Book 4
1291a
and second is what is called the mechanic class (and this is the group engaged in the arts without which it is impossible for a city to be inhabited, and some of these arts are indispensably necessary, while others contribute to luxury or noble living), and third is a commercial class (by which I mean the class that is engaged in selling and buying and in wholesale and retail trade), and fourth is the class of manual laborers, and the fifth class is the one to defend the state in war, which is no less indispensable than the others if the people are not to become the slaves of those who come against them; for surely it is quite out of the question that it should be proper to give the name of state to a community that is by nature a slave, for a state is self-sufficient, but that which is a slave is not self-sufficient. Therefore the statement made in the Republic Plat. Rep. 369b-371e is witty but not adequate. For Socrates says that the most necessary elements of which a state is composed are four, and he specifies these as a weaver, a farmer, a shoemaker and a builder; and then again he adds, on the ground that these are not self-sufficient, a copper-smith and the people to look after the necessary live-stock, and in addition a merchant and a retail trader. These elements together constitute the full complement of his first city,i.e. the first sketch of the City-state, loc. cit. implying that every city is formed for the sake of the necessaries of life and not rather for the sake of what is noble, and that it has equal need of both shoemakers and farmers; but the warrior classhe does not assign to it until as the territory is increased and comes into contact with that of the neighbors they are brought into war. But yet even among the four partners or whatever their number be there must necessarily be somebody to assign justice and to judge their claims; inasmuch therefore as one would count the soul of an animal to be more a part of it than the body, so also the factors in states corresponding to the soul must be deemed to be parts of them more than those factors which contribute to necessary utility,—the former being the military class and the class that plays a part in judicial justice, and in addition to these the deliberative class, deliberation being a function of political intelligence. And it makes no difference to the argument whether these functions are held by special classes separately or by the same persons; for it often happens for the same men to be both soldiers and farmers. Hence inasmuch as both groupsThe first four classes and the fifth and sixth (the military and judicial). of classes must be counted parts of the state, it is clear that the heavy-armed soldiery at any rateLower grades of the forces may be excluded from citizenship, e.g. the rowers of the triremes (see below, 1376b 15). must be a part of the state. And a seventh class is the one that serves the community by means of its property, the class that we call the rich. And an eighth is the class of public servants, that is, those who serve in the magistracies, inasmuch as without rulers it is impossible for a city to exist; it is therefore necessary that there should be some men who are able to govern and who render this service to the state either continuously or in turn. And there remain the classes which we happen to have defined just before, the deliberative class and the one that judges the claims of litigants. If therefore it is proper for the states to have these functions performed, and well and justly performed,
