Kitap 4
1297b
And although it is proper that the government should be drawn only from those who possess heavy armor, yet it is not possible to define the amount of the property-qualification absolutely and to say that they must possess so much, but only to consider what sort of amount is the highest that is compatible with making those who have a share in the constitution more numerous than those who have not, and to fix thatlimit. For those who are poor and have no share in the honors are willing to keep quiet if no one insults them or takes away any part of their substance; but this is not easy to secure, for it does not always happen that those who are in the governing class are gentlemen. Also people have a way of being reluctant to serve when there is a war if they do not get rations and are poor men but; if somebody provides food they want to fight. In some states the citizen-body consists not only of those who are serving as heavy-armed soldiers, but also of those who have so served; and at Malea the citizen-body consistedof these, while the magistrates were elected from those who were actually on service. And indeed the earliest form of constitution among the Greeks after the kingships consisted of those who were actually soldiers, the original form consisting of the cavalry （for war had its strength and its pre-eminence in cavalry, since without orderly formation heavy-armed infantry is useless, and the sciences and systems dealing with tactics did not exist among the men of old times, so that their strength lay in their cavalry）; but as the states grew and the wearers of heavy armor had become stronger, more persons came to have a part in the government. Hence what we now call constitutional governments the men of former times called democracies; but the constitutional governments of early days were naturally oligarchical and royal, for owing to the smallness of the populations their middle class was not numerous, so that because of their small numbers as well as in conformity with the structure of the state the middle class more readily endured being in a subject position.
