimen erat corrupti iudicii: at qua fronte puniet Princeps iudicem, qui muneribus corruptus pronunciauit, aut pronunciare noluit, cura ipse iudicandi murais aere uendiderit, et hanc corruptelam prior suum docuerit iudicem? Hoc praestet Princeps erga magistratus, quod illos praestare uult erga plebem.
Prudenter admonet in Politicis Aristoteles, super omnia cauendum esse, ne ex magistratibus lucra proueniant iis, qui ea gerunt: alioqui geminum incommodum hinc sequi. Nam primum hac ratione fieri, ut auarissimus quisque et corruptissimus ambiat, imo occupet et inuadat magistratum, et populus duplici discrucietur molestia, tum quod ab honoribus excluditur; tum quod lucro priuatur.
Notes
- 1 ↩Neque…sed rendered as 'And…not…but' to capture the negative-additive opening and adversative turn. Vigilandum rendered as an active obligation ('he must stay watchful') rather than an impersonal gerundive, following the context of princely duty.
- 2 ↩Imo rendered as 'In fact' to capture the corrective-intensifying force. Alioqui nonnumquam ut rendered as 'sometimes…the opposite happens' to convey the result clause naturally. The ut clause is treated as a result clause ('the opposite sometimes happens: …are turned').
- 3 ↩Res publica rendered as 'commonwealth' to capture the civic-political sense of the Latin rather than the bare word 'republic.'
- 4 ↩At (token 13) is adversative, contrasting the general duty of serving the republic with the specific means of doing so; rendered as 'And' with the contrast carried by the shift in focus.
- 5 ↩The source reads 'partira,' treated here as a scribal error for partim ('partly').
- 6 ↩functionem (token 37): rare word; rendered 'carry out the duties' to capture the sense of performance/discharge of an office mandate.
- 7 ↩reuendant: compound verb, sense uncertain; rendered as 'resell' following the logic of the passage — officials who bought their posts must recoup the cost.
- 8 ↩cauponentur: rare word, voice and sense uncertain; rendered as 'traffic in' to capture the mercenary exploitation of public office.
- 9 ↩plurimo: case ambiguity (dative/ablative superlative); rendered as 'for the highest possible price' to fit the commercial metaphor.
- 10 ↩Ethnicis: case ambiguity (dative/ablative plural); rendered as 'among the pagans' (ablative of reference).
- 11 ↩ansa: metaphorical sense 'opportunity, handle'; rendered as 'opportunity'.
- 12 ↩inuitandos: spelling variant of invitandos; gerundive expressing obligation — 'to be invited/supported.'
- 13 ↩cura … fuerit improbatum: the impersonal perfect subjunctive with 'cura' as subject gives the sense 'it was a matter of concern that it be disapproved' — rendered as 'it was regarded as something to be condemned.'
- 14 ↩'murais aere' (mural money) is an uncertain reading; the gloss suggests 'muralis' or a corruption. The sense is payment tied to a wall or mural — possibly a fee for a judicial seat displayed publicly. The translation preserves the concrete image of money changing hands.
- 15 ↩'cura ipse iudicandi' — the gloss flags 'cura' as possibly causal or temporal. Rendered causally: 'when that prince himself has sold the right to judge,' taking 'cura' as the prince's own concern for (or management of) judging as the thing he sold.
The Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis Christiani) companion
Erasmus said the prince's day should begin with sacred reading. Yours can too.
Chosen Portion delivers a short historic devotional reading every morning — the same discipline Erasmus prescribed, sized for a working day.
Erasmus prescribed daily sacred reading as the antidote to flattery and self-deception; Chosen Portion turns that prescription into a scheduled daily portion on your phone.
- A structured 5-minute reading each morning instead of an improvised scroll
- Daily portions drawn from texts that formed rulers for 500 years
- Finish your first complete historic devotional work within 60 days of installing