Book 3
1282a
This difficulty then might perhaps be thought to be satisfactorily solved in this way. But there is another connected with it: it is thought to be absurd that the base should be in control over more important matters than the respectable; but the audits and the elections of magistrates are a very important matter, yet in some constitutions, as has been said, they are assigned to the common people, for all such matters are under the control of the assembly, yet persons of a low property-assessment and of any age take part in the assembly and the council and sit on juries, whereas treasury officials, generals and the holders of the highest magistracies are drawn from among persons of large property. Now this difficulty also may be solved in a similar way; for perhaps these regulations also are sound, since it is not the individual juryman or councillor or member of the assembly in whom authority rests, but the court, the council and the people, while each of the individuals named (I mean the councillor, the members of assembly and the juryman) is a part of those bodies. Hence justly the multitude is sovereign in greater matters, for the popular assembly, the council and the jury-court are formed of a number of people, and also the assessed property of all these members collectively is more than that of the magistrates holding great offices individually or in small groups.
1282a
Let these points therefore be decided in this manner.
