VII
In aristocracies revolutions are stirred up when a few only share in
the honors of the state; a cause which has been already shown to
affect oligarchies; for an aristocracy is a sort of oligarchy, and,
like an oligarchy, is the government of a few, although few not for
the same reason; hence the two are often confounded. And revolutions
will be most likely to happen, and must happen, when the mass of the
people are of the high-spirited kind, and have a notion that they
are as good as their rulers. Thus at Lacedaemon the so-called
Partheniae, who were the [illegitimate] sons of the Spartan peers,
attempted a revolution, and, being detected, were sent away to
colonize Tarentum. Again, revolutions occur when great men who are
at least of equal merit are dishonored by those higher in office, as
Lysander was by the kings of Sparta; or, when a brave man is
excluded from the honors of the state, like Cinadon, who conspired
against the Spartans in the reign of Agesilaus; or, again, when some
are very poor and others very rich, a state of society which is most
often the result of war, as at Lacedaemon in the days of the Messenian
War; this is proved from the poem of Tyrtaeus, entitled 'Good
Order'; for he speaks of certain citizens who were ruined by the war
and wanted to have a redistribution of the land.
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