Book 5
1306a
(as Hipparinus put forward DionysiusSee 1259a 29 n. at Syracuse, and at Amphipolis See 1303b 2 n. a man named Cleotimus led the additional settlers that came from Chalcis and on their arrival stirred them up to sedition against the wealthy, and in Aegina the man who carried out the transactions with Chares attempted to cause a revolution in the constitution for a reason of this sorti.e. he had squandered his fortune in riotous living; this deal with the Athenian general may have been in 367 B.C.); so sometimes they attempt at once to introduce some reform, at other times they rob the public funds and in consequence either they or those who fight against them in their peculations stir up faction against the government, as happened at Apollonia on the Black Sea. On the other hand, harmonious oligarchy does not easily cause its own destruction; and an indication of this is the constitutional government at Pharsalus, for there the ruling class though few are masters of many meni.e. both of the lower classes and of the subject cities. because on good terms with one another. Also oligarchical governments break up when they create a second oligarchy within the oligarchy. This is when, although the whole citizen class is small, its few members are not all admitted to the greatest offices; this is what once occurred in Elis, for the government being in the hands of a few, very few men used to become members of the Elders,i.e. the small governing body. because these numbering ninety held office for life, and the mode of election was of a dynastic typei.e. like a dynasteia, favorable to the interest of a few very wealthy families; see 1292b 10 n. and resembled that of the Elders at Sparta.
