Kitap 6
1319a
Hence there necessarily results the condition of affairs that is the most advantageous in the government of states—for the upper classes to govern without doing wrong, the common people not being deprived of any rights. It is manifest therefore that this is the best of the forms of democracy, and why this is so—namely, because in it the common people are of a certain kind.
1319a
For the purpose of making the people an agricultural community, not only were some of the laws that were enacted in many states in early times entirely serviceable, prohibiting the ownership of more than a certain amount of land under any conditions or else of more than a certain amount lying between a certain place and the citadel or city (and in early times at all events in many states there was even legislation prohibiting the sale of the original allotments; and there is a law said to be due to OxylusLeader of the Heraclidae in their invasion of the Peloponnese, and afterwards king of Elis. with some similar provision, forbidding loans secured on a certain portion of a man’s existing estate), but at the present day it would also be well to introduce reform by means of the law of the Aphytaeans, as it is serviceable for the purpose of which we are speaking; the citizens of AphytisAphytis was on the Isthmus of Pallene in Macedonia. although numerous and possessing a small territory nevertheless are all engaged in agriculture, for they are assessed not on the whole of their estates, but on divisions of them so small that even the poor can exceed the required minimum in their assessments.No satisfactory explanation seems to have been suggested of whatthis means.
