ts, which was done by their
helots: wherefore some nobility may be far from pernicious in a
commonwealth by Machiavel's own testimony, who is an admirer of this,
though the servants thereof were more in number than the citizens. To
these servants I hold the answer of Lycurgus--when he bade him who asked
why he did not admit the people to the government of his commonwealth,
to go home and admit his servants to the government of his family-to
relate: for neither were the Lacedaemonians servants, nor, further,
capable of the government, unless, whereas the congregation had the
result, he should have given them the debate also; every one of
these that attained to sixty years of age, and the major vote of the
congregation, being equally capable of the Senate.

"The nobility of Rome, and their capacity of the Senate, I have already
described by that of Athens before the battle of Plataea, saving
only that the Athenian was never eligible into the Senate without the
suffrage of the people till the introduction of the lot, but the Roman
nobility ever: for the patricians were elected into the Senate by the
kings; by the consuls, or the censors, or if a plebeian happened to
be conscribed, he and his posterity became patricians. Nor, though
the people had many disputes with the nobility, did this ever come in
controversy, which, if there had been nothing else, might in my judgment
have been enough to overturn that commonwealth.

"The Venetian nobility, but that they are richer, and not military,
resemble at all other points the Lacedaemonian, as I have already shown.
These Machiavel excepts from his rule, by saying that their estates are
rather personal than real, or of any great revenue in land, which comes
to our account, and shows that a nobility or party of the nobility, not
overbalancing in dominion, is not dangerous, but of necessary use in
every commonwealth, provided it be rightly ordered; for if it be so
ordered as was that of Rome, though they do not overbalance at the
beginning, as they did not there, it will not be long ere they do, as
is clear both in reason and experience toward the latter end. That the
nobility only be capable of the Senate is there only not dangerous,
where there be no other citizens, as in this government and that of
Lacedaemon.

"The nobility of Holland and Switzerland, though but few, have
privileges not only distinct from the people, but so great that in some
sovereignties they have a negativ