are more numerous
and more dangerous than in the oligarchy; there they are inert and
unpractised, here they are full of life and animation; and the keener
sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and prevent
their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in
democratic States, of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be
squeezed when the drones have need of their possessions; there is
moreover a third class, who are the labourers and the artisans, and
they make up the mass of the people. When the people meet, they
are omnipotent, but they cannot be brought together unless they are
attracted by a little honey; and the rich are made to supply the honey,
of which the demagogues keep the greater part themselves, giving a taste
only to the mob. Their victims attempt to resist; they are driven mad
by the stings of the drones, and so become downright oligarchs in
self-defence. Then follow informations and convictions for treason. The
people have some protector whom they nurse into greatness, and from this
root the tree of tyranny springs. The nature of the change is indicated
in the old fable of the temple of Zeus Lycaeus, which tells how he who
tastes human flesh mixed up with the flesh of other victims will turn
into a wolf. Even so the protector, who tastes human blood, and slays
some and exiles others with or without law, who hints at abolition of
debts and division of lands, must either perish or become a wolf--that
is, a tyrant. Perhaps he is driven out, but he soon comes back from
exile; and then if his enemies cannot get rid of him by lawful means,
they plot his assassination. Thereupon the friend of the people makes
his well-known request to them for a body-guard, which they readily
grant, thinking only of his danger and not of their own. Now let the
rich man make to himself wings, for he will never run away again if he
does not do so then. And the Great Protector, having crushed all his
rivals, stands proudly erect in the chariot of State, a full-blown
tyrant: Let us enquire into the nature of his happiness.

In the early days of his tyranny he smiles and beams upon everybody; he
is not a 'dominus,' no, not he: he has only come to put an end to debt
and the monopoly of land. Having got rid of foreign enemies, he makes
himself necessary to the State by always going to war. He is thus
enabled to depress the poor by heavy taxes, and so keep them at work;
and he can get rid of bolder sp