Of these, however, what the power is of insolent conduct and gain, and how they are the causes of sedition, is nearly evident. For when the magistrates are insolent and avaricious, they occasion seditions amongst each other, and also in the polities which gave them their power. But avarice is produced, at one time from private, and at another from public property. And it is evident with respect to honour what it is able to effect, and how it is the cause of sedition. For those who are themselves unhonoured, and perceive others honoured, are seditious. But these things are indeed done unjustly, when either certain persons are honoured or disgraced contrary to their desert, but justly when they are so according to their desert. Sedition also is produced through eminence, when some one or more than one is greater in power than the city, and the power of the government can permit; for then a monarchy or a dynasty is usually produced. Hence, in some places it is customary to use the ostracism, as at Argos and Athens; though it is better to take care in the beginning that men may not arrive at such an eminence, than having permitted it to take place, to find a remedy for it afterwards. Those also who have acted unjustly, will be the cause of sedition through fear of punishment; as likewise will those who expect to be injured, in order that they may prevent it; as was the case at Rhodes, when the nobles conspired against the people, on account of the decrees they expected would be passed against them. Sedition also and conspiracies are produced through contempt; as in oligarchies, when those who have no share in the administration are numerous; for they fancy themselves to be superior. And in democracies seditions are produced in consequence of the rich despising disorder and anarchy. Thus at Thebes after the battle of Oenophiton, the democracy was destroyed in consequence of bad administration. This also was the case with the democracy of the Megarensians, through disorder and anarchy; with the Syracusians before the tyranny of Gelon; and in Rhodes, before the subversion of the popular government. Mutations of polities likewise are produced through a disproportionate increase. For as the body is composed of parts, and it is necessary that it should be increased according to analogy, in order that its symmetry may remain; for if it is not it is corrupted; as if the foot indeed, should be four cubits long, and the rest of the body but two palms; and sometimes it would be changed into the form of another animal, if it were increased contrary to the analogous, not only in quantity, but also in quality; thus too a city is composed of parts, some of which often secretly increase; as for instance, the number of the poor in democracies, and polities properly so called. Sometimes, however, this also happens through fortune; as at Tarentum, where many of the nobles were vanquished and destroyed by the Iapigi, a little after the Median war; for then from a polity, it became a democracy. This was also the case at Argos, where so many of the citizens were killed by Cleomenes the Spartan, that they were compelled to admit several husbandmen to the freedom of the state. And at Athens, through the unfortunate event of the war by land, the number of the nobles was diminished, by their being chosen into the troops in the Lacedæmonian war. This also happens in democracies, though in a less degree; for the poor increasing faster than the men of property, the democracies are changed into oligarchies and dynasties. Polities, likewise, are changed without sedition, through contention, as at Herea; for on this account the mode of election was changed from votes to lots, because those that contended with each other were elected. And polities are also changed by negligence, when those who are not friends to the government are admitted into the chief offices of the state, which happened at Orus, when the oligarchy of the archers was dissolved by the election of Heracleodorus, who changed that form of government from an oligarchy to a democratic polity. Again, commotions also are produced by minuteness. But I say by minuteness, because a great change in the legal institutions of polities, latently takes place, when that which is small is overlooked; as in Ambracia, where the census was small, but at last came to be nothing, as if the small were proximate to, or in no respect different from nothing. That state also is liable to seditions, which is composed of different nations, till they conspire in union and consent. For as a city does not consist of any casual multitude, so neither is it constituted in any casual time. Hence, all those polities, which have hitherto been composed of different people, or afterwards have admitted the neighbouring states to the freedom of their city, have for the most part been subject to seditions; as when the Achæans joined with the Træzenians in founding Sybaris; for afterwards growing more powerful than the Træzenians, they expelled them from the city. Hence, the Sybarites were obliged to expiate the guilt of this deed. And contentions from a like cause happened at Thurium, between the Sybarites and those that dwelt with them. For endeavouring to usurp more of that territory, as if it had been their own, they failed in the attempt, and were expelled out of it. The Byzantines also, when the intended enterprize of the recent citizens against them was discovered, drove them by force of arms out of the city; and the Antisseans having received into their city the banished Chians, afterwards expelled them by force. But the Zancleans having received the Samians, were themselves expelled by them. And the Appoloniatæ, who dwell near the Euxine sea, through receiving strangers into their city, were subject to seditions. The Syracusians also after the expulsion of their tyrants, having enrolled strangers and mercenaries amongst their citizens, were troubled with seditions, which at last ended in war. And the Amphipolitæ, having taken in a colony of Chalcidians, were most of them expelled by these. Many persons, however, occasion seditions in oligarchies, conceiving themselves to be injured, because though equal to others they do not partake of equal honours in the state, as we have before observed. But in democracies the nobles do the same because they have not more than an equal share with others who are not equal to them. Sometimes also cities are seditious, on account of the places in which they are situated, when the country is not well adapted to the unity of the city. Thus at Clazomene, those that dwell at Chytrum were hostile to those who lived in the island; and the Colophonians quarrelled with the Notians. At Athens, likewise, the people are not similarly disposed, but those that dwell in the Piraeus are more democratic than those that live in the city. For as in an army, the passing over a river though very small will divulse the phalanx, so it seems that every difference in a city produces dissention. The greatest dissention therefore perhaps is between virtue and depravity; afterwards, between wealth and poverty; and so of other dissentions, one more than another; one of which also is that we have mentioned.
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