y chiefly seem alike): and these will necessarily be most likely to
happen when the generality of the people are high-spirited and think
themselves equal to each other in merit; such were those at Lacedasmon,
called the Partheniae (for these were, as well as others, descendants
of citizens), who being detected in a conspiracy against the state, were
sent to found Tarentum. They will happen also when some great men are
disgraced by those who have received higher honours than themselves, to
whom they are no ways inferior in abilities, as Lysander by the kings:
or when an ambitious man cannot get into power, as Cinadon, who, in the
reign of Agesilaus, was chief in a conspiracy against the Spartans:
and also when some are too poor and others too rich, which will most
frequently happen in time of war; as at Lacedaemon during the Messenian
war, which is proved by a poem of Tyrtaeus, [1307a] called "Eunomia;"
for some persons being reduced thereby, desired that the lands might
be divided: and also when some person of very high rank might still be
higher if he could rule alone, which seemed to be Pausanias's intention
at Lacedaemon, when he was their general in the Median war, and Anno's
at Carthage. But free states and aristocracies are mostly destroyed from
want of a fixed administration of public affairs; the cause of which
evil arises at first from want of a due mixture of the democratic and
the oligarchic parts in a free state; and in an aristocracy from the
same causes, and also from virtue not being properly joined to power;
but chiefly from the two first, I mean the undue mixture of the
democratic and oligarchic parts; for these two are what all free
states endeavour to blend together, and many of those which we call
aristocracies, in this particular these states differ from each other,
and on this account the one of them is less stable than the other, for
that state which inclines most to an oligarchy is called an aristocracy,
and that which inclines most to a democracy is called a free state; on
which account this latter is more secure than the former, for the wider
the foundation the securer the building, and it is ever best to live
where equality prevails. 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
aristo