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.
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