Book 5
1315b
Nevertheless oligarchy and tyrannyOligarchy is not mentioned in what follows, and the context deals with the forms of monarchy. Tyranny is included among the constitutions at 1312a 40, but not elsewhere in this Book. Some editors bracket ll. 19-29 as spurious or out of place. are less lasting than any of the constitutional governments. For the longest-lived was the tyranny at Sicyon, that of the sonsi.e. descendants; Cleisthenes was his grandson. of Orthagoras and of Orthagoras himself, and this lasted a hundred years.From 670 B.C. 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 PisistratusSee 1305a 23 n. also once submitted to a summons for trial before the Areopagus. And the second longest is the tyranny at Corinth, that of the Cypselids,From 655 B.C. for even this lasted seventy-three and a half years, as Cypselus was tyrant for thirty years, Periander for forty-four,The Greek may be corrected to forty and a half to give the stated total. 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 PisistratusSee 1305a 23 n. 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 GeloSee 1312b 12 n. 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.
