The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

both extremes appear in it.
The Lacedaemonian constitution, for example, is often described as
a democracy, because it has many democratical features. In the
first place the youth receive a democratical education. For the
sons of the poor are brought up with with the sons of the rich, who
are educated in such a manner as to make it possible for the sons
of the poor to be educated by them. A similar equality prevails in
the following period of life, and when the citizens are grown up to
manhood the same rule is observed; there is no distinction between
the rich and poor. In like manner they all have the same food at
their public tables, and the rich wear only such clothing as any
poor man can afford. Again, the people elect to one of the two
greatest offices of state, and in the other they share; for they
elect the Senators and share in the Ephoralty. By others the
Spartan constitution is said to be an oligarchy, because it has
many oligarchical elements. That all offices are filled by election
and none by lot, is one of these oligarchical characteristics; that
the power of inflicting death or banishment rests with a few
persons is another; and there are others. In a well attempted
polity there should appear to be both elements and yet neither;
also the government should rely on itself, and not on foreign aid,
and on itself not through the good will of a majority—they might be
equally well-disposed when there is a vicious form of
government—but through the general willingness of all classes in
the state to maintain the constitution.
    Enough of the manner in which a constitutional government, and
in which the so-called aristocracies ought to be framed.
X
    Of the nature of tyranny I have still to speak, in order that it
may have its place in our inquiry (since even tyranny is reckoned
by us to be a form of government), although there is not much to be
said about it. I have already in the former part of this treatise
discussed royalty or kingship according to the most usual meaning
of the term, and considered whether it is or is not advantageous to
states, and what kind of royalty should be established, and from
what source, and how.
    When speaking of royalty we also spoke of two forms of tyranny,
which are both according to law, and therefore easily pass into
royalty. Among barbarians there are elected monarchs who exercise a
despotic power; despotic rulers were also elected in ancient
Hellas, called Aesymnetes or Dictators. These monarchies, when
compared with one another, exhibit certain differences. And they
are, as I said before, royal, in so far as the monarch rules
according to law over willing subjects; but they are tyrannical in
so far as he is despotic and rules according to his own fancy.
There is also a third kind of tyranny, which is the most typical
form, and is the counterpart of the perfect monarchy. This tyranny
is just that arbitrary power of an individual which is responsible
to no one, and governs all alike, whether equals or better, with a
view to its own advantage, not to that of its subjects, and
therefore against their will. No freeman, if he can escape from it,
will endure such a government.
    The kinds of tyranny are such and so many, and for the reasons
which I have given.
XI
    We have now to inquire what is the best constitution for most
states, and the best life for most men, neither assuming a standard
of virtue which is above ordinary persons, nor an education which
is exceptionally favored by nature and circumstances, nor yet an
ideal state which is an aspiration only, but having regard to the
life in which the majority are able to share, and to the form of
government which states in general can attain. As to those
aristocracies, as they are called, of which we were just now
speaking, they either lie beyond the possibilities of the greater
number of states, or they approximate to the so-called
constitutional government, and therefore need no separate
discussion. And in fact the conclusion at which we arrive
respecting all these forms rests upon the same grounds. For if what
was said in the Ethics is true, that the happy life is the life
according to virtue lived without impediment, and that virtue is a
mean, then the life which is in a mean, and in a mean attainable by
every one, must be the best. And the same the same principles of
virtue and vice are characteristic of cities and of constitutions;
for the constitution is in a figure the life of the city.
    Now in all states there are