Kitap 7
1324b
Some people then hold the former view, while others declare that the despotic and tyrannical form of constitution alone achieves happiness; and in some states it is also the distinctive aim of the constitution and the laws to enable them to exercise despotic rule over their neighbors. Hence even though with most peoples most of the legal ordinances have been laid down virtually at random, nevertheless if there are places where the laws aim at one definite object, that object is in all cases power, as in Sparta and Crete both the system of education and the mass of the laws are framed in the main with a view to war; and also among all the non-Hellenic nations that are strong enough to expand at the expense of others, military strength has been held in honor, for example, among the Scythians, Persians, Thracians and Celts. Indeed among some peoples there are even certain laws stimulating military valor; for instance at Carthage, we are told, warriors receive the decoration of armlets of the same number as the campaigns on which they have served; and at one time there was also a law in Macedonia that a man who had never killed an enemy must wear his halter instead of a belt. Among Scythian tribes at a certain festival a cup was carried round from which a man that had not killed an enemy was not allowed to drink. Among the Iberians, a warlike race, they fix small spitsOr perhaps pointed stones. in the earth round a man’s grave corresponding in number to the enemies he has killed. So with other races there are many other practices of a similar kind, some established by law and others by custom.
