Republic

And the third class, composing the people, would comprise all quiet cultivators of their own farms who possess little property. This is the largest and most potent group in a democracy when it meets in assembly. Yes, it is, he said, but it will not often do that, unless it gets a share of the honey. Well, does it not always share, I said, to the extent that the men at the head find it possible, in distributing to the people what they take from the well-to-do, to keep the lion’s share for themselves? Why, yes, he said, it shares in that sense. And so, I suppose, those who are thus plundered are compelled to defend themselves by speeches in the assembly and any action in their power. Of course. And thereupon the charge is brought against them by the other party, though they may have no revolutionary designs, that they are plotting against the people, and it is said that they are oligarchs. Surely. And then finally, when they see the people, not of its own will but through misapprehension, and being misled by the calumniators, attempting to wrong them, why then, whether they wish it or not, they become in very deed oligarchs, not willingly, but this evil too is engendered by those drones which sting them. Precisely. And then there ensue impeachments and judgements and lawsuits on either side. Yes, indeed. And is it not always the way of a demos to put forward one man as its special champion and protector and cherish and magnify him? Yes, it is. This, then, is plain, said I, that when a tyrant arises he sprouts from a protectorate root and from nothing else. Very plain. What, then, is the starting-point of the transformation of a protector into a tyrant? Is it not obviously when the protector’s acts begin to reproduce the legend that is told of the shrine of Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia? What is that? he said. The story goes that he who tastes of the one bit of human entrails minced up with those of other victims is inevitably transformed into a wolf. Have you not heard the tale? I have.