killed in
a battle by the lapygi, that from a free state the government was turned
into a democracy; and at Argos, where so many of the citizens were
killed by Cleomenes the Spartan, that they were obliged to admit several
husbandmen to the freedom of the state: and at Athens, through the
unfortunate event of the infantry battles, the number of the nobles was
reduced by the soldiers being chosen from the list of citizens in
the Lacedaemonian wars. Revolutions also sometimes take place in
a democracy, though seldomer; for where the rich grow numerous or
properties increase, they become oligarchies or dynasties. Governments
also sometimes alter without seditions by a combination of the meaner
people; as at Hersea: for which purpose they changed the mode of
election from votes to lots, and thus got themselves chosen: and by
negligence, as when the citizens admit those who are not friends to
the constitution into the chief offices of the state, which happened
at Orus, when the oligarchy of the archons was put an end to at the
election of Heracleodorus, who changed that form of government into a
democratic free state. By little and little, I mean by this, that very
often great alterations silently take place in the form of government
from people's overlooking small matters; as at Ambracia, where the
census was originally small, but at last became nothing at all, as if a
little and nothing at all were nearly or entirely alike. That state
also is liable to seditions which is composed of different nations, till
their differences are blended together and undistinguishable; for as a
city cannot be composed of every multitude, so neither can it in every
given time; for which reason all those republics which have hitherto
been originally composed of different people or afterwards admitted
their neighbours to the freedom of their city, have been most liable
to revolutions; as when the Achaeans joined with the Traezenians
in founding Sybaris; for soon after, growing more powerful than the
Traezenians, they expelled them from the city; from whence came the
proverb of Sybarite wickedness: and again, disputes from a like cause
happened at Thurium between the Sybarites and those who had joined with
them in building the city; for they assuming upon these, on account of
the country being their own, were driven out. And at Byzantium the new
citizens, being detected in plots against the state, were driven out of
the city by force of arms. The