In like manner they all have
the same food at their public tables, and the rich wear only such
clothing as any poor man can afford. Again, the people elect to one
of the two greatest offices of state, and in the other they share;
for they elect the Senators and share in the Ephoralty. By others the
Spartan constitution is said to be an oligarchy, because it has many
oligarchical elements. That all offices are filled by election and
none by lot, is one of these oligarchical characteristics; that the
power of inflicting death or banishment rests with a few persons is
another; and there are others. In a well attempted polity there should
appear to be both elements and yet neither; also the government should
rely on itself, and not on foreign aid, and on itself not through the
good will of a majority- they might be equally well-disposed when
there is a vicious form of government- but through the general
willingness of all classes in the state to maintain the constitution.
Enough of the manner in which a constitutional government, and in
which the so-called aristocracies ought to be framed.
X
Of the nature of tyranny I have still to speak, in order that it may
have its place in our inquiry (since even tyranny is reckoned by us to
be a form of government), although there is not much to be said
about it.
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