Homer also discommends the government of many; but whether he means
this we are speaking of, or where each person exercises his power
separately, is uncertain. When the people possess this power they
desire to be altogether absolute, that they may not be under the
control of the law, and this is the time when flatterers are held in
repute. Nor is there any difference between such a people and monarchs
in a tyranny: for their manners are the same, and they both hold a
despotic power over better persons than themselves. For their decrees
are like the others' edicts; their demagogues like the others'
flatterers: but their greatest resemblance consists in the mutual
support they give to each other, the flatterer to the tyrant, the
demagogue to the people: and to them it is owing that the supreme
power is lodged in the votes of the people, and not in the laws; for
they bring everything before them, as their influence is owing to
their being supreme whose opinions they entirely direct; for these are
they whom the multitude obey. Besides, those who accuse the
magistrates insist upon it, that the right of determining on their
conduct lies in the people, who gladly receive their complaints as the
means of destroying all their offices.
Any one, therefore, may with great justice blame such a government as
being a democracy, and not a free state; for where the government is
not in the laws, then there is no free state, for the law ought to be
supreme over all things; and particular incidents which arise should
be determined by the magistrates or the state.
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