The full paragraph from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
The promise of obedience and compliance that follows the election and inauguration
is the event in which the members of the realm—or the people through
its ephors, and the ephors in its name—promise their trust, obedience,
compliance, and whatever else may be necessary for the administration of the
realm. This promise, which pertains to things that do not conflict with the
law of God and the right of the realm, is made to the magistrate who receives
the entrusted administration of the commonwealth, and is about to undertake
his office and to rule the commonwealth piously and justly. …
The oath that the magistrate first swears to the subjects, and the subjects
then offer to the magistrate, is properly called a homage (homagium) from
? μ ο ?, which means “at the same time” (simul),
and ? γ ι ο ν, which means“sacred” (sacrum),
so that, as it were, what is common, or a common oath, should be sacred.
Those subjects who have upheld this oath are called faithful.
Because of this trust, compliance, service, aid, and counsel that the
people promises and furnishes to its supreme magistrate, he is said to
have innumerable eyes and ears, large arms, and swift feet, as if the whole
people lent him its eyes, ears, strength, and faculties for the use of
the commonwealth. Whence the magistrate is called mighty, strong, rich,
wise, and aware of many things, and is said to represent the entire people. …
Such service and aid consist above all in works of occupational skill
and in works of allegiance. Works of occupational skill consist in material
services extended and performed for the welfare and utility of the realm
and magistrate according to the function, trade, and office that each is
able to perform. … Works of allegiance consist in obedience and
reverence. Obedience is the compliance that is shown to the just commands
of the magistrate, and is required even if he should be an impious or wicked
man. For the life of the magistrate does not take away his office, and
whoever disparages the magistrate scorns God. … However, obedience
is not to be extended to impious commands of the magistrate. For obedience
to God is more important than obedience to men. … Reverence is that
honor, veneration, and adoration that the subject with fear and trembling
owes to the magistrate because of the lofty position to which the magistrate
is elevated by God, and because of the many and great benefits that God
dispenses to us through the hand of the magistrate. Whence the deeds of
the whole realm are attributed wisely and happily to the virtue and administration
of the prince, and we honor no one in preference to him. …
If the people does not manifest obedience, and fails to fulfill the service
and obligations promised in the election and inauguration—in the
constituting—of the supreme magistrate, then he is the punisher,
even by arms and war, of this perfidy and violation of trust, indeed, of
this contumacy, rebellion, and sedition. But if the supreme magistrate
does not keep his pledged word, and fails to administer the realm according
to his promise, then the realm, or the ephors and the leading men in its
name, is the punisher of this violation and broken trust. It is then conceded
to the people to change and annul the earlier form of its polity and commonwealth,
and to constitute a new one. In both cases, because a proper condition
of the agreement and compact is not fulfilled, the contract is dissolved
by right itself. In the first case, the prince will no longer treat such
rebels and perfidious persons as his subjects, and is no longer required
to perform toward them what he has promised. In the other case, likewise,
the people, or members of the realm, will not recognize such a perfidious,
perjurous, and compact-breaking person as their magistrate, but treat him
as a private person and a tyrant to whom it is no longer required to extend
obedience and other duties it promised. The magistrate loses the right
to exact them justly. And it can and ought to remove him from office. Thus
Bartolus says that a legitimate magistrate is a living law, and if he is
condemned by law he is condemned by his own voice. But a tyrant is anything
but a living law. …
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