Political Science Of The State

10 POLITICAL SCIENCE.

over, the choice was confined to a few powerful families,

Oligarchies, Aristotle adds, arc exposed to revolutions
both in war and in peace. " In war, tiwinj; to distruM uf the
people, they are forced to employ fhircii) M»ldii'rs whose
commander often becomes a tyrant, a* Timnplum** j brother
of Timoleon] did at Corinth. Or if thure arc ,t tuuiilicr of
commanders they acquire dynastic power fur
But sometimes in apprehension of this they ( the
give the people a share in the government, because they *«fc
forced to make use of their assistance, Sonu*tinu>, ;i);aiiiv
in peace, on account of mutual distrust, they put the |*tiard
of the city into the hands of soldiers and a commander who
belongs to neither party, who sometimes becomes ma»lcr of
both, as happened at Lurissa under the ^tivcrnment of the
Aleuadse, namely, of Simus and hi* parly,* and at Abydun in
the times of the clubs, one of which was that f »f tphi.ulcs, " \ $ y, )
Factions and strife arise also when members of the jjuvern*
ing class, in an oligarchy, work against one another and form
counter factions on the score of marriages or suits at law,
Such were the factions already spoken of relating to mar*
riage ; and Diagoras of Kretria, owing to a wrong in this re-
spect, overthrew the oligarchy of the horsemen in that city,
From the verdict of a court the civil strife in Hcraclcn arose,
and an accusation of adultery occasioned one at Thebes.
The punishment was procured justly but in a factious way
against Eurytion in Heraclea, and against Archias in Thebes.
Their adversaries had such violent feelings toward them as to
cause them to be fastened in the pillory in the agora, t <$ to.)
Many oligarchies again have been overthrown by members
of the ruling class itself who had been disaffected on account
* The reading r&v wpl Xpor, instead of tw irtpl Sd^or, from which
no sense can be elicited* is adopted in Didot's Aristotle, after
Schneider, who makes it very probable in the addenda to the second
volume of his edition of the Politics.
t A punishment inflicted on slaves more especially. Corop. K. F
Hermann, Gr, Amiq., ill, § 73, note 33.