[1290a] and indeed any other similar distinction that in the discussion of aristocracy has been stated to constitute a part of the state (for there we distinguished how many necessary parts there are of which every state must consist); for sometimes all of these parts participate in the constitution and sometimes a smaller or a larger number ofthem. [loeb_subsection_3] It is clear therefore that there must necessarily be several forms of constitution differing in kind from one another, inasmuch as these parts differ in kind among themselves. For a constitution means the arrangement of the magistracies, and this all people plan out either according to the power of those who share political rights, or according to some common equality between them, I mean for example between the poor or between the rich, or some equality common to them both.This clause looks like an interpolation. It follows therefore that there are as many forms of constitution as there are modes of arrangement according to the superiorities and the differences of the sections. [loeb_subsection_4] But the forms mostly are thought to be two—just as in the case of the winds we speak of some as north and some as south and regard the rest as deviations from these,Aristotle refers to this view in Aristot. Meteor. 364a 19, saying that west winds are classed with north and east winds with south, because wind from the setting sun is cooler and from the rising sun warmer. He notes that north and south winds are the most frequent, Aristot. Meteor. 361a 6; this may have suggested the idea that they were the typical winds. so also of constitutions there are held to be two forms, democracy and oligarchy; for men reckon aristocracy as a kind of oligarchy because it is oligarchy of a sort, and what is called constitutional government as democracy, just as in the case of the winds they reckon the west wind as a kind of north wind and the east wind as a kind of south wind.And the case is similar with musical modes, as some people say: for there too they posit two kinds, the Dorian mode and the Phrygian, and call the other scales some of them Dorian and the others Phrygian. [loeb_subsection_5] For the most part therefore they are accustomed to think in this way about the constitutions; but it is truer and better to class them as we did, and assuming that there are two well-constructed forms, or else one, to say that the others are deviations, some from the well-blended constitution and the others from the best one, the more tense and masterful constitutions being oligarchic and the relaxed and soft ones demotic.
[loeb_subsection_6] But it is not right to define democracy, as some people are in the custom of doing now, merely as the constitution in which the multitude is sovereign (for even in oligarchies and everywhere the majority is sovereign) nor oligarchy as the constitution in which a few are sovereign over the government. For if the whole number were thirteen hundred, and a thousand of these were rich and did not give the three hundred poor a share in the government although they were free-born and like themselves in all other respects, no one would say that this people was governed democratically; and similarly also if there were few poor, but these more powerful than the rich who were more numerous, no one would call such a government a democracy either, if the other citizens being rich had no share in the honors.
[loeb_subsection_7] Rather therefore ought we to say that it is a democracy [1290b] 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 that in an oligarchy small because there are many men of free birth and few rich. For otherwise, suppose people assigned the offices by height, as some personse.g. Hdt. 3.20. say is done in Ethiopia, or by beauty, that would be an oligarchy, because both the handsome and the tall are few in number. [loeb_subsection_8] Nevertheless it is not enough to define these constitutions even by wealth and free birth only; but inasmuch as there are more elements than one both in democracy and in oligarchy, we must add the further distinction that neither is it a democracy if the freei.e. those of citizen birth. being few govern the majority who are not of free birth, as for instance at Apollonia on the Ionian Gulf and at Thera (for in each of these cities the offices of honor were filled by the specially noble families who had been the first settlers of the colonies, and these were few out of many), nor is it a democracyPerhaps the Greek should be altered here to give an oligarchy. if the rich rule because they are in a majority, as in ancient times at Colophon (for there the majority of the population owned large property before the war against the Lydians took place), but it is a democracy when those who are free are in the majority and have sovereignty over the government, and an oligarchy when the rich and more well bornare few and sovereign.
[loeb_subsection_9] It has then been stated that there are several forms of constitution, and what is the cause of this; but let us take the starting-point that was laid down beforeSee 3.1. and say that there are more forms than those mentioned, and what these forms are, and why they vary. For we agree that every state possesses not one part but several. Therefore just as, in case we intended to obtain a classification of animals, we should first define the properties necessarily belonging to every animal (for instance some of the sense organs, and the machinery for masticating and for receiving food, such as a mouth and a stomach, and in addition to these the locomotive organs of the various species), [loeb_subsection_10] and if there were only so many necessary parts, but there were different varieties of these (I mean for instance certain various kinds of mouth and stomach and sensory organs, and also of the locomotive parts as well), the number of possible combinations of these variations will necessarily produce a variety of kinds of animals (for it is not possible for the same animal to have several different sorts of mouth, nor similarly of ears either), so that when all the possible combinations of these are taken they will all produce animal species, and there will be as many species of the animal as there are combinations of the necessary parts:—[loeb_subsection_11] so in the same way also we shall classify the varieties of the constitutions that have been mentioned. For states also are composed not of one but of several parts, as has been said often. One of these parts therefore is the mass of persons concerned with food who are called farmers,