1307bAnd aristocracies are most liable to undergo revolution unobserved, through gradual relaxation, just as it has been said in what has gone before about all forms of constitution in general, that even a small change may cause a revolution. For when they give up one of the details of the constitution, afterwards they also make another slightly bigger change more readily, until they alter the whole system. This occurred for instance with the constitution of Thurii. There was a law that the office of general could be held at intervals of four years, but some of the younger men, becoming warlike and winning high repute with the mass of the guards, came to despise the men engaged in affairs, and thought that they would easily get control; so first they tried to repeal the law referred to, so as to enable the same persons to serve as generals continuously, as they saw that the people would vote for themselves with enthusiasm. And though the magistrates in charge of this matter, called the Councillors, at first made a movement to oppose them, they were won over, believing that after repealing this law they would allow the rest of the constitution to stand; but later, though they wished to prevent them when other laws were being repealed, they could no longer do anything more, but the whole system of the constitution was converted into a dynasty of the men who had initiated the innovations.

And constitutions of all formsare broken up some times from movements initiating from within themselves, but sometimes from outside, when there is an opposite form of constitution either near by or a long way off yet possessed of power. This used to happen in the days of the Athenians and the Spartans; the Athenians used to put down oligarchies everywhere and the Spartans democracies.

We have then approximately stated the causes that give rise to revolutions in the constitutions of states and to party factions.

The next thing to speak about is security both in general and for each form of constitution separately. First then it is clear that if we know the causes by which constitutions are destroyed we also know the causes by which they are preserved; for opposites create opposites, and destruction is the opposite of security. In well-blended constitutions therefore, if care must be taken to prevent men from committing any other breach of the law, most of all must a small breach be guarded against, for transgression of the law creeps in unnoticed, just as a small expenditure occurring often ruins men’s estates; for the expense is not noticed because it does not come all at once, for the mind is led astray by the repeated small outlays, just like the sophistic puzzle, “if each is little, then all are alittle.”¹ This is true in one way but in another it is not; for the whole or total is not little, but made up of little parts. One thing therefore that we must guard against is this beginning; and the next point is that we must not put faith in the arguments strung together for the sake of tricking the multitude,

1308afor they are refuted by the facts (and what sort of constitutional sophistries we refer to hasbeen said before). And again we must observe that not only some aristocracies but also some oligarchies endure not because the constitutions are secure but because those who get in the offices treat both those outside the constitution and those in the government well, on the one hand by not treating those who are not members of it unjustly and by bringing their leading men into the constitution and not wronging the ambitious ones in the matter of dishonor or the multitude in the matter of gain, and on the other hand, in relation to themselves and those who are members, by treating one another in a democratic spirit. For that equality which men of democratic spirit seek for in the case of the multitude is not only just but also expedient in the case of their compeers. Hence if there are a greater number in the governing class, many of the legislative enactments of a democratic nature are advantageous, for example for the offices to be tenable for six months, to enable all the compeers to participate in them; for the compeers in this case are as it were the people (owing to which demagogues often arise even among them, as has been said already), and also oligarchies and aristocracies fall into dynasties less (for it is not so easy to do wrongs when in office for a short time as when in for a long time, since it is long tenure of office that causes tyrannies to spring up in oligarchies and democracies; for either those who are the greatest men in either sort of state aim at tyranny, in the one sort the demagogues and in the other the dynasts, or those who hold the greatest offices, when they are in office for along time). And constitutions are kept secure not only through being at a distance from destroyers but sometimes also through being near them,² for when they are afraid the citizens keep a closer hold on the government; hence those who take thought for the constitution must contrive causes of fear, in order that the citizens may keep guard and not relax their vigilance for the constitution like a watch in the night, and they must make the distant near. Again, they must also endeavor to guard against the quarrels and party struggles of the notables by means of legislation, and to keep out those who are outside the quarrel before they too have taken it over; since to discern a growing evil at the commencement is not any ordinary person’s work but needs a statesman. And to deal with the revolution from oligarchy and constitutional government that arises because of the property-qualifications, when this occurs while the rates of qualification remain the same but money is becoming plentiful, it is advantageous to examine the total amount of the rated value of the community as compared with the past amount, in states where the assessment is made yearly, over that period,

1308band three years or five years ago in the larger states, and if the new total is many times larger or many times smaller than the former one at the time when the rates qualifying for citizenship were fixed, it is advantageous that there should be a law for the magistrates correspondingly to tighten up or to relax the rates, tightening them up in proportion to the ratio of increase if the new total rated value exceeds the old, and relaxing them and making the qualification lower if the new total falls below theold. For in oligarchies and constitutional states, when they do not do this, in the one case³ the result is that in the latter an oligarchy comes into existence and in the former a dynasty, and in the other case⁴ a constitutional government turns into a democracy and an oligarchy into a constitutional government or a government of the people. But it is a policy common to democracy and oligarchy [and to monarchy],⁵ and every form of constitution not to raise up any man too much beyond due proportion, but rather to try to assign small honors and of long tenure or great ones quickly⁶ (for officials grow corrupt, and not every man can bear good fortune), or if not, at all events not to bestow honors in clusters and take them away again in clusters, but by a gradual process; and best of all to try so to regulate people by the law that there may be nobody among them specially pre-eminent in power due to friends or wealth, or, failing this, to cause their periods out of office to be spent abroad.And since men also cause revolutions through their private lives, some magistracy must be set up to inspect those whose mode of living is unsuited to the constitution—unsuited to democracy in a democracy, to oligarchy in an oligarchy, and similarly for each of the other forms of constitution. And also sectional prosperity in the state must be guarded against for the same reasons; and the way to avert this is always to entrust business and office to the opposite sections (I mean that the respectable are opposite to the multitude and the poor to the wealthy), and to endeavor either to mingle together the multitude of the poor and that of the wealthy or to increase the middle class (for this dissolves party factions due to inequality). And in every form of constitution it is a very great thing for it to be so framed both by its laws and by its other institutions that it is impossible for the magistracies to make a profit. And this has most to be guarded against in oligarchies; for the many are not so much annoyed at being excluded from holding office (but in fact they are glad if somebody lets them have leisure to spend on their own affairs) as they are if they think that the magistrates are stealing the common funds, but then both things annoy them, exclusion from the honors of office and exclusion from its profits. And indeed the sole way in which a combination of democracy and aristocracy is possible is if someone could contrive this arrangement⁷;