1315b that it is necessary to appear to the subjects to be not a tyrannical ruler but a steward and a royal governor, and not an appropriator of wealth but a trustee, and to pursue the moderate things of life and not its extravagances, and also to make the notables one’s comrades and the many one’s followers. For the result of these methods must be that not only the tyrant’s rule will be more honorable and more enviable because he will rule nobler subjects and not men that have been humiliated, and will not be continually hated and feared, but also that his rule will endure longer, and moreover that he himself in his personal character will be nobly disposed towards virtue, or at all events half-virtuous, and not base but only half-base.

Nevertheless oligarchy and tyranny¹ are less lasting than any of the constitutional governments. For the longest-lived was the tyranny at Sicyon, that of the sons² of Orthagoras and of Orthagoras himself, and this lasted a hundred years.³ The cause of this was that they treated their subjects moderately and in many matters were subservient to the laws, and Cleisthenes because he was a warlike man was not easily despised, and in most things they kept the lead of the people by looking after their interests. At all events it is said that Cleisthenes placed a wreath on the judge who awarded the victory away from him, and some say that the statueof a seated figure in the market-place is a statue of the man who gave this judgement. And they say that Pisistratus⁴ also once submitted to a summons for trial before the Areopagus. And the second longest is the tyranny at Corinth, that of the Cypselids,⁵ for even this lasted seventy-three and a half years, as Cypselus was tyrant for thirty years, Periander for forty-four,⁶ and Psammetichus son of Gordias for three years. And the reasons for the permanence of this tyranny also are the same: Cypselus was a leader of the people and continuously throughout his period of office dispensed with a bodyguard; and although Periander became tyrannical, yet he was warlike. The third longest tyranny is that of the Pisistratidae at Athens, but it was not continuous; for while Pisistratus⁷ was tyrant he twice fled into exile, so that in a period of thirty-three years he was tyrant for seventeen years out of the total, and his sons for eighteen years, so that the whole duration of their rule was thirty-five years. Among the remaining tyrannies is the one connected with Hiero and Gelo⁸ at Syracuse, but even this did not last many years, but only eighteen in all, for Gelo after being tyrant for seven years ended his life in the eighth, and Hiero ruled ten years, but Thrasybulus was expelled after ten months. And the usual tyrannies have all of them been of quite short duration.

The causes therefore of the destruction of constitutional governments and of monarchies and those again of their preservation have almost all of them been discussed.

1316a The subject of revolutions is discussed by Socrates in the Republic,⁹ but is not discussed well. For his account of revolution in the constitution that is the best one and the first does not apply to it particularly. He says that the cause is that nothing is permanent but everything changes in a certain cycle, and that change has its origin in those numbers “whose basic ratio 4 : 3 linked with the number 5 gives two harmonies,”—meaning whenever the number of this figure becomes cubed,—in the belief that nature sometimes engenders men that are evil, and too strong for education to influence—speaking perhaps not ill as far as this particular dictum goes (for it is possible that there are some persons incapable of being educated and becoming men of noble character), but why should this process of revolution belong to the constitution which Socrates speaks of as the best, more than to all the other forms of constitution, and to all men that come into existence? and why merely by the operation of time, which he says is the cause of change in all things, do even things that did not begin to exist simultaneously change simultaneously? for instance, if a thing came into existence the day before the completion of the cycle, why does it yet change simultaneously with everything else? And in addition to these points, what is the reason why the republic changes from the constitution mentioned into the Spartan form¹⁰? For all constitutions more often change into the opposite form than into theone near them. And the same remark applies to the other revolutions as well. For from the Spartan constitution the state changes, he says, to oligarchy, and from this to democracy, and from democracy to tyranny. Yet revolutions also occur the other way about, for example from democracy to oligarchy, and more often so than from democracy to monarchy. Again as to tyranny he does not say whether it will undergo revolution or not, nor, if it will, what will be the cause of it, and into what sort of constitution it will change; and the reason for this is that he would not have found it easy to say, for it is irregular; since according to him tyranny ought to change into the first and best constitution, for so the process would be continuous and a circle, but as a matter of fact tyranny also changes into tyranny, as the constitution of Sicyon ¹¹ passed from the tyranny of Myron to that of Cleisthenes, and into oligarchy, as did that of Antileon¹² at Chalcis, and into democracy, as that of the family of Gelo¹³ at Syracuse, and into aristocracy, as that of Charilaus¹⁴ at Sparta [and as at Carthage].¹⁵ And constitutions change from oligarchy to tyranny, asdid almost the greatest number of the ancient oligarchies in Sicily, at Leontini to the tyranny of Panaetius,¹⁶ at Gelo to that of Cleander, at Rhegium to that of Anaxilaus,¹⁷ and in many other cities similarly. And it is also a strange idea that revolutions into oligarchy take place because the occupants of the offices are lovers of money and engaged in money-making,

1316b but not because owners of much more than the average amount of property think it unjust for those who do not own any property to have an equal share in the state with those who do; and in many oligarchies those in office are not allowed to engage in business, but there are laws preventing it, whereas in Carthage, which has a democratic government,¹⁸ the magistrates go in for business, and they have not yet had a revolution. And it is also a strange remark¹⁹ that the oligarchical state is two states, one of rich men and one of poor men. For what has happened to this state rather than to the Spartan or any other sort of state where all do not own an equal amount of wealth or where all are not equally good men? and when nobody has become poorer than he was before, none the less revolution takes place from oligarchy to democracy if the men of no property become more numerous, and from democracy to oligarchy if the wealthy class is stronger than the multitude and the latter neglect politics but the former give their mind to them. And although there are many causes through which revolutions in oligarchies occur, he mentions only one—that of men becoming poor through riotous living, by paying away their money in interest on loans—as if at the start all men or most men were rich. But this is not true, but although when some of the leaders have lost their properties they stir up innovations, when men of the other classes are ruined nothing strange happens;and even when such a revolution does occur it is no more likely to end in a democracy than in another form of constitution. And furthermore men also form factions and cause revolutions in the constitution if they are not allowed a share of honors, and if they are unjustly or insolently treated, even if they have not run through all their property . . .²⁰ because of being allowed to do whatever they like; the cause of which he states to be excessive liberty. And although there are several forms of oligarchy and of democracy, Socrates speaks of the revolutions that occur in them as though there were only one form of each.