A civil servant who administers laws. A justice of the peace.
"But they think anything beseems them which brings in cash, that is, which increases the hunger of the poor and nourishes the luxury of the nobles (or rather the bandits). And there are even some who make a tidy pile out of the deeds of criminals, using the law as their fishing-net. Now what magistrate's post or governorship is there, which is not for sale in several quarters? And finally, since all these many expedients cannot fill a leaky barrel (i.e., the prince's royal treasury), someone thinks up a reason for going to war, the generals get their heads together, the unhappy population has the very marrow sucked out of its bones, just as if kingship were nothing but a vast profit-making concern."
Erasmus, Adages ("A mortuo tributum exigere") (1515).
[translated by Margaret Mann Phillips (1967)].
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