[1311a] to protect the owners of estates from suffering injustice and the people from suffering insult, but tyranny, as has repeatedly been said, pays regard to no common interest unless for the sake of its private benefit; and the aim of tyranny is what is pleasant, that of royalty what is noble. Hence even in their requisitions money is the aim of tyrants but rather marks of honor that of kings; and a king’s body-guard consists of citizens, a tyrant’s of foreign mercenaries. [loeb_subsection_7] And it is manifest that tyranny has the evils of both democracy and oligarchy; it copies oligarchy in making wealth its object (for inevitably that is the only way in which the tyrant’s body-guard and his luxury can be kept up) and in putting no trust in the multitude (which is why they resort to the measure of stripping the people of arms, and why ill-treatment of the mob and its expulsion from the city and settlement in scattered places is common to both forms of government, both oligarchy and tyranny), while it copies democracy in making war on the notables and destroying them secretly and openly and banishing them as plotting against it and obstructive to its rule. For it is from them that counter-movements actually spring, some of them wishing themselves to rule, and others notto be slaves. Hence comes the advice of Periander to Thrasybulus,See 1284a 26 n. his docking of the prominent cornstalks, meaning that the prominent citizens must always be made away with.
[loeb_subsection_8] Therefore, as was virtually stated,This has not been stated, but can be inferred from what precedes. the causes of revolutions in constitutional and in royal governments must be deemed to be the same; for subjects in many cases attack monarchies because of unjust treatment and fear and contempt, and among the forms of unjust treatment most of all because of insolence, and sometimes the cause is the seizure of private property. Also the objects aimed at by the revolutionaries in the case both of tyrannies and of royal governments are the same as in revolts against constitutional government; for monarchs possess great wealth and great honor, which are desired by all men. [loeb_subsection_9] And in some cases the attack is aimed at the person of the rulers, in others at their office. Risings provoked by insolence are aimed against the person; and though insolence has many varieties, each of them gives rise to anger, and when men are angry they mostly attack for the sake of revenge, not of ambition. For example the attack on the Pisistratidae took place because they outraged Harmodius’s sister and treated Harmodius with contumely (for Harmodius attacked them because of his sister and Aristogiton because of Harmodius, and also the plot was laid against Periander the tyrant in Ambracia See 1304a 31 n. because when drinking [1311b] with his favorite he asked him if he was yet with child by him),
[loeb_subsection_10] and the attack on Philip by PausaniasA Macedonian youth of family, who murdered Philip 336 B.C. Attalus was the uncle of Philip’s wife Cleopatra. was because he allowed him to be insulted by Attalus and his friends, and that on Amyntas the LittlePerhaps the adjective should be transferred to Derdas and expunged as an interpolated note. The persons referred to are uncertain. by Derdas because he mocked at his youth, and the attack of the eunuch on Evagoras of Cyprus was for revenge, for he murdered him as being insulted, because Evagoras’s son had taken away his wife. [loeb_subsection_11] And many risings have also occurred because of shameful personal indignities committed by certain monarchs. One instance is the attack of Crataeas on ArchelausKing of Macedon 413-399 B.C. Euripides went to reside at his court 408 B.C. and died there 406 B.C. at the age of 75.; for he was always resentful of the association, so that even a smaller excuse became sufficient, or perhaps it was because he did not give him the hand of one of his daughters after agreeing to do so, but gave the elder to the king of Elimea when hard pressed in a war against Sirras and Arrabaeus, and the younger to his son Amyntas, thinking that thus Amyntas would be least likely to quarrel with his son by Cleopatra; but at all events Crataeas’s estrangement was primarily caused by resentment because of the love affair. [loeb_subsection_12] And Hellanocrates of Larisa also joined in the attack for the same reason; for because while enjoying his favors Archelaus would not restore him to his home although he had promised to do so, he thought that the motive of the familiarity that had taken placehad been insolence and not passionate desire. And Pytho and Heraclides of Aenus made away with CotysKing of Thrace 382-358 B.C. to avenge their father, and Adamas revolted from Cotys because he had been mutilated by him when a boy, on the ground of the insult. [loeb_subsection_13] And also many men when enraged by the indignity of corporal chastisement have avenged the insult by destroying or attempting to destroy its author, even when a magistrate or member of a royal dynasty. For example when the PenthilidaeThe ruling family in the early oligarchy there, claiming descent from Penthilus, an illegitimate son of Orestes. at Mitylene went about striking people with their staves Megacles with his friends set on them and made away with them, and afterwards Smerdis when he had been beaten and dragged out from his wife’s presence killed Penthilus. Also Decamnichus took a leading part in the attack upon Archelaus, being the first to stir on the attackers; and the cause of his anger was that he had handed him over to Euripides the poet to flog, Euripides being angry because he had made a remark about his breath smelling. [loeb_subsection_14] And many others also for similar reasons have been made away with or plotted against. And similarly also from the motive of fear; for this was one of the causes we mentioned in the case of monarchies, as also in that of constitutional governments; for instance ArtapanesCaptain of Xerxes’ body-guard. killed Xerxes fearing the charge about Darius, because he had hanged him when Xerxes had ordered him not to but he had thought that he would forgive him because he would forget, as he had been at dinner. And other attacks on monarchs have been on account of contempt,