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.
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