Democracy

Rather therefore ought we to say that it is a democracy when the free are sovereign and an oligarchy when the rich are, but that it comes about that the sovereign class in a democracy is numerous and

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And another kind of democracy is for all the citizens that are not open to challenge to have a share in office, but for the law to rule; and another kind of democracy is for all to share in the office

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And a fourth kind of democracy is the one that has been the last in point of time to come into existence in the states. Because the states have become much greater than the original ones and possess l

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since where some own a very great deal of property and others none there comes about either an extreme democracy or an unmixed oligarchy, or a tyranny may result from both of the two extremes, for tyr

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second the one connected with the magistracies, that is, what there are to be and what matters they are to control, and what is to be the method of their election, and a third is, what is to be the ju

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for they assert this as the aim of every democracy. But one factor of liberty is to govern and be governed in turn; for the popular principle of justice is to have equality according to number, not wo

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and if any life-office has been left after an ancient revolution, at all events to deprive it of its power and to substitute election by lot for election by vote. These then are the features common to

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either a decision must be made by casting lots or some other such device must be adopted. But on questions of equality and justice, even though it is very difficult to discover the truth about them, n

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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 depr

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The last kind of democracy, because all the population share in the government, it is not within the power of every state to endure, and it is not easy for it to persist if it is not well constituted

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Democracy is a form of government in which the offices are distributed by the people among themselves by lot; in an oligarchy, by those who possess a certain property-qualification; in an aristocracy,

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But the rule of the multitude has in the first place the loveliest name of all, equality, and does in the second place none of the things that a monarch does. It determines offices by lot, and holds p

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Most emphatically. And a democracy, I suppose, comes into being when the poor, winning the victory, put to death some of the other party, drive out others, and grant the rest of the citizens an equal

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And the freedom from all compulsion to hold office in such a city, even if you are qualified, or again, to submit to rule, unless you please, or to make war when the rest are at war, or to keep the pe

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Shall we definitely assert, then, that such a man is to be ranged with democracy and would properly be designated as democratic? Let that be his place, he said. And now, said I, the fairest polity and

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Mnesiphilus the Athenian, a warm friend and admirer of Solon’s, said, I think it is no more than fair, Periander, that the conversation, like the wine, should not be apportioned on the basis of wealth

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"We have a form of government not fetched by imitation from the laws of our neighboring states (nay, we are rather a pattern to others, than they to us) which, because in the administration it hath re

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And be assured, fellow citizens, that in a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in

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