her.

XLII. And Scipio said: When I shall have explained my opinion
respecting the form of government which I prefer, I shall be able to
speak to you more accurately respecting the revolutions of states,
though I think that such will not take place so easily in the mixed
form of government which I recommend. With respect, however, to
absolute monarchy, it presents an inherent and invincible tendency to
revolution. No sooner does a king begin to be unjust than this entire
form of government is demolished, and he at once becomes a tyrant,
which is the worst of all governments, and one very closely related to
monarchy. If this State falls into the hands of the nobles, which is
the usual course of events, it becomes an aristocracy, or the second of
the three kinds of constitutions which I have described; for it is, as
it were, a royal--that is to say, a paternal--council of the chief men
of the State consulting for the public benefit. Or if the people by
itself has expelled or slain a tyrant, it is moderate in its conduct as
long as it has sense and wisdom, and while it rejoices in its exploit,
and applies itself to maintaining the constitution which it has
established. But if ever the people has raised its forces against a
just king and robbed him of his throne, or, as has frequently happened,
has tasted the blood of its legitimate nobles, and subjected the whole
Commonwealth to its own license, you can imagine no flood or
conflagration so terrible, or any whose violence is harder to appease
than this unbridled insolence of the populace.

XLIII. Then we see realized that which Plato so vividly describes, if I
can but express it in our language. It is by no means easy to do it
justice in translation: however, I will try.

When, says Plato, the insatiate jaws of the populace are fired with the
thirst of liberty, and when the people, urged on by evil ministers,
drains in its thirst the cup, not of tempered liberty, but unmitigated
license, then the magistrates and chiefs, if they are not utterly
subservient and remiss, and shameless promoters of the popular
licentiousness, are pursued, incriminated, accused, and cried down
under the title of despots and tyrants. I dare say you recollect the
passage.

Yes, said Laelius, it is familiar to me.

_Scipio._ Plato thus proceeds: Then those who feel in duty bound to
obey the chiefs of the State are persecuted by the insensate populace,
who call them voluntary slaves. But those