Again, oligarchies change whenever any attempt
is made to narrow them; for then those who desire equal rights are
compelled to call in the people. Changes in the oligarchy also occur
when the oligarchs waste their private property by extravagant living;
for then they want to innovate, and either try to make themselves
tyrants, or install some one else in the tyranny, as Hipparinus did
Dionysius at Syracuse, and as at Amphipolis a man named Cleotimus
introduced Chalcidian colonists, and when they arrived, stirred them
up against the rich. For a like reason in Aegina the person who
carried on the negotiation with Chares endeavored to revolutionize the
state. Sometimes a party among the oligarchs try directly to create
a political change; sometimes they rob the treasury, and then either
the thieves or, as happened at Apollonia in Pontus, those who resist
them in their thieving quarrel with the rulers. But an oligarchy which
is at unity with itself is not easily destroyed from within; of this
we may see an example at Pharsalus, for there, although the rulers are
few in number, they govern a large city, because they have a good
understanding among themselves.
Oligarchies, again, are overthrown when another oligarchy is created
within the original one, that is to say, when the whole governing body
is small and yet they do not all share in the highest offices.
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