[1296a] all, the government must either be
in the hands of the meanest rabble or else a pure oligarchy; or, from
the excesses of both, a tyranny; for this arises from a headstrong
democracy or an oligarchy, but very seldom when the members of the
community are nearly on an equality with each other. We will assign a
reason for this when we come to treat of the alterations which different
states are likely to undergo. The middle state is therefore best, as
being least liable to those seditions and insurrections which disturb
the community; and for the same reason extensive governments are least
liable to these inconveniences; for there those in a middle state are
very numerous, whereas in small ones it is easy to pass to the two
extremes, so as hardly to have any in a medium remaining, but the
one half rich, the other poor: and from the same principle it is that
democracies are more firmly established and of longer continuance than
oligarchies; but even in those when there is a want of a proper number
of men of middling fortune, the poor extend their power too far, abuses
arise, and the government is soon at an end.

We ought to consider as a proof of what I now advance, that the best
lawgivers themselves were those in the middle rank of life, amongst whom
was Solon, as is evident from his poems, and Lycurgus, for he was not
a king, and Charondas, and indeed most others. What has been said will
show us why of so many free states some have changed to democracies,
others to oligarchies: for whenever the number of those in the middle
state has been too small, those who were the more numerous, whether the
rich or the poor, always overpowered them and assumed to themselves the
administration of public affairs; from hence arose either a democracy
or an oligarchy. Moreover, when in consequence of their disputes and
quarrels with each other, either the rich get the better of the poor, or
the poor of the rich, neither of them will establish a free state;
but, as the record of their victory, one which inclines to their own
principles, and form either a democracy or an oligarchy.

Those who made conquests in Greece, having all of them an eye to the
respective forms of government in their own cities, established either
democracies or oligarchies, not considering what was serviceable to the
state, but what was similar to their own; for which reason a government
has never been established where the supreme power has been placed
among