happened at Larissa, when Simos and the Aleuadae had the chief power.
The same thing happened at Abydos, during the time of the political
clubs, of which Iphiades' was one. Commotions also will happen in an
oligarchy from one party's overbearing and insulting another, or
from their quarrelling about their law-suits or marriages. How their
marriages, for instance, will have that effect has been already shown:
and in Eretria, Diagoras destroyed the oligarchy of the knights upon the
same account. A sedition also arose at Heraclea, from a certain person
being condemned by the court; and at Thebes, in consequence of a man's
being guilty of adultery; [1306b] the punishment indeed which Eurytion
suffered at Heraclea was just, yet it was illegally executed: as was
that at Thebes upon Archias; for their enemies endeavoured to have them
publicly bound in the pillory. Many revolutions also have been brought
about in oligarchies by those who could not brook the despotism which
those persons assumed who were in power, as at Cnidus and Chios. Changes
also may happen by accident in what we call a free state and in an
oligarchy; wheresoever the senators, judges, and magistrates are chosen
according to a certain census; for it often happens that the highest
census is fixed at first; so that a few only could have a share in
the government, in an oligarchy, or in a free state those of moderate
fortunes only; when the city grows rich, through peace or some other
happy cause, it becomes so little that every one's fortune is equal to
the census, so that the whole community may partake of all the honours
of government; and this change sometimes happens by little and little,
and insensible approaches, sometimes quicker. These are the revolutions
and seditions that arise in oligarchies, and the causes to which they
are owing: and indeed both democracies and oligarchies sometimes alter,
not into governments of a contrary form, but into those of the same
government; as, for instance, from having the supreme power in the law
to vest it in the ruling party, or the contrariwise.

CHAPTER VII

Commotions also arise in aristocracies, from there being so few persons
in power (as we have already observed they do in oligarchies, for in
this particular an aristocracy is most near an oligarchy, for in both
these states the administration of public affairs is in the hands of
a few; not that this arises from the same cause in both, though herein
the