Section 551

So, when wealth is honored in a state, and the wealthy, virtue and the good are less honored. Obviously. And that which men at any time honor they practise, 1 and what is not honored is neglected. It is so. Thus, finally, from being lovers of victory and lovers of honor they become lovers of gain-getting and of money, and they commend and admire the rich man and put him in office but despise the man who is poor. Quite so. And is it not then that they pass a law defining the limits 2 of an oligarchical polity, prescribing 3 a sum of money, a larger sum where it is more 4 of an oligarchy, where it is less a smaller, and proclaiming that no man shall hold office whose property does not come up to the required valuation? And this law they either put through by force of arms, or without resorting to that they establish their government by terrorization. 5 Is not that the way of it? It is. The establishment then, one may say, is in this wise. Yes, he said, but what is the character of this constitution, and what are the defects that we said it had? To begin with, said I, consider the nature of its constitutive and defining principle. Suppose men should appoint the pilots 6 of ships in this way, by property qualification, and not allow 7 a poor man to navigate, even if he were a better pilot. A sorry voyage they would make of it, he said. And is not the same true of any other form of rule? I think so. Except of a city, said I, or does it hold for a city too? Most of all, he said, by as much as that is the greatest and most difficult 8 rule of all. Here, then, is one very great defect in oligarchy. So it appears. Well, and is this a smaller one? What? That such a city should of necessity be not one, 9 but two, a city of the rich and a city of the poor, dwelling together, and always plotting 10 against one another. No, by Zeus, said he, it is not a bit smaller. Nor, further, can we approve of this—the likelihood that they will not be able to wage war, because of the necessity of either arming and employing the multitude, 11 and fearing them more than the enemy, or else, if they do not make use of them, of finding themselves on the field of battle, oligarchs indeed, 12 and rulers over a few. And to this must be added their reluctance to contribute money, because they are lovers of money. No, indeed, that is not admirable.