Politics: A Treatise on Government

BOOK V

CHAP­TER I

We have now gone through those par­tic­ulars we pro­posed to speak of; it re­mains that we next con­sid­er from what caus­es and how al­ter­ations in gov­ern­ment arise, and of what na­ture they are, and to what the de­struc­tion of each state is ow­ing; and al­so to what form any form of poli­ty is most like­ly to shift in­to, and what are the means to be used for the gen­er­al preser­va­tion of gov­ern­ments, as well as what are ap­pli­ca­ble to any par­tic­ular state; and al­so of the reme­dies which are to be ap­plied ei­ther to all in gen­er­al, or to any one con­sid­ered sep­arate­ly, when they are in a state of cor­rup­tion: and here we ought first to lay down this prin­ci­ple, that there are many gov­ern­ments, all of which ap­prove of what is just and what is ana­log­ical­ly equal; and yet have failed from at­tain­ing there­un­to, as we have al­ready men­tioned; thus democ­ra­cies have arisen from sup­pos­ing that those who are equal in one thing are so in ev­ery oth­er cir­cum­stance; as, be­cause they are equal in lib­er­ty, they are equal in ev­ery­thing else; and oli­garchies, from sup­pos­ing that those who are un­equal in one thing are un­equal in all; that when men are so in point of for­tune, that in­equal­ity ex­tends to ev­ery­thing else. Hence it fol­lows, that those who in some re­spects are equal with oth­ers think it right to en­deav­our to par­take of an equal­ity with them in ev­ery­thing; and those who are su­pe­ri­or to oth­ers en­deav­our to get still more; and it is this more which is the in­equal­ity: thus most states, though they have some no­tion of what is just, yet are al­most to­tal­ly wrong; and, up­on this ac­count, when ei­ther par­ty has not that share in the ad­min­is­tra­tion which an­swers to his ex­pec­ta­tions, he be­comes sedi­tious: but those who of all oth­ers have the great­est right to be so are the last that are; name­ly, those who ex­cel in virtue; for they alone can be called gen­er­al­ly su­pe­ri­or. There are, too, some per­sons of dis­tin­guished fam­ilies who, be­cause they are so, dis­dain to be on an equal­ity with oth­ers, for those es­teem them­selves no­ble who boast of their an­ces­tors’ mer­it and for­tune: these, to speak truth, are the ori­gin and foun­tain from whence sedi­tions arise. The al­ter­ations which men may pro­pose to make in gov­ern­ments are two; for ei­ther they may change the state al­ready es­tab­lished in­to some oth­er, as when they pro­pose to erect an oli­garchy where there is a democ­ra­cy; or a democ­ra­cy, or free state, where there is an oli­garchy, or an aris­toc­ra­cy from these, or those from that; or else, when they have no ob­jec­tion to the es­tab­lished gov­ern­ment, which they like very well, but choose to have the sole man­age­ment in it them­selves; ei­ther in the hands of a few or one on­ly. They will al­so raise com­mo­tions con­cern­ing the de­gree in which they would have the es­tab­lished pow­er; as if, for in­stance, the gov­ern­ment is an oli­garchy, to have it more pure­ly so, and in the same man­ner if it is a democ­ra­cy, or else to have it less so; and, in like man­ner, what­ev­er may be the na­ture of the gov­ern­ment, ei­ther to ex­tend or con­tract its pow­ers; or else to make some al­ter­ations in some parts of it; as to es­tab­lish or abol­ish a par­tic­ular mag­is­tra­cy, as some per­sons say Lysander en­deav­oured to abol­ish the king­ly pow­er in Spar­ta; and Pau­sa­nias that of the ephori. Thus in Ep­idamnus there was an al­ter­ation in one part of the con­sti­tu­tion, for in­stead of the phi­larchi they es­tab­lished a sen­ate. It is al­so nec­es­sary for all the mag­is­trates at Athens; to at­tend in the court of the He­lisea when any new mag­is­trate is cre­at­ed: the pow­er of the ar­chon al­so in that state par­takes of the na­ture of an oli­garchy: in­equal­ity is al­ways the oc­ca­sion of sedi­tion, but not when those who are un­equal are treat­ed in a dif­fer­ent man­ner cor­re­spon­dent to that in­equal­ity. Thus king­ly pow­er is un­equal when ex­er­cised over equals. Up­on the whole, those who aim af­ter an equal­ity are the cause of sedi­tions. Equal­ity is twofold, ei­ther in num­ber or val­ue. Equal­ity in num­ber is when two things con­tain the same parts or the same quan­ti­ty; equal­ity in val­ue is by pro­por­tion as two ex­ceeds one, and three two by the same num­ber-​thus by pro­por­tion four ex­ceeds two, and two one in the same de­gree, for two is the same part of four that one is of two; that is to say, half. Now, all agree in what is ab­so­lute­ly and sim­ply just; but, as we have al­ready said they dis­pute con­cern­ing pro­por­tion­ate val­ue; for some per­sons, if they are equal in one re­spect, think them­selves equal in all; oth­ers, if they are su­pe­ri­or in one thing, think they may claim the su­pe­ri­or­ity in all; from whence chiefly arise two sorts of gov­ern­ments, a democ­ra­cy and an oli­garchy; for no­bil­ity and virtue are to be found on­ly [1302a] amongst a few; the con­trary amongst the many; there be­ing in no place a hun­dred of the first to be met with, but enough of the last ev­ery­where. But to es­tab­lish a gov­ern­ment en­tire­ly up­on ei­ther of these equal­ities is wrong, and this the ex­am­ple of those so es­tab­lished makes ev­ident, for none of them have been sta­ble; and for this rea­son, that it is im­pos­si­ble that what­ev­er is wrong at the first and in its prin­ci­ples should not at last meet with a bad end: for which rea­son in some things an equal­ity of num­bers ought to take place, in oth­ers an equal­ity in val­ue. How­ev­er, a democ­ra­cy is safer and less li­able to sedi­tion than an oli­garchy; for in this lat­ter it may arise from two caus­es, for ei­ther the few in pow­er may con­spire against each oth­er or against the peo­ple; but in a democ­ra­cy on­ly one; name­ly, against the few who aim at ex­clu­sive pow­er; but there is no in­stance worth speak­ing of, of a sedi­tion of the peo­ple against them­selves. More­over, a gov­ern­ment com­posed of men of mod­er­ate for­tunes comes much near­er to a democ­ra­cy than an oli­garchy, and is the safest of all such states.

CHAP­TER II

Since we are in­quir­ing in­to the caus­es of sedi­tions and rev­olu­tions in gov­ern­ments, we must be­gin en­tire­ly with the first prin­ci­ples from whence they arise. Now these, so to speak, are near­ly three in num­ber; which we must first dis­tin­guish in gen­er­al from each oth­er, and en­deav­our to show in what sit­ua­tion peo­ple are who be­gin a sedi­tion; and for what caus­es; and third­ly, what are the be­gin­nings of po­lit­ical trou­bles and mu­tu­al quar­rels with each oth­er. Now that cause which of all oth­ers most uni­ver­sal­ly in­clines men to de­sire to bring about a change in gov­ern­ment is that which I have al­ready men­tioned; for those who aim at equal­ity will be ev­er ready for sedi­tion, if they see those whom they es­teem their equals pos­sess more than they do, as well as those al­so who are not con­tent with equal­ity but aim at su­pe­ri­or­ity, if they think that while they de­serve more than, they have on­ly equal with, or less than, their in­fe­ri­ors. Now, what they aim at may be ei­ther just or un­just; just, when those who are in­fe­ri­or are sedi­tious, that they may be equal; un­just, when those who are equal are so, that they may be su­pe­ri­or. These, then, are the sit­ua­tions in which men will be sedi­tious: the caus­es for which they will be so are prof­it and hon­our; and their con­trary: for, to avoid dis­hon­our or loss of for­tune by mulcts, ei­ther on their own ac­count or their friends, they will raise a com­mo­tion in the state. The orig­inal caus­es which dis­pose men to the things which I have men­tioned are, tak­en in one man­ner, sev­en in num­ber, in an­oth­er they are more; two of which are the same with those that have been al­ready men­tioned: but in­flu­enc­ing in a dif­fer­ent man­ner; for prof­it and hon­our sharp­en men against each oth­er; not to get the pos­ses­sion of them for them­selves (which was what I just now sup­posed), but when they see oth­ers, some just­ly, oth­ers [1302b] un­just­ly, en­gross­ing them. The oth­er caus­es are haugh­ti­ness, fear, em­inence, con­tempt, dis­pro­por­tion­ate in­crease in some part of the state. There are al­so oth­er things which in a dif­fer­ent man­ner will oc­ca­sion rev­olu­tions in gov­ern­ments; as elec­tion in­trigues, ne­glect, want of num­bers, a too great dis­sim­ilar­ity of cir­cum­stances.

CHAP­TER III

What in­flu­ence ill-​treat­ment and prof­it have for this pur­pose, and how they may be the caus­es of sedi­tion, is al­most self-​ev­ident; for when the mag­is­trates are haughty and en­deav­our to make greater prof­its than their of­fice gives them, they not on­ly oc­ca­sion sedi­tions amongst each oth­er, but against the state al­so who gave them their pow­er; and this their avarice has two ob­jects, ei­ther pri­vate prop­er­ty or the prop­er­ty of the state. What in­flu­ence hon­ours have, and how they may oc­ca­sion sedi­tion, is ev­ident enough; for those who are them­selves un­honoured while they see oth­ers hon­oured, will be ready for any dis­tur­bance: and these things are done un­just­ly when any one is ei­ther hon­oured or dis­card­ed con­trary to their deserts, just­ly when they are ac­cord­ing to them. Ex­ces­sive hon­ours are al­so a cause of sedi­tion when one per­son or more are greater than the state and the pow­er of the gov­ern­ment can per­mit; for then a monar­chy or a dy­nasty is usu­al­ly es­tab­lished: on which ac­count the os­tracism was in­tro­duced in some places, as at Ar­gos and Athens: though it is bet­ter to guard against such ex­cess­es in the found­ing of a state, than when they have been per­mit­ted to take place, to cor­rect them af­ter­ward. Those who have been guilty of crimes will be the cause of sedi­tion, through fear of pun­ish­ment; as will those al­so who ex­pect an in­jury, that they may pre­vent it; as was the case at Rhodes, when the no­bles con­spired against the peo­ple on ac­count of the de­crees they ex­pect­ed would pass against them. Con­tempt al­so is a cause of sedi­tion and con­spir­acies; as in oli­garchies, where there are many who have no share in the ad­min­is­tra­tion. The rich al­so even in democ­ra­cies, de­spis­ing the dis­or­der and an­ar­chy which will arise, hope to bet­ter them­selves by the same means which hap­pened at Thebes af­ter the bat­tle of Oeno­phy­ta, where, in con­se­quence of bad ad­min­is­tra­tion, the democ­ra­cy was de­stroyed; as it was at Megara, where the pow­er of the peo­ple was lost through an­ar­chy and dis­or­der; the same thing hap­pened at Syra­cuse be­fore the tyran­ny of Gelon; and at Rhodes there was the same sedi­tion be­fore the pop­ular gov­ern­ment was over­thrown. Rev­olu­tions in state will al­so arise from a dis­pro­por­tion­ate in­crease; for as the body con­sists of many parts, it ought to in­crease pro­por­tion-​ably to pre­serve its sym­me­try, which would oth­er­wise be de­stroyed; as if the foot was to be four cu­bits long, and the rest of the body but two palms; it might oth­er­wise [1303a] be changed in­to an an­imal of a dif­fer­ent form, if it in­crease be­yond pro­por­tion not on­ly in quan­ti­ty, but al­so in dis­po­si­tion of parts; so al­so a city con­sists of parts, some of which may of­ten in­crease with­out no­tice, as the num­ber of poor in democ­ra­cies and free states. They will al­so some­times hap­pen by ac­ci­dent, as at Tar­en­tum, a lit­tle af­ter the Me­di­an war, where so many of the no­bles were killed in a bat­tle by the lapy­gi, that from a free state the gov­ern­ment was turned in­to a democ­ra­cy; and at Ar­gos, where so many of the cit­izens were killed by Cleomenes the Spar­tan, that they were obliged to ad­mit sev­er­al hus­band­men to the free­dom of the state: and at Athens, through the un­for­tu­nate event of the in­fantry bat­tles, the num­ber of the no­bles was re­duced by the sol­diers be­ing cho­sen from the list of cit­izens in the Lacedae­mo­ni­an wars. Rev­olu­tions al­so some­times take place in a democ­ra­cy, though sel­domer; for where the rich grow nu­mer­ous or prop­er­ties in­crease, they be­come oli­garchies or dy­nas­ties. Gov­ern­ments al­so some­times al­ter with­out sedi­tions by a com­bi­na­tion of the mean­er peo­ple; as at Hersea: for which pur­pose they changed the mode of elec­tion from votes to lots, and thus got them­selves cho­sen: and by neg­li­gence, as when the cit­izens ad­mit those who are not friends to the con­sti­tu­tion in­to the chief of­fices of the state, which hap­pened at Orus, when the oli­garchy of the ar­chons was put an end to at the elec­tion of Her­acleodor­us, who changed that form of gov­ern­ment in­to a demo­crat­ic free state. By lit­tle and lit­tle, I mean by this, that very of­ten great al­ter­ations silent­ly take place in the form of gov­ern­ment from peo­ple’s over­look­ing small mat­ters; as at Am­bra­cia, where the cen­sus was orig­inal­ly small, but at last be­came noth­ing at all, as if a lit­tle and noth­ing at all were near­ly or en­tire­ly alike. That state al­so is li­able to sedi­tions which is com­posed of dif­fer­ent na­tions, till their dif­fer­ences are blend­ed to­geth­er and undis­tin­guish­able; for as a city can­not be com­posed of ev­ery mul­ti­tude, so nei­ther can it in ev­ery giv­en time; for which rea­son all those re­publics which have hith­er­to been orig­inal­ly com­posed of dif­fer­ent peo­ple or af­ter­wards ad­mit­ted their neigh­bours to the free­dom of their city, have been most li­able to rev­olu­tions; as when the Achaeans joined with the Traezeni­ans in found­ing Sybaris; for soon af­ter, grow­ing more pow­er­ful than the Traezeni­ans, they ex­pelled them from the city; from whence came the proverb of Sybarite wicked­ness: and again, dis­putes from a like cause hap­pened at Thuri­um be­tween the Sybarites and those who had joined with them in build­ing the city; for they as­sum­ing up­on these, on ac­count of the coun­try be­ing their own, were driv­en out. And at Byzan­tium the new cit­izens, be­ing de­tect­ed in plots against the state, were driv­en out of the city by force of arms. The An­ti­sseans al­so, hav­ing tak­en in those who were ban­ished from Chios, af­ter­wards did the same thing; and al­so the Zan­cleans, af­ter hav­ing tak­en in the peo­ple of Samos. The Ap­pol­lo­ni­ats, in the Eu­xine Sea, hav­ing ad­mit­ted their so­journ­ers to the free­dom of their city, were trou­bled with sedi­tions: and the Syra­cu­sians, af­ter the ex­pul­sion of their tyrants, hav­ing en­rolled [1303b] strangers and mer­ce­nar­ies amongst their cit­izens, quar­relled with each oth­er and came to an open rup­ture: and the peo­ple of Am­phipo­lis, hav­ing tak­en in a colony of Chal­cid­ians, were the greater part of them driv­en out of the city by them. Many per­sons oc­ca­sion sedi­tions in oli­garchies be­cause they think them­selves ill-​used in not shar­ing the hon­ours of the state with their equals, as I have al­ready men­tioned; but in democ­ra­cies the prin­ci­pal peo­ple do the same be­cause they have not more than an equal share with oth­ers who are not equal to them. The sit­ua­tion of the place will al­so some­times oc­ca­sion dis­tur­bances in the state when the ground is not well adapt­ed for one city; as at Cla­zomene, where the peo­ple who lived in that part of the town called Chytrum quar­relled with them who lived in the is­land, and the Colo­pho­ni­ans with the No­tians. At Athens too the dis­po­si­tion of the cit­izens is not the same, for those who live in the Pi­raeus are more at­tached to a pop­ular gov­ern­ment than those who live in the city prop­er­ly so called; for as the in­ter­po­si­tion of a rivulet, how­ev­er small, will oc­ca­sion the line of the pha­lanx to fluc­tu­ate, so any tri­fling dis­agree­ment will be the cause of sedi­tions; but they will not so soon flow from any­thing else as from the dis­agree­ment be­tween virtue and vice, and next to that be­tween pover­ty and rich­es, and so on in or­der, one cause hav­ing more in­flu­ence than an­oth­er; one of which that I last men­tioned.

CHAP­TER IV

But sedi­tions in gov­ern­ment do not arise for lit­tle things, but from them; for their im­me­di­ate cause is some­thing of mo­ment. Now, tri­fling quar­rels are at­tend­ed with the great­est con­se­quences when they arise be­tween per­sons of the first dis­tinc­tion in the state, as was the case with the Syra­cu­sians in a re­mote pe­ri­od; for a rev­olu­tion in the gov­ern­ment was brought about by a quar­rel be­tween two young men who were in of­fice, up­on a love af­fair; for one of them be­ing ab­sent, the oth­er se­duced his mis­tress; he in his turn, of­fend­ed with this, per­suad­ed his friend’s wife to come and live with him; and up­on this the whole city took part ei­ther with the one or the oth­er, and the gov­ern­ment was over­turned: there­fore ev­ery one at the be­gin­ning of such dis­putes ought to take care to avoid the con­se­quences; and to smoth­er up all quar­rels which may hap­pen to arise amongst those in pow­er, for the mis­chief lies in the be­gin­ning; for the be­gin­ning is said to be half of the busi­ness, so that what was then but a lit­tle fault will be found af­ter­wards to bear its full pro­por­tion to what fol­lows. More­over, dis­putes be­tween men of note in­volve the whole city in their con­se­quences; in Hes­ti­aea, af­ter the Me­di­an war: two broth­ers hav­ing a dis­pute about their pa­ter­nal es­tate; he who was the poor­er, from the oth­er’s hav­ing con­cealed part of the ef­fects, and some mon­ey which his fa­ther had found, en­gaged the pop­ular par­ty on his side, while the oth­er, who was rich, the men of fash­ion. And at Delphos, [1304a] a quar­rel about a wed­ding was the be­gin­ning of all the sedi­tions that af­ter­wards arose amongst them; for the bride­groom, be­ing ter­ri­fied by some un­lucky omen up­on wait­ing up­on the bride, went away with­out mar­ry­ing her; which her re­la­tions re­sent­ing, con­trived se­cret­ly to con­vey some sa­cred mon­ey in­to his pock­et while he was sac­ri­fic­ing, and then killed him as an im­pi­ous per­son. At Mity­lene al­so, a dis­pute, which arose con­cern­ing a right of her­itage, was the be­gin­ning of great evils, and a war with the Athe­ni­ans, in which Pach­es took their city, for Tim­ophanes, a man of for­tune, leav­ing two daugh­ters, Doxan­der, who was cir­cum­vent­ed in procur­ing them in mar­riage for his two sons, be­gan a sedi­tion, and ex­cit­ed the Athe­ni­ans to at­tack them, be­ing the host of that state. There was al­so a dis­pute at Pho­cea, con­cern­ing a right of in­her­itance, be­tween Mna­sis, the fa­ther of Mna­sis, and Eu­thu­crates, the fa­ther of Ono­marchus, which brought on the Pho­ceans the sa­cred war. The gov­ern­ment too of Ep­idamnus was changed from a quar­rel that arose from an in­tend­ed mar­riage; for a cer­tain man hav­ing con­tract­ed his daugh­ter in mar­riage, the fa­ther of the young per­son to whom she was con­tract­ed, be­ing ar­chon, pun­ish­es him, up­on which ac­count he, re­sent­ing the af­front, as­so­ci­at­ed him­self with those who were ex­clud­ed from any share in the gov­ern­ment, and brought about a rev­olu­tion. A gov­ern­ment may be changed ei­ther in­to an oli­garchy, democ­ra­cy, or a free state; when the mag­is­trates, or any part of the city ac­quire great cred­it, or are in­creased in pow­er, as the court of Are­opa­gus at Athens, hav­ing pro­cured great cred­it dur­ing the Me­di­an war, added firm­ness to their ad­min­is­tra­tion; and, on the oth­er hand, the mar­itime force, com­posed of the com­mon­al­ty, hav­ing gained the vic­to­ry at Salamis, by their pow­er at sea, got the lead in the state, and strength­ened the pop­ular par­ty: and at Ar­gos, the no­bles, hav­ing gained great cred­it by the bat­tle of Man­tinea against the Lacedae­mo­ni­ans, en­deav­oured to dis­solve the democ­ra­cy. And at Syra­cuse, the vic­to­ry in their war with the Athe­ni­ans be­ing ow­ing to the com­mon peo­ple, they changed their free state in­to a democ­ra­cy: and at Chal­cis, the peo­ple hav­ing tak­en off the tyrant Pho­cis, to­geth­er with the no­bles, im­me­di­ate­ly seized the gov­ern­ment: and at Am­bra­cia al­so the peo­ple, hav­ing ex­pelled the tyrant Pe­rian­der, with his par­ty, placed the supreme pow­er in them­selves. And this in gen­er­al ought to be known, that whoso­ev­er has been the oc­ca­sion of a state be­ing pow­er­ful, whether pri­vate per­sons, or mag­is­trates, a cer­tain tribe, or any par­tic­ular part of the cit­izens, or the mul­ti­tude, be they who they will, will be the cause of dis­putes in the state. For ei­ther some per­sons, who en­vy them the hon­ours they have ac­quired, will be­gin to be sedi­tious, or they, on ac­count of the dig­ni­ty they have ac­quired, will not be con­tent with their for­mer equal­ity. A state is al­so li­able to com­mo­tions when those parts of it which seem to be op­po­site to each oth­er ap­proach to an [1304b] equal­ity, as the rich and the com­mon peo­ple; so that the part which is be­tween them both is ei­ther noth­ing at all, or too lit­tle to be no­ticed; for if one par­ty is so much more pow­er­ful than the oth­er, as to be ev­ident­ly stronger, that oth­er will not be will­ing to haz­ard the dan­ger: for which rea­son those who are su­pe­ri­or in ex­cel­lence and virtue will nev­er be the cause of sedi­tions; for they will be too few for that pur­pose when com­pared to the many. In gen­er­al, the be­gin­ning and the caus­es of sedi­tions in all states are such as I have now de­scribed, and rev­olu­tions there­in are brought about in two ways, ei­ther by vi­olence or fraud: if by vi­olence, ei­ther at first by com­pelling them to sub­mit to the change when it is made. It may al­so be brought about by fraud in two dif­fer­ent ways, ei­ther when the peo­ple, be­ing at first de­ceived, will­ing­ly con­sent to an al­ter­ation in their gov­ern­ment, and are af­ter­wards obliged by force to abide by it: as, for in­stance, when the four hun­dred im­posed up­on the peo­ple by telling them that the king of Per­sia would sup­ply them with mon­ey for the war against the Lacedae­mo­ni­ans; and af­ter they had been guilty of this fal­si­ty, they en­deav­oured to keep pos­ses­sion of the supreme pow­er; or when they are at first per­suad­ed and af­ter­wards con­sent to be gov­erned: and by one of these meth­ods which I have men­tioned are all rev­olu­tions in gov­ern­ments brought about.

CHAP­TER V

We ought now to in­quire in­to those events which will arise from these caus­es in ev­ery species of gov­ern­ment. Democ­ra­cies will be most sub­ject to rev­olu­tions from the dis­hon­esty of their dem­agogues; for part­ly, by in­form­ing against men of prop­er­ty, they in­duce them to join to­geth­er through self-​de­fence, for a com­mon fear will make the great­est en­emies unite; and part­ly by set­ting the com­mon peo­ple against them: and this is what any one may con­tin­ual­ly see prac­tised in many states. In the is­land of Cos, for in­stance, the democ­ra­cy was sub­vert­ed by the wicked­ness of the dem­agogues, for the no­bles en­tered in­to a com­bi­na­tion with each oth­er. And at Rhodes the dem­agogues, by dis­tribut­ing of bribes, pre­vent­ed the peo­ple from pay­ing the tri­er­ar­chs what was ow­ing to them, who were obliged by the num­ber of ac­tions they were ha­rassed with to con­spire to­geth­er and de­stroy the pop­ular state. The same thing was brought about at Her­aclea, soon af­ter the set­tle­ment of the city, by the same per­sons; for the cit­izens of note, be­ing ill treat­ed by them, quit­ted the city, but af­ter­wards join­ing to­geth­er they re­turned and over­threw the pop­ular state. Just in the same man­ner the democ­ra­cy was de­stroyed in Megara; for there the dem­agogues, to pro­cure mon­ey by con­fis­ca­tions, drove out the no­bles, till the num­ber of those who were ban­ished was con­sid­er­able, who, [1305a] re­turn­ing, got the bet­ter of the peo­ple in a bat­tle, and es­tab­lished an oli­garchy. The like hap­pened at Cume, dur­ing the time of the democ­ra­cy, which Thrasy­machus de­stroyed; and who­ev­er con­sid­ers what has hap­pened in oth­er states may per­ceive the same rev­olu­tions to have arisen from the same caus­es. The dem­agogues, to cur­ry favour with the peo­ple, drive the no­bles to con­spire to­geth­er, ei­ther by di­vid­ing their es­tates, or oblig­ing them to spend them on pub­lic ser­vices, or by ban­ish­ing them, that they may con­fis­cate the for­tunes of the wealthy. In for­mer times, when the same per­son was both dem­agogue and gen­er­al, the democ­ra­cies were changed in­to tyran­nies; and in­deed most of the an­cient tyran­nies arose from those states: a rea­son for which then sub­sist­ed, but not now; for at that time the dem­agogues were of the sol­diery; for they were not then pow­er­ful by their elo­quence; but, now the art of or­ato­ry is cul­ti­vat­ed, the able speak­ers are at present the dem­agogues; but, as they are un­qual­ified to act in a mil­itary ca­pac­ity, they can­not im­pose them­selves on the peo­ple as tyrants, if we ex­cept in one or two tri­fling in­stances. For­mer­ly, too, tyran­nies were more com­mon than now, on ac­count of the very ex­ten­sive pow­ers with which some mag­is­trates were en­trust­ed: as the pry­tanes at Mile­tus; for they were supreme in many things of the last con­se­quence; and al­so be­cause at that time the cities were not of that very great ex­tent, the peo­ple in gen­er­al liv­ing in the coun­try, and be­ing em­ployed in hus­bandry, which gave them, who took the lead in pub­lic af­fairs, an op­por­tu­ni­ty, if they had a turn for war, to make them­selves tyrants; which they all did when they had gained the con­fi­dence of the peo­ple; and this con­fi­dence was their ha­tred to the rich. This was the case of Pi­si­stra­tus at Athens, when he op­posed the Pe­diaci: and of Theagenes in Megara, who slaugh­tered the cat­tle be­long­ing to the rich, af­ter he had seized those who kept them by the river­side. Diony­sius al­so, for ac­cus­ing Daphnseus and the rich, was thought wor­thy of be­ing raised to a tyran­ny, from the con­fi­dence which the peo­ple had of his be­ing a pop­ular man in con­se­quence of these en­mi­ties. A gov­ern­ment shall al­so al­ter from its an­cient and ap­proved demo­crat­ic form in­to one en­tire­ly new, if there is no cen­sus to reg­ulate the elec­tion of mag­is­trates; for, as the elec­tion is with the peo­ple, the dem­agogues who are de­sirous of be­ing in of­fice, to flat­ter them, will en­deav­our with all their pow­er to make the peo­ple su­pe­ri­or even to the laws. To pre­vent this en­tire­ly, or at least in a great mea­sure, the mag­is­trates should be elect­ed by the tribes, and not by the peo­ple at large. These are near­ly the rev­olu­tions to which democ­ra­cies are li­able, and al­so the caus­es from whence they arise.

CHAP­TER VI

There are two things which of all oth­ers most ev­ident­ly oc­ca­sion a rev­olu­tion in an oli­garchy; one is, when the peo­ple are ill used, for then ev­ery in­di­vid­ual is ripe for [1305b] sedi­tion; more par­tic­ular­ly if one of the oli­garchy should hap­pen to be their lead­er; as Lyg­damis, at Naxus, who was af­ter­wards tyrant of that is­land. Sedi­tions al­so which arise from dif­fer­ent caus­es will dif­fer from each oth­er; for some­times a rev­olu­tion is brought about by the rich who have no share in the ad­min­is­tra­tion, which is in the hands of a very few in­deed: and this hap­pened at Mas­sil­ia, Is­ter, Her­aclea, and oth­er cities; for those who had no share in the gov­ern­ment ceased not to raise dis­putes till they were ad­mit­ted to it: first the el­der broth­ers, and then the younger al­so: for in some places the fa­ther and son are nev­er in of­fice at the same time; in oth­ers the el­der and younger broth­er: and where this is ob­served the oli­garchy par­takes some­thing of a free state. At Is­ter it was changed in­to a democ­ra­cy; in Her­aclea, in­stead of be­ing in the hands of a few, it con­sist­ed of six hun­dred. At Cnidus the oli­garchy was de­stroyed by the no­bles quar­relling with each oth­er, be­cause the gov­ern­ment was in the hands of so few: for there, as we have just men­tioned, if the fa­ther was in of­fice, the son could not; or, if there were many broth­ers, the el­dest on­ly; for the peo­ple, tak­ing ad­van­tage of their dis­putes, elect­ed one of the no­bles for their gen­er­al, and got the vic­to­ry: for where there are sedi­tions gov­ern­ment is weak. And for­mer­ly at Erithria, dur­ing the oli­garchy of the Basilides, al­though the state flour­ished great­ly un­der their ex­cel­lent man­age­ment, yet be­cause the peo­ple were dis­pleased that the pow­er should be in the hands of so few, they changed the gov­ern­ment. Oli­garchies al­so are sub­ject to rev­olu­tions, from those who are in of­fice there­in, from the quar­rels of the dem­agogues with each oth­er. The dem­agogues are of two sorts; one who flat­ter the few when they are in pow­er: for even these have their dem­agogues; such was Char­icles at Athens, who had great in­flu­ence over the thir­ty; and, in the same man­ner, Phryn­ichus over the four hun­dred. The oth­ers are those dem­agogues who have a share in the oli­garchy, and flat­ter the peo­ple: such were the state-​guardians at Laris­sa, who flat­tered the peo­ple be­cause they were elect­ed by them. And this will al­ways hap­pen in ev­ery oli­garchy where the mag­is­trates do not elect them­selves, but are cho­sen out of men ei­ther of great for­tune or cer­tain ranks, by the sol­diers or by the peo­ple; as was the cus­tom at Aby­dos. And when the ju­di­cial de­part­ment is not in the hands of the supreme pow­er, the dem­agogues, favour­ing the peo­ple in their caus­es, over­turn the gov­ern­ment; which hap­pened at Her­aclea in Pon­tus: and al­so when some de­sire to con­tract the pow­er of the oli­garchy in­to few­er hands; for those who en­deav­our to sup­port an equal­ity are obliged to ap­ply to the peo­ple for as­sis­tance. An oli­garchy is al­so sub­ject to rev­olu­tions when the no­bil­ity spend their for­tunes by lux­ury; for such per­sons are de­sirous of in­no­va­tions, and ei­ther en­deav­our to be tyrants them­selves or to sup­port oth­ers in be­ing so, as [1306a] Hyp­par­inus sup­port­ed Diony­sius of Syra­cuse. And at Am­phipo­lis one Cleo­timus col­lect­ed a colony of Chal-​cid­ians, and when they came set them to quar­rel with the rich: and at AEgi­na a cer­tain per­son who brought an ac­tion against Chares at­tempt­ed on that ac­count to al­ter the gov­ern­ment. Some­times they will try to raise com­mo­tions, some­times they will rob the pub­lic, and then quar­rel with each oth­er, or else fight with those who en­deav­our to de­tect them; which was the case at Apol­lo­nia in Pon­tus. But if the mem­bers of an oli­garchy agree among them­selves the state is not very eas­ily de­stroyed with­out some ex­ter­nal force. Pharsalus is a proof of this, where, though the place is small, yet the cit­izens have great pow­er, from the pru­dent use they make of it. An oli­garchy al­so will be de­stroyed when they cre­ate an­oth­er oli­garchy un­der it; that is, when the man­age­ment of pub­lic af­fairs is in the hands of a few, and not equal­ly, but when all of them do not par­take of the supreme pow­er, as hap­pened once at Elis, where the supreme pow­er in gen­er­al was in the hands of a very few out of whom a sen­ate was cho­sen, con­sist­ing but of nine­ty’ who held their places for life; and their mode of elec­tion was cal­cu­lat­ed to pre­serve the pow­er amongst each oth­er’s fam­ilies, like the sen­ators at Lacedae­mon. An oli­garchy is li­able to a rev­olu­tion both in time of war and peace; in war, be­cause through a dis­trust in the cit­izens the gov­ern­ment is obliged to em­ploy mer­ce­nary troops, and he to whom they give the com­mand of the army will very of­ten as­sume the tyran­ny, as Tim­ophanes did at Corinth; and if they ap­point more than one gen­er­al, they will very prob­ably es­tab­lish a dy­nasty: and some­times, through fear of this, they are forced to let the peo­ple in gen­er­al have some share in the gov­ern­ment, be­cause they are obliged to em­ploy them. In peace, from their want of con­fi­dence in each oth­er, they will en­trust the guardian­ship of the state to mer­ce­nar­ies and their gen­er­al, who will be an ar­biter be­tween them, and some­times be­come mas­ter of both, which hap­pened at Laris­sa, when Simos and the Aleuadae had the chief pow­er. The same thing hap­pened at Aby­dos, dur­ing the time of the po­lit­ical clubs, of which Iphi­ades’ was one. Com­mo­tions al­so will hap­pen in an oli­garchy from one par­ty’s over­bear­ing and in­sult­ing an­oth­er, or from their quar­relling about their law-​suits or mar­riages. How their mar­riages, for in­stance, will have that ef­fect has been al­ready shown: and in Ere­tria, Di­ago­ras de­stroyed the oli­garchy of the knights up­on the same ac­count. A sedi­tion al­so arose at Her­aclea, from a cer­tain per­son be­ing con­demned by the court; and at Thebes, in con­se­quence of a man’s be­ing guilty of adul­tery; [1306b] the pun­ish­ment in­deed which Eu­ry­tion suf­fered at Her­aclea was just, yet it was il­le­gal­ly ex­ecut­ed: as was that at Thebes up­on Archias; for their en­emies en­deav­oured to have them pub­licly bound in the pil­lo­ry. Many rev­olu­tions al­so have been brought about in oli­garchies by those who could not brook the despo­tism which those per­sons as­sumed who were in pow­er, as at Cnidus and Chios. Changes al­so may hap­pen by ac­ci­dent in what we call a free state and in an oli­garchy; where­so­ev­er the sen­ators, judges, and mag­is­trates are cho­sen ac­cord­ing to a cer­tain cen­sus; for it of­ten hap­pens that the high­est cen­sus is fixed at first; so that a few on­ly could have a share in the gov­ern­ment, in an oli­garchy, or in a free state those of mod­er­ate for­tunes on­ly; when the city grows rich, through peace or some oth­er hap­py cause, it be­comes so lit­tle that ev­ery one’s for­tune is equal to the cen­sus, so that the whole com­mu­ni­ty may par­take of all the hon­ours of gov­ern­ment; and this change some­times hap­pens by lit­tle and lit­tle, and in­sen­si­ble ap­proach­es, some­times quick­er. These are the rev­olu­tions and sedi­tions that arise in oli­garchies, and the caus­es to which they are ow­ing: and in­deed both democ­ra­cies and oli­garchies some­times al­ter, not in­to gov­ern­ments of a con­trary form, but in­to those of the same gov­ern­ment; as, for in­stance, from hav­ing the supreme pow­er in the law to vest it in the rul­ing par­ty, or the con­trari­wise.

CHAP­TER VII

Com­mo­tions al­so arise in aris­toc­ra­cies, from there be­ing so few per­sons in pow­er (as we have al­ready ob­served they do in oli­garchies, for in this par­tic­ular an aris­toc­ra­cy is most near an oli­garchy, for in both these states the ad­min­is­tra­tion of pub­lic af­fairs is in the hands of a few; not that this aris­es from the same cause in both, though here­in they chiefly seem alike): and these will nec­es­sar­ily be most like­ly to hap­pen when the gen­er­al­ity of the peo­ple are high-​spir­it­ed and think them­selves equal to each oth­er in mer­it; such were those at Lacedas­mon, called the Parthe­ni­ae (for these were, as well as oth­ers, de­scen­dants of cit­izens), who be­ing de­tect­ed in a con­spir­acy against the state, were sent to found Tar­en­tum. They will hap­pen al­so when some great men are dis­graced by those who have re­ceived high­er hon­ours than them­selves, to whom they are no ways in­fe­ri­or in abil­ities, as Lysander by the kings: or when an am­bi­tious man can­not get in­to pow­er, as Cinadon, who, in the reign of Age­si­laus, was chief in a con­spir­acy against the Spar­tans: and al­so when some are too poor and oth­ers too rich, which will most fre­quent­ly hap­pen in time of war; as at Lacedae­mon dur­ing the Messe­ni­an war, which is proved by a po­em of Tyr­taeus, [1307a] called “Eu­no­mia;” for some per­sons be­ing re­duced there­by, de­sired that the lands might be di­vid­ed: and al­so when some per­son of very high rank might still be high­er if he could rule alone, which seemed to be Pau­sa­nias’s in­ten­tion at Lacedae­mon, when he was their gen­er­al in the Me­di­an war, and An­no’s at Carthage. But free states and aris­toc­ra­cies are most­ly de­stroyed from want of a fixed ad­min­is­tra­tion of pub­lic af­fairs; the cause of which evil aris­es at first from want of a due mix­ture of the demo­crat­ic and the oli­garchic parts in a free state; and in an aris­toc­ra­cy from the same caus­es, and al­so from virtue not be­ing prop­er­ly joined to pow­er; but chiefly from the two first, I mean the un­due mix­ture of the demo­crat­ic and oli­garchic parts; for these two are what all free states en­deav­our to blend to­geth­er, and many of those which we call aris­toc­ra­cies, in this par­tic­ular these states dif­fer from each oth­er, and on this ac­count the one of them is less sta­ble than the oth­er, for that state which in­clines most to an oli­garchy is called an aris­toc­ra­cy, and that which in­clines most to a democ­ra­cy is called a free state; on which ac­count this lat­ter is more se­cure than the for­mer, for the wider the foun­da­tion the se­cur­er the build­ing, and it is ev­er best to live where equal­ity pre­vails. But the rich, if the com­mu­ni­ty gives them rank, very of­ten en­deav­our to in­sult and tyran­nise over oth­ers. On the whole, whichev­er way a gov­ern­ment in­clines, in that it will set­tle, each par­ty sup­port­ing their own. Thus a free state will be­come a democ­ra­cy; an aris­toc­ra­cy an oli­garchy; or the con­trary, an aris­toc­ra­cy may change in­to a democ­ra­cy (for the poor, if they think them­selves in­jured, di­rect­ly take part with the con­trary side) and a free state in­to an oli­garchy. The on­ly firm state is that where ev­ery one en­joys that equal­ity he has a right to and ful­ly pos­sess­es what is his own. And what I have been speak­ing of hap­pened to the Thuri­ans; for the mag­is­trates be­ing elect­ed ac­cord­ing to a very high cen­sus, it was al­tered to a low­er, and they were sub­di­vid­ed in­to more courts, but in con­se­quence of the no­bles pos­sess­ing all the land, con­trary to law; the state was too much of an oli­garchy, which gave them an op­por­tu­ni­ty of en­croach­ing great­ly on the rest of the peo­ple; but these, af­ter they had been well in­ured to war, so far got the bet­ter of their guards as to ex­pel ev­ery one out of the coun­try who pos­sessed more than he ought. More­over, as all aris­toc­ra­cies are free oli­garchies, the no­bles there­in en­deav­our to have rather too much pow­er, as at Lace-​dae­mon, where prop­er­ty is now in the hands of a few, and the no­bles have too much lib­er­ty to do as they please and make such al­liances as they please. Thus the city of the Locri­ans was ru­ined from an al­liance with Diony­sius; which state was nei­ther a democ­ra­cy nor well-​tem­pered aris­toc­ra­cy. But an aris­toc­ra­cy chiefly ap­proach­es to a se­cret change by its be­ing de­stroyed by de­grees, as we [1307b] have al­ready said of all gov­ern­ments in gen­er­al; and this hap­pens from the cause of the al­ter­ation be­ing tri­fling; for when­ev­er any­thing which in the least re­gards the state is treat­ed with con­tempt, af­ter that some­thing else, and this of a lit­tle more con­se­quence, will be more eas­ily al­tered, un­til the whole fab­ric of gov­ern­ment is en­tire­ly sub­vert­ed, which hap­pened in the gov­ern­ment of Thuri­um; for the law be­ing that they should con­tin­ue sol­diers for five years, some young men of a mar­tial dis­po­si­tion, who were in great es­teem amongst their of­fi­cers, de­spis­ing those who had the man­age­ment of pub­lic af­fairs, and imag­in­ing they could eas­ily ac­com­plish their in­ten­tion, first en­deav­oured to abol­ish this law, with a view of hav­ing it law­ful to con­tin­ue the same per­son per­pet­ual­ly in the mil­itary, per­ceiv­ing that the peo­ple would read­ily ap­point them. Up­on this, the mag­is­trates who are called coun­sellers first joined to­geth­er with an in­ten­tion to op­pose it but were af­ter­wards in­duced to agree to it, from a be­lief that if that law was not re­pealed they would per­mit the man­age­ment of all oth­er pub­lic af­fairs to re­main in their hands; but af­ter­wards, when they en­deav­oured to re­strain some fresh al­ter­ations that were mak­ing, they found that they could do noth­ing, for the whole form of gov­ern­ment was al­tered in­to a dy­nasty of those who first in­tro­duced the in­no­va­tions. In short, all gov­ern­ments are li­able to be de­stroyed ei­ther from with­in or from with­out; from with­out when they have for their neigh­bour a state whose pol­icy is con­trary to theirs, and in­deed if it has great pow­er the same thing will hap­pen if it is not their neigh­bour; of which both the Athe­ni­ans and the Lacedae­mo­ni­ans are a proof; for the one, when con­querors ev­ery­where de­stroyed the oli­garchies; the oth­er the democ­ra­cies. These are the chief caus­es of rev­olu­tions and dis­sen­sions in gov­ern­ments.

CHAP­TER VI­II

We are now to con­sid­er up­on what the preser­va­tion of gov­ern­ments in gen­er­al and of each state in par­tic­ular de­pends; and, in the first place, it is ev­ident that if we are right in the caus­es we have as­signed for their de­struc­tion, we know al­so the means of their preser­va­tion; for things con­trary pro­duce con­traries: but de­struc­tion and preser­va­tion are con­trary to each oth­er. In well-​tem­pered gov­ern­ments it re­quires as much care as any­thing what­so­ev­er, that noth­ing be done con­trary to law: and this ought chiefly to be at­tend­ed to in mat­ters of small con­se­quence; for an il­le­gal­ity that ap­proach­es in­sen­si­bly, ap­proach­es se­cret­ly, as in a fam­ily small ex­pens­es con­tin­ual­ly re­peat­ed con­sume a man’s in­come; for the un­der­stand­ing is de­ceived there­by, as by this false ar­gu­ment; if ev­ery part is lit­tle, then the whole is lit­tle: now, this in one sense is true, in an­oth­er is false, for the whole and all the parts to­geth­er are large, though made up of small parts. The first there­fore of any­thing is what the state ought to guard against. In the next place, no cred­it ought to be giv­en to those who en­deav­our to de­ceive the peo­ple with false pre­tences; for they will be [1308a] con­fut­ed by facts. The dif­fer­ent ways in which they will at­tempt to do this have been al­ready men­tioned. You may of­ten per­ceive both aris­toc­ra­cies and oli­garchies con­tin­uing firm, not from the sta­bil­ity of their forms of gov­ern­ment, but from the wise con­duct of the mag­is­trates, both to­wards those who have a part in the man­age­ment of pub­lic af­fairs, and those al­so who have not: to­wards those who have not, by nev­er in­jur­ing them; and al­so in­tro­duc­ing those who are of most con­se­quence amongst them in­to of­fice; nor dis­grac­ing those who are de­sirous of hon­our; or en­croach­ing on the prop­er­ty of in­di­vid­uals; to­wards those who have, by be­hav­ing to each oth­er up­on an equal­ity; for that equal­ity which the favour­ers of a democ­ra­cy de­sire to have es­tab­lished in the state is not on­ly just, but con­ve­nient al­so, amongst those who are of the same rank: for which rea­son, if the ad­min­is­tra­tion is in the hands of many, those rules which are es­tab­lished in democ­ra­cies will be very use­ful; as to let no one con­tin­ue in of­fice longer than six months: that all those who are of the same rank may have their turn; for be­tween these there is a sort of democ­ra­cy: for which rea­son dem­agogues are most like­ly to arise up amongst them, as we have al­ready men­tioned: be­sides, by this means both aris­toc­ra­cies and democ­ra­cies will be the less li­able to be cor­rupt­ed in­to dy­nas­ties, be­cause it will not be so easy for those who are mag­is­trates for a lit­tle to do as much mis­chief as they could in a long time: for it is from hence that tyran­nies arise in democ­ra­cies and oli­garchies; for ei­ther those who are most pow­er­ful in each state es­tab­lish a tyran­ny, as the dem­agogues in the one, the dy­nas­ties in the oth­er, or the chief mag­is­trates who have been long in pow­er. Gov­ern­ments are some­times pre­served not on­ly by hav­ing the means of their cor­rup­tion at a great dis­tance, but al­so by its be­ing very near them; for those who are alarmed at some im­pend­ing evil keep a stricter hand over the state; for which rea­son it is nec­es­sary for those who have the guardian­ship of the con­sti­tu­tion to be able to awak­en the fears of the peo­ple, that they may pre­serve it, and not like a night-​guard to be re­miss in pro­tect­ing the state, but to make the dis­tant dan­ger ap­pear at hand. Great care ought al­so to be used to en­deav­our to re­strain the quar­rels and dis­putes of the no­bles by laws, as well as to pre­vent those who are not al­ready en­gaged in them from tak­ing a part there­in; for to per­ceive an evil at its very first ap­proach is not the lot of ev­ery one, but of the politi­cian. To pre­vent any al­ter­ation tak­ing place in an oli­garchy or free state on ac­count of the cen­sus, if that hap­pens to con­tin­ue the same while the quan­ti­ty of mon­ey is in­creased, it will be use­ful to take a gen­er­al ac­count of the whole amount of it in for­mer times, to com­pare it with the present, and to do this ev­ery year in those cities where the cen­sus is year­ly, [1308b] in larg­er com­mu­ni­ties once in three or five years; and if the whole should be found much larg­er or much less than it was at the time when the cen­sus was first es­tab­lished in the state, let there be a law ei­ther to ex­tend or con­tract it, do­ing both these ac­cord­ing to its in­crease or de­crease; if it in­creas­es mak­ing the cen­sus larg­er, if it de­creas­es small­er: and if this lat­ter is not done in oli­garchies and free states, you will have a dy­nasty arise in the one, an oli­garchy in the oth­er: if the for­mer is not, free states will be changed in­to democ­ra­cies, and oli­garchies in­to free states or democ­ra­cies. It is a gen­er­al max­im in democ­ra­cies, oli­garchies, monar­chies, and in­deed in all gov­ern­ments, not to let any one ac­quire a rank far su­pe­ri­or to the rest of the com­mu­ni­ty, but rather to en­deav­our to con­fer mod­er­ate hon­ours for a con­tin­uance than great ones for a short time; for these lat­ter spoil men, for it is not ev­ery one who can bear pros­per­ity: but if this rule is not ob­served, let not those hon­ours which were con­ferred all at once be all at once tak­en away, but rather by de­grees. But, above all things, let this reg­ula­tion be made by the law, that no one shall have too much pow­er, ei­ther by means of his for­tune or friends; but if he has, for his ex­cess there­in, let it be con­trived that he shall quit the coun­try. Now, as many per­sons pro­mote in­no­va­tions, that they may en­joy their own par­tic­ular man­ner of liv­ing, there ought to be a par­tic­ular of­fi­cer to in­spect the man­ners of ev­ery one, and see that these are not con­trary to the ge­nius of the state in which he lives, whether it may be an oli­garchy, a democ­ra­cy, or any oth­er form of gov­ern­ment; and, for the same rea­son, those should be guard­ed against who are most pros­per­ous in the city: the means of do­ing which is by ap­point­ing those who are oth­er­wise to the busi­ness and the of­fices of the state. I mean, to op­pose men of ac­count to the com­mon peo­ple, the poor to the rich, and to blend both these in­to one body, and to in­crease the num­bers of those who are in the mid­dle rank; and this will pre­vent those sedi­tions which arise from an in­equal­ity of con­di­tion. But above all, in ev­ery state it is nec­es­sary, both by the laws and ev­ery oth­er method pos­si­ble, to pre­vent those who are em­ployed by the pub­lic from be­ing ve­nal, and this par­tic­ular­ly in an oli­garchy; for then the peo­ple will not be so much dis­pleased from see­ing them­selves ex­clud­ed from a share in the gov­ern­ment (nay, they will rather be glad to have leisure to at­tend their pri­vate af­fairs) as at sus­pect­ing that the of­fi­cers of the state steal the pub­lic mon­ey, then in­deed they are af­flict­ed with dou­ble con­cern, both be­cause they are de­prived of the hon­ours of the state, and pil­laged by those who en­joy them. There is one method of blend­ing to­geth­er a democ­ra­cy and an aris­toc­ra­cy, [1309a] if of­fice brought no prof­it; by which means both the rich and the poor will en­joy what they de­sire; for to ad­mit all to a share in the gov­ern­ment is demo­crat­ical; that the rich should be in of­fice is aris­to­crat­ical. This must be done by let­ting no pub­lic em­ploy­ment what­so­ev­er be at­tend­ed with any emol­ument; for the poor will not de­sire to be in of­fice when they can get noth­ing by it, but had rather at­tend to their own af­fairs: but the rich will choose it, as they want noth­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty. Thus the poor will in­crease their for­tunes by be­ing whol­ly em­ployed in their own con­cerns; and the prin­ci­pal part of the peo­ple will not be gov­erned by the low­er sort. To pre­vent the ex­che­quer from be­ing de­fraud­ed, let all pub­lic mon­ey be de­liv­ered out open­ly in the face of the whole city, and let copies of the ac­counts be de­posit­ed in the dif­fer­ent wards tribes, and di­vi­sions. But, as the mag­is­trates are to ex­ecute their of­fices with­out any ad­van­tages, the law ought to pro­vide prop­er hon­ours for those who ex­ecute them well. In democ­ra­cies al­so it is nec­es­sary that the rich should be pro­tect­ed, by not per­mit­ting their lands to be di­vid­ed, nor even the pro­duce of them, which in some states is done un­per­ceiv­ably. It would be al­so bet­ter if the peo­ple would pre­vent them when they of­fer to ex­hib­it a num­ber of un­nec­es­sary and yet ex­pen­sive pub­lic en­ter­tain­ments of plays, mu­sic, pro­ces­sions, and the like. In an oli­garchy it is nec­es­sary to take great care of the poor, and al­lot them pub­lic em­ploy­ments which are gain­ful; and, if any of the rich in­sult them, to let their pun­ish­ment be sev­er­er than if they in­sult­ed one of their own rank; and to let es­tates pass by affin­ity, and not gift: nor to per­mit any per­son to have more than one; for by this means prop­er­ty will be more equal­ly di­vid­ed, and the greater part of the poor get in­to bet­ter cir­cum­stances. It is al­so ser­vice­able in a democ­ra­cy and an oli­garchy to al­lot those who take no part in pub­lic af­fairs an equal­ity or a pref­er­ence in oth­er things; the rich in a democ­ra­cy, to the poor in an oli­garchy: but still all the prin­ci­pal of­fices in the state to be filled on­ly by those who are best qual­ified to dis­charge them.

CHAP­TER IX

There are three qual­ifi­ca­tions nec­es­sary for those who fill the first de­part­ments in gov­ern­ment; first of all, an af­fec­tion for the es­tab­lished con­sti­tu­tion; sec­ond place, abil­ities ev­ery way com­plete­ly equal to the busi­ness of their of­fice; in the third, virtue and jus­tice cor­re­spon­dent to the na­ture of that par­tic­ular state they are placed in; for if jus­tice is not the same in all states, it is ev­ident that there must be dif­fer­ent species there­of. There may be some doubt, when all these qual­ifi­ca­tions do not in the same per­sons, in what man­ner the choice shall be made; as for in­stance, sup­pose that one per­son is an ac­com­plished gen­er­al, but a bad man and no friend to the [1309b] con­sti­tu­tion; an­oth­er is just and a friend to it, which shall one pre­fer? we should then con­sid­er of two qual­ities, which of them the gen­er­al­ity pos­sess in a greater de­gree, which in a less; for which rea­son in the choice of a gen­er­al we should re­gard his courage more than his virtue as the more un­com­mon qual­ity; as there are few­er ca­pa­ble of con­duct­ing an army than there are good men: but, to pro­tect the state or man­age the fi­nances, the con­trary rule should be fol­lowed; for these re­quire greater virtue than the gen­er­al­ity are pos­sessed of, but on­ly that knowl­edge which is com­mon to all. It may be asked, if a man has abil­ities equal to his ap­point­ment in the state, and is af­fec­tion­ate to the con­sti­tu­tion, what oc­ca­sion is there for be­ing vir­tu­ous, since these two things alone are suf­fi­cient to en­able him to be use­ful to the pub­lic? it is, be­cause those who pos­sess those qual­ities are of­ten de­fi­cient in pru­dence; for, as they of­ten ne­glect their own af­fairs, though they know them and love them­selves, so noth­ing will pre­vent their serv­ing the pub­lic in the same man­ner. In short, what­so­ev­er the laws con­tain which we al­low to be use­ful to the state con­tributes to its preser­va­tion: but its first and prin­ci­pal sup­port is (as has been of­ten in­sist­ed up­on) to have the num­ber of those who de­sire to pre­serve it greater than those who wish to de­stroy it. Above all things that ought not to be for­got­ten which many gov­ern­ments now cor­rupt­ed ne­glect; name­ly, to pre­serve a mean. For many things seem­ing­ly favourable to a democ­ra­cy de­stroy a democ­ra­cy, and many things seem­ing­ly favourable to an oli­garchy de­stroy an oli­garchy. Those who think this the on­ly virtue ex­tend it to ex­cess, not con­sid­er­ing that as a nose which varies a lit­tle from per­fect straight­ness, ei­ther to­wards a hook nose or a flat one, may yet be beau­ti­ful and agree­able to look at; but if this par­tic­ular­ity is ex­tend­ed be­yond mea­sure, first of all the prop­er­ties of the part is lost, but at last it can hard­ly be ad­mit­ted to be a nose at all, on ac­count of the ex­cess of the rise or sink­ing: thus it is with oth­er parts of the hu­man body; so al­so the same thing is true with re­spect to states; for both an oli­garchy and a democ­ra­cy may some­thing vary from their most per­fect form and yet be well con­sti­tut­ed; but if any one en­deav­ours to ex­tend ei­ther of them too far, at first he will make the gov­ern­ment the worse for it, but at last there will be no gov­ern­ment at all re­main­ing. The law­giv­er and the politi­cian there­fore should know well what pre­serves and what de­stroys a democ­ra­cy or an oli­garchy, for nei­ther the one nor the oth­er can pos­si­bly con­tin­ue with­out rich and poor: but that when­ev­er an en­tire equal­ity of cir­cum­stances [1310a] pre­vails, the state must nec­es­sar­ily be­come of an­oth­er form; so that those who de­stroy these laws, which au­tho­rise an in­equal­ity in prop­er­ty, de­stroy the gov­ern­ment. It is al­so an er­ror in democ­ra­cies for the dem­agogues to en­deav­our to make the com­mon peo­ple su­pe­ri­or to the laws; and thus by set­ting them at vari­ance with the rich, di­vid­ing one city in­to two; where­as they ought rather to speak in favour of the rich. In oli­garchies, on the con­trary, it is wrong to sup­port those who are in ad­min­is­tra­tion against the peo­ple. The oaths al­so which they take in an oli­garchy ought to be con­trary to what they now are; for, at present, in some places they swear, “I will be ad­verse to the com­mon peo­ple, and con­trive all I can against them;” where­as they ought rather to sup­pose and pre­tend the con­trary; ex­press­ing in their oaths, that they will not in­jure the peo­ple. But of all things which I have men­tioned, that which con­tributes most to pre­serve the state is, what is now most de­spised, to ed­ucate your chil­dren for the state; for the most use­ful laws, and most ap­proved by ev­ery states­man, will be of no ser­vice if the cit­izens are not ac­cus­tomed to and brought up in the prin­ci­ples of the con­sti­tu­tion; of a democ­ra­cy, if that is by law es­tab­lished; of an oli­garchy, if that is; for if there are bad morals in one man, there are in the city. But to ed­ucate a child fit for the state, it must not be done in the man­ner which would please ei­ther those who have the pow­er in an oli­garchy or those who de­sire a democ­ra­cy, but so as they may be able to con­duct ei­ther of these forms of gov­ern­ments. But now the chil­dren of the mag­is­trates in an oli­garchy are brought up too del­icate­ly, and the chil­dren of the poor hardy with ex­er­cise and labour; so that they are both de­sirous of and able to pro­mote in­no­va­tions. In democ­ra­cies of the purest form they pur­sue a method which is con­trary to their wel­fare; the rea­son of which is, that they de­fine lib­er­ty wrong: now, there are two things which seem to be the ob­jects of a democ­ra­cy, that the peo­ple in gen­er­al should pos­sess the supreme pow­er, and all en­joy free­dom; for that which is just seems to be equal, and what the peo­ple think equal, that is a law: now, their free­dom and equal­ity con­sists in ev­ery one’s do­ing what they please: that is in such a democ­ra­cy ev­ery one may live as he likes; “as his in­cli­na­tion guides,” in the words of Eu­ripi­des: but this is wrong, for no one ought to think it slav­ery to live in sub­jec­tion to gov­ern­ment, but pro­tec­tion. Thus I have men­tioned the caus­es of cor­rup­tion in dif­fer­ent states, and the means of their preser­va­tion.

CHAP­TER X

It now re­mains that we speak of monar­chies, their caus­es of cor­rup­tion, and means of preser­va­tion; and in­deed al­most the same things which have been said of oth­er gov­ern­ments hap­pen to king­doms and tyran­nies; for a king­dom par­takes of an aris­toc­ra­cy, a tyran­ny of the worst species of an oli­garchy and democ­ra­cy; for which rea­son it is the worst that man can sub­mit to, as be­ing com­posed of two, both of which are bad, and col­lec­tive­ly re­tains all the cor­rup­tions and all the de­fects of both these states. These two species of monar­chies arise from prin­ci­ples con­trary to each oth­er: a king­dom is formed to pro­tect the bet­ter sort of peo­ple against the mul­ti­tude, and kings are ap­point­ed out of those, who are cho­sen ei­ther for their su­pe­ri­or virtue and ac­tions flow­ing from vir­tu­ous prin­ci­ples, or else from their no­ble de­scent; but a tyrant is cho­sen out of the mean­est pop­ulace; an en­emy to the bet­ter sort, that the com­mon peo­ple may not be op­pressed by them. That this is true ex­pe­ri­ence con­vinces us; for the gen­er­al­ity of tyrants were in­deed mere dem­agogues, who gained cred­it with the peo­ple by op­press­ing the no­bles. Some tyran­nies were es­tab­lished in this man­ner af­ter the cities were con­sid­er­ably en­larged–oth­ers be­fore that time, by kings who ex­ceed­ed the pow­er which their coun­try al­lowed them, from a de­sire of gov­ern­ing despot­ical­ly: oth­ers were found­ed by those who were elect­ed to the su­pe­ri­or of­fices in the state; for for­mer­ly the peo­ple ap­point­ed of­fi­cers for life, who came to be at the head of civ­il and re­li­gious af­fairs, and these chose one out of their body in whom the supreme pow­er over all the mag­is­trates was placed. By all these means it was easy to es­tab­lish a tyran­ny, if they chose it; for their pow­er was ready at hand, ei­ther by their be­ing kings, or else by en­joy­ing the hon­ours of the state; thus Phi­don at Ar­gos and oth­er tyrants en­joyed orig­inal­ly the king­ly pow­er; Phalaris and oth­ers in Io­nia, the hon­ours of the state. Pansetius at Leon­tium, Cypselus at Corinth, Pi­si­stra­tus at Athens, Diony­sius at Syra­cuse, and oth­ers, ac­quired theirs by hav­ing been dem­agogues. A king­dom, as we have said, par­takes much of the na­ture of an aris­toc­ra­cy, and is be­stowed ac­cord­ing to worth, as ei­ther virtue, fam­ily, benef­icent ac­tions, or these joined with pow­er; for those who have been bene­fac­tors to cities and states, or have it in their pow­ers to be so, have ac­quired this hon­our, and those who have pre­vent­ed a peo­ple from falling in­to slav­ery by war, as Co­drus, or those who have freed them from it, as Cyrus, or the founders of cities, or set­tlers of colonies, as the kings of Spar­ta, Mace­don, and Molos­sus. A king de­sires to be the guardian of his peo­ple, that those who have prop­er­ty may be se­cure in the pos­ses­sion of it, and that the peo­ple in gen­er­al meet with no in­jury; but a tyrant, as has been of­ten said, has no re­gard to the com­mon good, ex­cept for his own ad­van­tage; his on­ly ob­ject is plea­sure, but a king’s is virtue: what a tyrant there­fore is am­bi­tious of en­gross­ing is wealth, but a king rather hon­our. The guards too of a king are cit­izens, a tyrant’s for­eign­ers.

That a tyran­ny con­tains all that is bad both in a democ­ra­cy and an oli­garchy is ev­ident; with an oli­garchy it has for its end gain, as the on­ly means of pro­vid­ing the tyrant with guards and the lux­uries of life; like that it places no con­fi­dence in the peo­ple; and there­fore de­prives them of the use of arms: it is al­so com­mon to them both to per­se­cute the pop­ulace, to drive them out of the city and their own habi­ta­tions. With a democ­ra­cy it quar­rels with the no­bles, and de­stroys them both pub­licly and pri­vate­ly, or drives them in­to ban­ish­ment, as ri­vals and an im­ped­iment to the gov­ern­ment; hence nat­ural­ly arise con­spir­acies both amongst those who de­sire to gov­ern and those who de­sire not to be slaves; hence arose Pe­rian­der’s ad­vice to Thrasy­bu­lus to take off the tallest stalks, hint­ing there­by, that it was nec­es­sary to make away with the em­inent cit­izens. We ought then in rea­son, as has been al­ready said, to ac­count for the changes which arise in a monar­chy from the same caus­es which pro­duce them in oth­er states: for, through in­jus­tice re­ceived, fear, and con­tempt, many of those who are un­der a monar­chi­cal gov­ern­ment con­spire against it; but of all species of in­jus­tice, in­ju­ri­ous con­tempt has most in­flu­ence on them for that pur­pose: some­times it is ow­ing to their be­ing de­prived of their pri­vate for­tunes. The dis­so­lu­tion too of a king­dom and a tyran­ny are gen­er­al­ly the same; for monar­chs abound in wealth and hon­our, which all are de­sirous to ob­tain. Of plots: some aim at the life of those who gov­ern, oth­ers at their gov­ern­ment; the first aris­es from ha­tred to their per­sons; which ha­tred may be ow­ing to many caus­es, ei­ther of which will be suf­fi­cient to ex­cite their anger, and the gen­er­al­ity of those who are un­der the in­flu­ence of that pas­sion will join in a con­spir­acy, not for the sake of their own ad­vance­ment, but for re­venge. Thus the plot against the chil­dren of Pi­si­stra­tus arose from their in­ju­ri­ous treat­ment of Har­mod­ius’s sis­ter, and in­sult­ing him al­so; for Har­mod­ius re­sent­ing the in­jury done to his sis­ter, and Aris­togi­ton the in­jury done to Har­mod­ius. Pe­rian­der the tyrant of Am­bra­cia al­so lost his life by a con­spir­acy, for some im­prop­er lib­er­ties he took with a boy in his cups: and Philip was slain by Pau­sa­nias for ne­glect­ing to re­venge him of the af­front he had re­ceived from At­tains; as was Am­intas the Lit­tle by Dar­da, for in­sult­ing him on ac­count of his age; and the eu­nuch by Evago­ras the Cypri­an in re­venge for hav­ing tak­en his son’s wife away from him ….

Many al­so who have had their bod­ies scourged with stripes have, through re­sent­ment, ei­ther killed those who caused them to be in­flict­ed or con­spired against them, even when they had king­ly pow­er, as at Mity­lene Mega­cles, join­ing with his friends, killed the Penthe­lidee, who used to go about strik­ing those they met with clubs. Thus, in lat­er times, Smendes killed Penthilus for whip­ping him and drag­ging him away from his wife. De­cam­nichus al­so was the chief cause of the con­spir­acy against Archelaus, for he urged oth­ers on: the oc­ca­sion of his re­sent­ment was his hav­ing de­liv­ered him to Eu­ripi­des the po­et to be scourged; for Eu­ripi­des was great­ly of­fend­ed with him for hav­ing said some­thing of the foul­ness of his breath. And many oth­ers have been killed or con­spired against on the same ac­count. Fear too is a cause which pro­duces the same ef­fects, as well in monar­chies as in oth­er states: thus Arta­banes con­spired against Xerx­es through fear of pun­ish­ment for hav­ing hanged Dar­ius ac­cord­ing to his or­ders, whom he sup­posed he in­tend­ed to par­don, as the or­der was giv­en at sup­per-​time. Some kings al­so have been [1312a] de­throned and killed in con­se­quence of the con­tempt they were held in by the peo­ple; as some one con­spired against Sar­dana­palus, hav­ing seen him spin­ning with his wife, if what is re­lat­ed of him is true, or if not of him, it may very prob­ably be true of some one else. Dion al­so con­spired against Diony­sius the Younger, see­ing his sub­jects de­sirous of a con­spir­acy, and that he him­self was al­ways drunk: and even a man’s friends will do this if they de­spise him; for from the con­fi­dence he places in them, they think that they shall not be found out. Those al­so who think they shall gain his throne will con­spire against a king through con­tempt; for as they are pow­er­ful them­selves, and de­spise the dan­ger, on ac­count of their own strength, they will read­ily at­tempt it. Thus a gen­er­al at the head of his army will en­deav­our to de­throne the monarch, as Cyrus did Astyages, de­spis­ing both his man­ner of life and his forces; his forces for want of ac­tion, his life for its ef­fem­ina­cy: thus Suthes, the Thra­cian, who was gen­er­al to Amado­cus, con­spired against him. Some­times more than one of these caus­es will ex­cite men to en­ter in­to con­spir­acies, as con­tempt and de­sire of gain; as in the in­stance of Mithri­dates against Ar­io­barzanes. Those al­so who are of a bold dis­po­si­tion, and have gained mil­itary hon­ours amongst kings, will of all oth­ers be most like to en­gage in sedi­tion; for strength and courage unit­ed in­spire great brav­ery: when­ev­er, there­fore, these join in one per­son, he will be very ready for con­spir­acies, as he will eas­ily con­quer. Those who con­spire against a tyrant through love of glo­ry and hon­our have a dif­fer­ent mo­tive in view from what I have al­ready men­tioned; for, like all oth­ers who em­brace dan­ger, they have on­ly glo­ry and hon­our in view, and think, not as some do, of the wealth and pomp they may ac­quire, but en­gage in this as they would in any oth­er no­ble ac­tion, that they may be il­lus­tri­ous and dis­tin­guished, and de­stroy a tyrant, not to suc­ceed in his tyran­ny, but to ac­quire renown. No doubt but the num­ber of those who act up­on this prin­ci­ple is small, for we must sup­pose they re­gard their own safe­ty as noth­ing in case they should not suc­ceed, and must em­brace the opin­ion of Dion (which few can do) when he made war up­on Diony­sius with a very few troops; for he said, that let the ad­van­tage he made be ev­er so lit­tle it would sat­is­fy him to have gained it; and that, should it be his lot to die the mo­ment he had gained foot­ing in his coun­try, he should think his death suf­fi­cient­ly glo­ri­ous. A tyran­ny al­so is ex­posed to the same de­struc­tion as all oth­er states are, from too pow­er­ful neigh­bours: for it is ev­ident, that an op­po­si­tion of prin­ci­ples will make them de­sirous of sub­vert­ing it; and what they de­sire, all who can, do: and there is a prin­ci­ple of op­po­si­tion in one state to an­oth­er, as a democ­ra­cy against a tyran­ny, as says Hes­iod, “a pot­ter against a pot­ter;” for the ex­treme of a democ­ra­cy is a tyran­ny; a king­ly pow­er against an aris­toc­ra­cy, from their dif­fer­ent forms of gov­ern­ment–for which rea­son the Lacedae­mo­ni­ans de­stroyed many tyran­nies; as did the Syra­cu­sians dur­ing the pros­per­ity of their state. Nor are they on­ly de­stroyed from with­out, but al­so from with­in, when those who have no share in the pow­er bring about a rev­olu­tion, as hap­pened to Gelon, and late­ly to Diony­sius; to the first, by means of Thrasy­bu­lus, the broth­er of Hi­ero, who nat­tered Gelon’s son, and in­duced him to lead a life of plea­sure, that he him­self might gov­ern; but the fam­ily joined to­geth­er and en­deav­oured to sup­port the tyran­ny and ex­pel Thrasy­bu­lus; but those whom they made of their par­ty seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty and ex­pelled the whole fam­ily. Dion made war against his re­la­tion Diony­sius, and be­ing as­sist­ed by the peo­ple, first ex­pelled and then killed him. As there are two caus­es which chiefly in­duce men to con­spire against tyrants, ha­tred and con­tempt, one of these, name­ly ha­tred, seems in­sep­ara­ble from them. Con­tempt al­so is of­ten the cause of their de­struc­tion: for though, for in­stance, those who raised them­selves to the supreme pow­er gen­er­al­ly pre­served it; but those who re­ceived it from them have, to speak truth, al­most im­me­di­ate­ly all of them lost it; for, falling in­to an ef­fem­inate way of life, they soon grew de­spi­ca­ble, and gen­er­al­ly fell vic­tims to con­spir­acies. Part of their ha­tred may be very fit­ly as­cribed to anger; for in some cas­es this is their mo­tive to ac­tion: for it is of­ten a cause which im­pels them to act more pow­er­ful­ly than ha­tred, and they pro­ceed with greater ob­sti­na­cy against those whom they at­tack, as this pas­sion is not un­der the di­rec­tion of rea­son. Many per­sons al­so in­dulge this pas­sion through con­tempt; which oc­ca­sioned the fall of the Pi­sis­trati­dae and many oth­ers. But ha­tred is more pow­er­ful than anger; for anger is ac­com­pa­nied with grief, which pre­vents the en­trance of rea­son; but ha­tred is free from it. In short, what­ev­er caus­es may be as­signed as the de­struc­tion of a pure oli­garchy un­mixed with any oth­er gov­ern­ment and an ex­treme democ­ra­cy, the same may be ap­plied to a tyran­ny; for these are di­vid­ed tyran­nies.

King­doms are sel­dom de­stroyed by any out­ward at­tack; for which rea­son they are gen­er­al­ly very sta­ble; but they have many caus­es of sub­ver­sion with­in; of which two are the prin­ci­pal; one is when those who are in pow­er [1313a] ex­cite a sedi­tion, the oth­er when they en­deav­our to es­tab­lish a tyran­ny by as­sum­ing greater pow­er than the law gives them. A king­dom, in­deed, is not what we ev­er see erect­ed in our times, but rather monar­chies and tyran­nies; for a king­ly gov­ern­ment is one that is vol­un­tar­ily sub­mit­ted to, and its supreme pow­er ad­mit­ted up­on great oc­ca­sions: but where many are equal, and there are none in any re­spect so much bet­ter than an­oth­er as to be qual­ified for the great­ness and dig­ni­ty of gov­ern­ment over them, then these equals will not will­ing­ly sub­mit to be com­mand­ed; but if any one as­sumes the gov­ern­ment, ei­ther by force or fraud, this is a tyran­ny. To what we have al­ready said we shall add, the caus­es of rev­olu­tions in an hered­itary king­dom. One of these is, that many of those who en­joy it are nat­ural­ly prop­er ob­jects of con­tempt on­ly: an­oth­er is, that they are in­so­lent while their pow­er is not despot­ic; but they pos­sess king­ly hon­ours on­ly. Such a state is soon de­stroyed; for a king ex­ists but while the peo­ple are will­ing to obey, as their sub­mis­sion to him is vol­un­tary, but to a tyrant in­vol­un­tary. These and such-​like are the caus­es of the de­struc­tion of monar­chies.

CHAP­TER XI

Monar­chies, in a word, are pre­served by means con­trary to what I have al­ready men­tioned as the cause of their de­struc­tion; but to speak to each sep­arate­ly: the sta­bil­ity of a king­dom will de­pend up­on the pow­er of the king’s be­ing kept with­in mod­er­ate bounds; for by how much the less ex­ten­sive his pow­er is, by so much the longer will his gov­ern­ment con­tin­ue; for he will be less despot­ic and more up­on an equal­ity of con­di­tion with those he gov­erns; who, on that ac­count, will en­vy him the less.

It was on this ac­count that the king­dom of the Molos­si con­tin­ued so long; and the Lacedae­mo­ni­ans from their gov­ern­ment’s be­ing from the be­gin­ning di­vid­ed in­to two parts, and al­so by the mod­er­ation in­tro­duced in­to the oth­er parts of it by Theopom­pus, and his es­tab­lish­ment of the ephori; for by tak­ing some­thing from the pow­er he in­creased the du­ra­tion of the king­dom, so that in some mea­sure he made it not less, but big­ger; as they say he replied to his wife, who asked him if he was not ashamed to de­liv­er down his king­dom to his chil­dren re­duced from what he re­ceived it from his an­ces­tors? No, says he, I give it him more last­ing. Tyran­nies are pre­served two ways most op­po­site to each oth­er, one of which is when the pow­er is del­egat­ed from one to the oth­er, and in this man­ner many tyrants gov­ern in their states. Re­port says that Pe­rian­der found­ed many of these. There are al­so many of them to be met with amongst the Per­sians. What has been al­ready men­tioned is as con­ducive as any­thing can be to pre­serve a tyran­ny; name­ly, to keep down those who are of an as­pir­ing dis­po­si­tion, to take off those who will not sub­mit, to al­low no pub­lic meals, no clubs, no ed­uca­tion, noth­ing at all, but to guard against ev­ery­thing that gives rise to high spir­its or mu­tu­al con­fi­dence; nor to suf­fer the learned meet­ings of those who are at leisure to hold con­ver­sa­tion with each oth­er; and to en­deav­our by ev­ery means pos­si­ble to keep all the peo­ple strangers to each oth­er; for knowl­edge in­creas­es mu­tu­al con­fi­dence; and to oblige all strangers to ap­pear in pub­lic, and to live near the city-​gate, that all their ac­tions may be suf­fi­cient­ly seen; for those who are kept like slaves sel­dom en­ter­tain any no­ble thoughts: in short, to im­itate ev­ery­thing which the Per­sians and bar­bar­ians do, for they all con­tribute to sup­port slav­ery; and to en­deav­our to know what ev­ery one who is un­der their pow­er does and says; and for this pur­pose to em­ploy spies: such were those wom­en whom the Syra­cu­sians called pot­agogides Hi­ero al­so used to send out lis­ten­ers wher­ev­er there was any meet­ing or con­ver­sa­tion; for the peo­ple dare not speak with free­dom for fear of such per­sons; and if any one does, there is the less chance of its be­ing con­cealed; and to en­deav­our that the whole com­mu­ni­ty should mu­tu­al­ly ac­cuse and come to blows with each oth­er, friend with friend, the com­mons with the no­bles, and the rich with each oth­er. It is al­so ad­van­ta­geous for a tyran­ny that all those who are un­der it should be op­pressed with pover­ty, that they may not be able to com­pose a guard; and that, be­ing em­ployed in procur­ing their dai­ly bread, they may have no leisure to con­spire against their tyrants. The Pyra­mids of Egypt are a proof of this, and the vo­tive ed­ifices of the Cy­poselidse, and the tem­ple of Jupiter Olym­pus, built by the Pi­sis­trati­dae, and the works of Poly­crates at Samos; for all these pro­duced one end, the keep­ing the peo­ple poor. It is nec­es­sary al­so to mul­ti­ply tax­es, as at Syra­cuse; where Diony­sius in the space of five years col­lect­ed all the pri­vate prop­er­ty of his sub­jects in­to his own cof­fers. A tyrant al­so should en­deav­our to en­gage his sub­jects in a war, that they may have em­ploy­ment and con­tin­ual­ly de­pend up­on their gen­er­al. A king is pre­served by his friends, but a tyrant is of all per­sons the man who can place no con­fi­dence in friends, as ev­ery one has it in his de­sire and these chiefly in their pow­er to de­stroy him. All these things al­so which are done in an ex­treme democ­ra­cy should be done in a tyran­ny, as per­mit­ting great li­cen­tious­ness to the wom­en in the house, that they may re­veal their hus­bands’ se­crets; and show­ing great in­dul­gence to slaves al­so for the same rea­son; for slaves and wom­en con­spire not against tyrants: but when they are treat­ed with kind­ness, both of them are abet­tors of tyrants, and ex­treme democ­ra­cies al­so; and the peo­ple too in such a state de­sire to be despot­ic. For which rea­son flat­ter­ers are in re­pute in both these: the dem­agogue in the democ­ra­cy, for he is the prop­er flat­ter­er of the peo­ple; among tyrants, he who will servile­ly adapt him­self to their hu­mours; for this is the busi­ness of [1314a] flat­ter­ers. And for this rea­son tyrants al­ways love the worst of wretch­es, for they re­joice in be­ing flat­tered, which no man of a lib­er­al spir­it will sub­mit to; for they love the vir­tu­ous, but flat­ter none. Bad men too are fit for bad pur­pos­es; “like to like,” as the proverb says. A tyrant al­so should show no favour to a man of worth or a free­man; for he should think, that no one de­served to be thought these but him­self; for he who sup­ports his dig­ni­ty, and is a friend to free­dom, en­croach­es up­on the su­pe­ri­or­ity and the despo­tism of the tyrant: such men, there­fore, they nat­ural­ly hate, as de­struc­tive to their gov­ern­ment. A tyrant al­so should rather ad­mit strangers to his ta­ble and fa­mil­iar­ity than cit­izens, as these are his en­emies, but the oth­ers have no de­sign against him. These and such-​like are the sup­ports of a tyran­ny, for it com­pre­hends what­so­ev­er is wicked. But all these things may be com­pre­hend­ed in three di­vi­sions, for there are three ob­jects which a tyran­ny has in view; one of which is, that the cit­izens should be of poor ab­ject dis­po­si­tions; for such men nev­er pro­pose to con­spire against any one. The sec­ond is, that they should have no con­fi­dence in each oth­er; for while they have not this, the tyrant is safe enough from de­struc­tion. For which rea­son they are al­ways at en­mi­ty with those of mer­it, as hurt­ful to their gov­ern­ment; not on­ly as they scorn to be gov­erned despot­ical­ly, but al­so be­cause they can re­ly up­on each oth­er’s fi­deli­ty, and oth­ers can re­ly up­on theirs, and be­cause they will not in­form against their as­so­ciates, nor any one else. The third is, that they shall be to­tal­ly with­out the means of do­ing any­thing; for no one un­der­takes what is im­pos­si­ble for him to per­form: so that with­out pow­er a tyran­ny can nev­er be de­stroyed. These, then, are the three ob­jects which the in­cli­na­tions of tyrants de­sire to see ac­com­plished; for all their tyran­ni­cal plans tend to pro­mote one of these three ends, that their peo­ple may nei­ther have mu­tu­al con­fi­dence, pow­er, nor spir­it. This, then, is one of the two meth­ods of pre­serv­ing tyran­nies: the oth­er pro­ceeds in a way quite con­trary to what has been al­ready de­scribed, and which may be dis­cerned from con­sid­er­ing to what the de­struc­tion of a king­dom is ow­ing; for as one cause of that is, mak­ing the gov­ern­ment ap­proach near to a tyran­ny, so the safe­ty of a tyran­ny con­sists in mak­ing the gov­ern­ment near­ly king­ly; pre­serv­ing on­ly one thing, name­ly pow­er, that not on­ly the will­ing, but the un­will­ing al­so, must be obliged to sub­mit; for if this is once lost, the tyran­ny is at an end. This, then, as the foun­da­tion, must be pre­served: in oth­er par­tic­ulars care­ful­ly do and af­fect to seem like a king; first, ap­pear to pay a great at­ten­tion [1314b] to what be­longs to the pub­lic; nor make such pro­fuse presents as will of­fend the peo­ple; while they are to sup­ply the mon­ey out of the hard labour of their own hands, and see it giv­en in pro­fu­sion to mis­tress­es, for­eign­ers, and fid­dlers; keep­ing an ex­act ac­count both of what you re­ceive and pay; which is a prac­tice some tyrants do ac­tu­al­ly fol­low, by which means they seem rather fa­thers of fam­ilies than tyrants: nor need you ev­er fear the want of mon­ey while you have the supreme pow­er of the state in your own hands. It is al­so much bet­ter for those tyrants who quit their king­dom to do this than to leave be­hind them mon­ey they have hoard­ed up; for their re­gents will be much less de­sirous of mak­ing in­no­va­tions, and they are more to be dread­ed by ab­sent tyrants than the cit­izens; for such of them as he sus­pects he takes with him, but these re­gents must be left be­hind. He should al­so en­deav­our to ap­pear to col­lect such tax­es and re­quire such ser­vices as the ex­igen­cies of the state de­mand, that when­ev­er they are want­ed they may be ready in time of war; and par­tic­ular­ly to take care that he ap­pear to col­lect and keep them not as his own prop­er­ty, but the pub­lic’s. His ap­pear­ance al­so should not be se­vere, but re­spectable, so that he should in­spire those who ap­proach him with ven­er­ation and not fear; but this will not be eas­ily ac­com­plished if he is de­spised. If, there­fore, he will not take the pains to ac­quire any oth­er, he ought to en­deav­our to be a man of po­lit­ical abil­ities, and to fix that opin­ion of him­self in the judg­ment of his sub­jects. He should al­so take care not to ap­pear to be guilty of the least of­fence against mod­esty, nor to suf­fer it in those un­der him: nor to per­mit the wom­en of his fam­ily to treat oth­ers haugh­ti­ly; for the haugh­ti­ness of wom­en has been the ru­in of many tyrants. With re­spect to the plea­sures of sense, he ought to do di­rect­ly con­trary to the prac­tice of some tyrants at present; for they do not on­ly con­tin­ual­ly in­dulge them­selves in them for many days to­geth­er, but they seem al­so to de­sire to have oth­er wit­ness­es of it, that they may won­der at their hap­pi­ness; where­as he ought re­al­ly to be mod­er­ate in these, and, if not, to ap­pear to oth­ers to avoid them-​for it is not the sober man who is ex­posed ei­ther to plots or con­tempt, but the drunk­ard; not the ear­ly ris­er, but the slug­gard. His con­duct in gen­er­al should al­so be con­trary to what is re­port­ed of for­mer tyrants; for he ought to im­prove and adorn his city, so as to seem a guardian and not a tyrant; and, more­over., al­ways to [1315a] seem par­tic­ular­ly at­ten­tive to the wor­ship of the gods; for from per­sons of such a char­ac­ter men en­ter­tain less fears of suf­fer­ing any­thing il­le­gal while they sup­pose that he who gov­erns them is re­li­gious and rev­er­ences the gods; and they will be less in­clined to raise in­sin­ua­tions against such a one, as be­ing pe­cu­liar­ly un­der their pro­tec­tion: but this must be so done as to give no oc­ca­sion for any sus­pi­cion of hypocrisy. He should al­so take care to show such re­spect to men of mer­it in ev­ery par­tic­ular, that they should not think they could be treat­ed with greater dis­tinc­tion by their fel­low-​cit­izens in a free state. He should al­so let all hon­ours flow im­me­di­ate­ly from him­self, but ev­ery cen­sure from his sub­or­di­nate of­fi­cers and judges. It is al­so a com­mon pro­tec­tion of all monar­chies not to make one per­son too great, or, cer­tain­ly, not many; for they will sup­port each oth­er: but, if it is nec­es­sary to en­trust any large pow­ers to one per­son, to take care that it is not one of an ar­dent spir­it; for this dis­po­si­tion is up­on ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty most ready for a rev­olu­tion: and, if it should seem nec­es­sary to de­prive any one of his pow­er, to do it by de­grees, and not re­duce him all at once. It is al­so nec­es­sary to ab­stain from all kinds of in­so­lence; more par­tic­ular­ly from cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment; which you must be most cau­tious nev­er to ex­er­cise over those who have a del­icate sense of hon­our; for, as those who love mon­ey are touched to the quick when any­thing af­fects their prop­er­ty, so are men of hon­our and prin­ci­ple when they re­ceive any dis­grace: there­fore, ei­ther nev­er em­ploy per­son­al pun­ish­ment, or, if you do, let it be on­ly in the man­ner in which a fa­ther would cor­rect his son, and not with con­tempt; and, up­on the whole, make amends for any seem­ing dis­grace by be­stow­ing greater hon­ours. But of all per­sons who are most like­ly to en­ter­tain de­signs against the per­son of a tyrant, those are chiefly to be feared and guard­ed against who re­gard as noth­ing the loss of their own lives, so that they can but ac­com­plish their pur­pose: be very care­ful there­fore of those who ei­ther think them­selves af­front­ed, or those who are dear to them; for those who are ex­cit­ed by anger to re­venge re­gard as noth­ing their own per­sons: for, as Her­acli­tus says, it is dan­ger­ous to fight with an an­gry man who will pur­chase with his life the thing he aims at. As all cities are com­posed of two sorts of per­sons, the rich and the poor, it is nec­es­sary that both these should find equal pro­tec­tion from him who gov­erns them, and that the one par­ty should not have it in their pow­er to in­jure the oth­er; but that the tyrant should at­tach to him­self that par­ty which is the most pow­er­ful; which, if he does, he will have no oc­ca­sion ei­ther to make his slaves free, or to de­prive cit­izens of their arms; for the strength of ei­ther of the par­ties added to his own forces will ren­der him su­pe­ri­or to any con­spir­acy. It would be su­per­flu­ous to go through all par­tic­ulars; for the rule of con­duct which the tyrant ought to pur­sue is ev­ident enough, and that is, to af­fect to ap­pear not the tyrant, but the king; the guardian of those he gov­erns, not their plun­der­er, [1315b] but their pro­tec­tor, and to af­fect the mid­dle rank in life, not one su­pe­ri­or to all oth­ers: he should, there­fore, as­so­ciate his no­bles with him and soothe his peo­ple; for his gov­ern­ment will not on­ly be nec­es­sar­ily more hon­ourable and wor­thy of im­ita­tion, as it will be over men of worth, and not ab­ject wretch­es who per­pet­ual­ly both hate and fear him; but it will be al­so more durable. Let him al­so frame his life so that his man­ners may be con­sen­ta­neous to virtue, or at least let half of them be so, that he may not be al­to­geth­er wicked, but on­ly so in part.

CHAP­TER XII

In­deed an oli­garchy and a tyran­ny are of all gov­ern­ments of the short­est du­ra­tion. The tyran­ny of Or­thago­ras and his fam­ily at Sicy­on, it is true, con­tin­ued longer than any oth­er: the rea­son for which was, that they used their pow­er with mod­er­ation, and were in many par­tic­ulars obe­di­ent to the laws; and, as Clis­thenes was an able gen­er­al, he nev­er fell in­to con­tempt, and by the care he took that in many par­tic­ulars his gov­ern­ment should be pop­ular. He is re­port­ed al­so to have pre­sent­ed a per­son with a crown who ad­judged the vic­to­ry to an­oth­er; and some say that it is the stat­ue of that judge which is placed in the fo­rum.

They say al­so, that Pi­si­stra­tus sub­mit­ted to be sum­moned in­to the court of the Are­opagites. The sec­ond that we shall men­tion is the tyran­ny of the Cypselidse, at Corinth, which con­tin­ued sev­en­ty-​sev­en years and six months; for Cypselus was tyrant there thir­ty years, Pe­rian­der forty-​four, and Psam­metichus, the son of Geor­gias, three years; the rea­son for which was, that Cypselus was a pop­ular man, and gov­erned with­out guards. Pe­rian­der in­deed ruled like a tyrant, but then he was an able gen­er­al. The third was that of the Pi­sistra­di­dae at Athens; but it was not con­tin­ual: for Pi­si­stra­tus him­self was twice ex­pelled; so that out of thir­ty-​three years he was on­ly fif­teen in pow­er, and his son eigh­teen; so that the whole time was thir­ty-​three years. Of the rest we shall men­tion that of Hi­ero, and Ge­lo at Syra­cuse; and this did not con­tin­ue long, for both their reigns were on­ly eigh­teen years; for Ge­lo died in the eighth year of his tyran­ny, and Hi­ero in his tenth. Thrasy­bu­lus fell in his eleventh month, and many oth­er tyran­nies have con­tin­ued a very short time. We have now gone through the gen­er­al cas­es of cor­rup­tion and [1316a] means of preser­va­tion both in free states and monar­chies. In Pla­to’s Re­pub­lic, Socrates is in­tro­duced treat­ing up­on the changes which dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ments are li­able to: but his dis­course is faulty; for he does not par­tic­ular­ly men­tion what changes the best and first gov­ern­ments are li­able to; for he on­ly as­signs the gen­er­al cause, of noth­ing be­ing im­mutable, but that in time ev­ery­thing will al­ter [***tr.: text is un­in­tel­li­gi­ble here***] he con­ceives that na­ture will then pro­duce bad men, who will not sub­mit to ed­uca­tion, and in this, prob­ably, he is not wrong; for it is cer­tain that there are some per­sons whom it is im­pos­si­ble by any ed­uca­tion to make good men; but why should this change be more pe­cu­liar to what he calls the best-​formed gov­ern­ment, than to all oth­er forms, and in­deed to all oth­er things that ex­ist? and in re­spect to his as­signed time, as the cause of the al­ter­ation of all things, we find that those which did not be­gin to ex­ist at the same time cease to be at the same time; so that, if any­thing came in­to be­gin­ning the day be­fore the sol­stice, it must al­ter at the same time. Be­sides, why should such a form of gov­ern­ment be changed in­to the Lacedae­mo­ni­an? for, in gen­er­al, when gov­ern­ments al­ter, they al­ter in­to the con­trary species to what they be­fore were, and not in­to one like their for­mer. And this rea­son­ing holds true of oth­er changes; for he says, that from the Lacedae­mo­ni­an form it changes in­to an oli­garchy, and from thence in­to a democ­ra­cy, and from a democ­ra­cy in­to a tyran­ny: and some­times a con­trary change takes place, as from a democ­ra­cy in­to an oli­garchy, rather than in­to a monar­chy. With re­spect to a tyran­ny he nei­ther says whether there will be any change in it; or if not, to what cause it will be ow­ing; or if there is, in­to what oth­er state it will al­ter: but the rea­son of this is, that a tyran­ny is an in­de­ter­mi­nate gov­ern­ment; and, ac­cord­ing to him, ev­ery state ought to al­ter in­to the first, and most per­fect, thus the con­ti­nu­ity and cir­cle would be pre­served. But one tyran­ny of­ten changed in­to an­oth­er; as at Syr­ia, from My­ron’s to Clis­thenes’; or in­to an oli­garchy, as was An­tileo’s at Chal­cas; or in­to a democ­ra­cy, as was Ge­lo’s at Syra­cuse; or in­to an aris­toc­ra­cy, as was Char­ilaus’s at Laced­se­mon, and at Carthage. An oli­garchy is al­so changed in­to a tyran­ny; such was the rise of most of the an­cient tyran­nies in Sici­ly; at Leon­ti­ni, in­to the tyran­ny of Panaetius; at Gela, in­to that of Cle­an­der; at Rhegium in­to that of Anax­ilaus; and the like in many oth­er cities. It is ab­surd al­so to sup­pose, that a state is changed in­to an oli­garchy be­cause those who are in pow­er are avari­cious and greedy of mon­ey, and not be­cause those who are by far rich­er than their fel­low cit­izens think it un­fair that those who have noth­ing should have an equal share in the rule of the state with them­selves, who pos­sess so much-​for in many oli­garchies it is not al­low­able to be em­ployed in mon­ey-​get­ting, and there are many laws to pre­vent it. But in Carthage, which is a democ­ra­cy, mon­ey-​get­ting is cred­itable, and yet their form of gov­ern­ment re­mains un­al­tered. It is al­so ab­surd to say, that in an oli­garchy there are two cities, one of the poor and an­oth­er of the rich; for why should this hap­pen to them more than to the Lacedae­mo­ni­ans, or any oth­er state where all pos­sess not equal prop­er­ty, or where all are not equal­ly good? for though no one mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty should be poor­er than he was be­fore, yet a democ­ra­cy might nev­er­the­less change in­to an oli­garchy; if the rich should be more pow­er­ful than the poor, and the one too neg­li­gent, and the oth­er at­ten­tive: and though these changes are ow­ing to many caus­es, yet he men­tions but one on­ly, that the cit­izens be­come poor by lux­ury, and pay­ing in­ter­est-​mon­ey; as if at first they were all rich, or the greater part of them: but this is not so, but when some of those who have the prin­ci­pal man­age­ment of pub­lic af­fairs lose their for­tunes, they will en­deav­our to bring about a rev­olu­tion; but when oth­ers do, noth­ing of con­se­quence will fol­low, nor when such states do al­ter is there any more rea­son for their al­ter­ing in­to a democ­ra­cy than any oth­er. Be­sides, though some of the mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty may not have spent their for­tunes, yet if they share not in the hon­ours of the state, or if they are ill-​used and in­sult­ed, they will en­deav­our to raise sedi­tions, and bring about a rev­olu­tion, that they may be al­lowed to do as they like; which, Pla­to says, aris­es from too much lib­er­ty. Al­though there are many oli­garchies and democ­ra­cies, yet Socrates, when he is treat­ing of the changes they may un­der­go, speaks of them as if there was but one of each sort.