As for Draco's laws, they were published when the government was already
established, and they have nothing particular in them worth mentioning,
except their severity on account of the enormity of their punishments.
Pittacus was the author of some laws, but never drew up any form of
government; one of which was this, that if a drunken man beat any person
he should be punished more than if he did it when sober; for as
people are more apt to be abusive when drunk than sober, he paid no
consideration to the excuse which drunkenness might claim, but regarded
only the common benefit. Andromadas Regmus was also a lawgiver to the
Thracian talcidians. There are some laws of his concerning murders and
heiresses extant, but these contain nothing that any one can say is new
and his own. And thus much for different sorts of governments, as well
those which really exist as those which different persons have proposed.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
Every one who inquires into the nature of government, and what are its
different forms, should make this almost his first question, What is a
city? For upon this there is a dispute: for some persons say the city
did this or that, while others say, not the city, but the oligarchy,
or the tyranny. We see that the city is the only object which both the
politician and legislator have in view in all they do: but government
is a certain ordering of those who inhabit a city. As a city is a
collective body, and, like other wholes, composed of many parts, it is
evident our first inquiry must be, what a citizen is: for a city is a
certain number of citizens. So that we must consider whom we ought to
call citizen, and who is one; for this is often doubtful: for every one
will not allow that this character is applicable to the same person; for
that man who would be a citizen in a republic would very often not be
one in an oligarchy. We do not include in this inquiry many of those who
acquire this appellation out of the ordinary way, as honorary persons,
for instance, but those only who have a natural right to it.