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.
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