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.
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