y-three years he was only fifteen in power, and his son
eighteen; so that the whole time was thirty-three years. Of the rest
we shall mention that of Hiero, and Gelo at Syracuse; and this did not
continue long, for both their reigns were only eighteen years; for
Gelo died in the eighth year of his tyranny, and Hiero in his tenth.
Thrasybulus fell in his eleventh month, and many other tyrannies have
continued a very short time. We have now gone through the general cases
of corruption and [1316a] means of preservation both in free states and
monarchies. In Plato's Republic, Socrates is introduced treating upon
the changes which different governments are liable to: but his discourse
is faulty; for he does not particularly mention what changes the best
and first governments are liable to; for he only assigns the general
cause, of nothing being immutable, but that in time everything will
alter [***tr.: text is unintelligible here***] he conceives that nature
will then produce bad men, who will not submit to education, and in
this, probably, he is not wrong; for it is certain that there are some
persons whom it is impossible by any education to make good men; but
why should this change be more peculiar to what he calls the best-formed
government, than to all other forms, and indeed to all other things
that exist? and in respect to his assigned time, as the cause of the
alteration of all things, we find that those which did not begin
to exist at the same time cease to be at the same time; so that, if
anything came into beginning the day before the solstice, it must alter
at the same time. Besides, why should such a form of government be
changed into the Lacedaemonian? for, in general, when governments alter,
they alter into the contrary species to what they before were, and
not into one like their former. And this reasoning holds true of other
changes; for he says, that from the Lacedaemonian form it changes into
an oligarchy, and from thence into a democracy, and from a democracy
into a tyranny: and sometimes a contrary change takes place, as from a
democracy into an oligarchy, rather than into a monarchy. With respect
to a tyranny he neither says whether there will be any change in it; or
if not, to what cause it will be owing; or if there is, into what other
state it will alter: but the reason of this is, that a tyranny is an
indeterminate government; and, according to him, every state ought to
alter into the first, and most