that other will not be willing to hazard the danger:
for which reason those who are superior in excellence
and virtue will never be the cause of seditions; for
they will be too few for that purpose when compared
to the many. In general, the beginning and the
causes of seditions in all states are such as I have
now described, and revolutions therein are brought
about in two ways, either by violence or fraud:
if by violence, either at first by compelling them
to submit to the change when it is made. It may
also be brought about by fraud in two different ways,
either when the people, being at first deceived, willingly
consent to an alteration in their government, and
are afterwards obliged by force to abide by it:
as, for instance, when the four hundred imposed upon
the people by telling them that the king of Persia
would supply them with money for the war against the
Lacedaemonians; and after they had been guilty of
this falsity, they endeavoured to keep possession of
the supreme power; or when they are at first persuaded
and afterwards consent to be governed: and by
one of these methods which I have mentioned are all
revolutions in governments brought about.
CHAPTER V
We ought now to inquire into those events which will
arise from these causes in every species of government.
Democracies will be most subject to revolutions from
the dishonesty of their demagogues; for partly, by
informing against men of property, they induce them
to join together through self-defence, for a common
fear will make the greatest enemies unite; and partly
by setting the common people against them: and
this is what any one may continually see practised
in many states. In the island of Cos, for instance,
the democracy was subverted by the wickedness of the
demagogues, for the nobles entered into a combination
with each other. And at Rhodes the demagogues,
by distributing of bribes, prevented the people from
paying the trierarchs what was owing to them, who
were obliged by the number of actions they were harassed
with to conspire together and destroy the popular
state. The same thing was brought about at Heraclea,
soon after the settlement of the city, by the same
persons; for the citizens of note, being ill treated
by them, quitted the city, but afterwards joining
together they returned and overthrew the popular state.
Just in the same manner the democracy was destroyed
in Megara; for there the demagogues, to procure money
by confiscations, drove out the nobles, till the number
of those who were banished was considerable, who,
[1305a] returning, got the better of the people in
a battle, and established an oligarchy. The like
happened at Cume, during the time of the democracy,
which Thrasymachus destroyed; and whoever considers
what has happened in other states may perceive the
same revolutions to have arisen from the same causes.
The demagogues, to curry favour with the people, drive
the nobles to conspire together, either by dividing
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Politics: A Treatise on Government from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
