historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

270
Chapter 8. The science of politics. The Institutiones politicae
Rome who could summon the consuls to give account of their actions in the
people’s assembly. 121 Boxhorn, however, keeps silent about who those people
are ‘in whose interest it was’ to be notified (the Roman example suggests the
people) and, when notified, what kind of actions they can take against magistrates
who trangress the fundamental laws. From his comments on the Roman
consuls and tyranny we can conclude that Boxhorn thinks that magistrates
can only be hold accountable after they have laid down their office or when
they have fallen out of office due to tyrannical behaviour. 122
A third way Boxhorn comes up with to protect subjects from the violation
of their rights is ‘the joint and persistent freedom of the lower magistrates in
timely preventing and stopping with a sufficient strength of both mind and
speech all those matters which can take something away from the people’s
freedom’. This freedom of the lower magistrates constitutes ‘the best defence
of the people’s freedom. And I shall summon here the senatorial freedom
praised by Tacitus in the Annals, book 13, chapter 49, and of which Paetus
Thrasea said that the Roman Republic was in need, and of which the states of
the whole world are in need now, in a time where the peoples are so suffering
and the princes use so many foul means’. 123
Although Boxhorn nowhere in the Institutiones politicae explains what
this freedom of the lower magistrates means, the equation with the Tacitean
concept of senatorial freedom (senatoria libertas) gives us a clear hint in what
direction we should look. Senatorial freedom is an important principle in
Tacitus’s work. 124 It entails several powers, such as the power to legislate, the
121 Ibidem, I.5, 61. ‘II. Custoditur libertas legibus permissa censoriis Magistratibus introductis, qui sunt
Magistratus in Magistratus constituti, qui inquirunt rationes Magistratuum, & si quos legi libertatique
adversari deprehenderint, ad eos, quorum interest deferunt, sic ut hoc pacto ratio quasi gesti imperii
à summis etiam Magistratibus exigatur … Ap. Romanos etiam licebat Tribunis plebis Consuli diem ad
populum dicere, postquam imperio abiisset, ut imperii gesti rationem redderet populo.’
122 Ibidem, I.5, p. 67, and II.4.49-53, pp. 305-6. Boxhorn makes it clear that a magistrate in office ‘cannot
or should not be punished’; he can be accused of having committed certain crimes. Ibidem, I.9.32, p.
104. ‘Hinc Magistratus, qua adhuc talis, seu quamdiu titulum muneris publici sustinet, accusari quidem
(etsi justa §. 28. non temerè) potest, puniri non potest aut debet.’
123 Ibidem, I.5.34, pp. 53-54. ‘(I) Concors & pertinax inferiorum Magistratuum libertas, in tempestive
praeveniendis, & magnitudine idonea, tam animi, quàm oris, refutandis, omnibus, quibus aliquid
decedere possit populi libertati, maximum hujus est munimentum, atque huc vocaverim illam Annal.
13. cap. 49. à Tacito laudatam, cujusque egere Romanam Rempublicam dicebat Paetus Thrasea, cujusque
in tanta servientium patientia, totque malas Principum artes, totius jam orbis Imperia egent, Senatoriam
libertatem.’
124 Tacitus introduced the term for the first time in the Agricola, also in connection with the Roman
senator Paetus Thrasea. Tacitus, Agricola, II.1-2. ‘Legimus, cum Aruleno Rustico Paetus Thrasea, Herennio
Senecioni Priscus Helvidius laudati essent, capitale fuisse, neque in ipsos modo auctores, sed in
libros quoque eorum saevitum, delegato triumviris ministerio ut monumenta clarissimorum ingeniorum
in comitio ac foro urerentur. scilicet illo igne vocem populi Romani et libertatem senatus et conscientiam
generis humani aboleri arbitrabantur, expulsis insuper sapientiae professoribus atque omni
bona arte in exilium acta, ne quid usquam honestum occurreret.’ Quoted from Tacitus, Opera minora, pp.
3-4.