Kitap 4
1292a
Let this be our discussion of the different kinds of democracy.
1292a
Of the kinds of oligarchy, one is for the magistracies to be appointed from property-assessments so high that the poor who are the majority have no share in the government, but for the man who acquires the requisite amount of property to be allowed to take part in it;
1292b
another is when the magistracies are filled from high assessments and the magistrates themselves elect to fill vacancies (so that if they do so from all the citizens of this assessment, this appears rather to be of the nature of an aristocracy, but if from a particular section of them, it is oligarchical); another variety of oligarchy is when son succeeds father in office; and a fourth kind is when the hereditary system just mentioned exists and also the magistrates govern and not the law. This among oligarchies is the form corresponding to tyranny among monarchies and to the form of democracy about which we spoke last among democracies, and indeed oligarchy of this sort has the special name of dynasty.Government controlled by a few powerful families. Cf. Thuc. 3.62.4, where the Thebans say, In those days our state was not governed by an oligarchy that granted equal justice to all, nor yet by a democracy; the power was in the hands of a small cabal ( δυναστεία ὀλίγων ἀνδρῶν), than which nothing is more opposed to law or to true political order, or more nearly resembles a tyranny (Jowett).
