Kitap 4
1291b
That there are then several forms of constitution, and what are the reasons for this, has been stated before; let us now say that there are several varieties both of democracy and of oligarchy. And this is clear even from what has been said already. For there are several classes both of the people and of those called the notables; for instance classes of the people are, one the farmers, another the class dealing with the arts and crafts, another the commercial classoccupied in buying and selling and another the one occupied with the sea—and this is divided into the classes concerned with naval warfare, with trade, with ferrying passengers and with fishing (for each of these classes is extremely numerous in various places, for instance fishermen at Tarentum and Byzantium, navy men at Athens, the mercantile class at Aegina and Chios, and the ferryman-class at Tenedos), and in addition to these the hand-working class and the people possessing little substance so that they cannot live a life of leisure, also those that are not free men of citizen parentage on both sides, and any other similar class of common people; while among the notables wealth, birth, virtue, education, and the distinctions that are spoken of in the same group as these, form the classes.
