Let me now show
that there are different forms both of democracy and oligarchy, as
will indeed be evident from what has preceded. For both in the
common people and in the notables various classes are included; of the
common people, one class are husbandmen, another artisans; another
traders, who are employed in buying and selling; another are the
seafaring class, whether engaged in war or in trade, as ferrymen or as
fishermen. (In many places any one of these classes forms quite a
large population; for example, fishermen at Tarentum and Byzantium,
crews of triremes at Athens, merchant seamen at Aegina and Chios,
ferrymen at Tenedos.) To the classes already mentioned may be added
day-laborers, and those who, owing to their needy circumstances,
have no leisure, or those who are not of free birth on both sides; and
there may be other classes as well. The notables again may be
divided according to their wealth, birth, virtue, education, and
similar differences.
Of forms of democracy first comes that which is said to be based
strictly on equality. In such a democracy the law says that it is just
for the poor to have no more advantage than the rich; and that neither
should be masters, but both equal. For if liberty and equality, as
is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be
best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the
utmost.
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