Oligarchy

There are, as you know, fellow-citizens, three forms of government in the world tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy.

And you imagine that your bearers fail to detect you in thus making a demand which is no outgrowth of democracy, but borrowed from another form of government.

For in the material value to the recipients of the rewards bestowed, a tyranny or an oligarchy has an immense advantage in that they can make anyone they choose instantaneously rich;

Because in an oligarchy harmony is attained by the equality of those who control the State, but the freedom of a democracy is guarded by the rivalry with which good citizens compete for the rewards offered by the people.

So oligarchy, presumably, looks better to you than democracy!

As you all know, the name you give to our government is democracy, but I see that some of you listen with more pleasure to those who advocate the opposite to it.

It is nothing out of the ordinary, men of Athens, that those public men who are always and unceasingly agitating on behalf of the oligarchies should be convicted of doing so upon this occasion also.

I shall now proceed to speak about the polity which I took for my subject and about our ancestors, going back to the early times when neither the word oligarchy nor the word democracy was as yet in our speech, but when monarchies governed both the barbaric races and all the Hellenic states.

oligarchy, democracy, and monarchy, and that of the people who live under these all who are wont to place in charge of their offices and of their affairs in general those of their fellow-citizens who are most competent and who will most ably and justly direct the affairs of state—all these, I hold, will govern well, under any type of polity, both in their domestic relations and in their relations …

we see the people at war with other polities which fail to please them, overturning them and slaying those at their head, but continuing to enjoy this polity for not less than a thousand years, remaining loyal to it from the time when they received it down to the age of Solon and the tyranny of Pisistratus, who, after he had placed himself at the head of the people and done much harm to the city a …

The next polity, I believe, would be oligarchy.

And from the stingless finally issue beggars in old age, but from those furnished with stings all that are denominated malefactors?

And is it not then that they pass a law defining the limits of an oligarchical polity, prescribing a sum of money, a larger sum where it is more 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?

Pisander, then, and his companions, as they coasted along, abolished the popular governments in the cities, according to arrangement, and, moreover, took from some places heavy-armed troops as their allies, and so came to Athens.

In the first place, having assembled the people, they moved a resolution for electing ten commissioners with absolute powers for compiling laws, and that after compiling them they should lay before the people, on an appointed day, their opinion as to the manner in which the state would be best governed.

Afterwards, when the day had arrived, they enclosed the assembly in the Colonus, (a temple of Neptune outside the city, at the distance of about ten stades,) and the compilers brought forward no other motion, but simply this, that any of the Athenians should be at liberty to express any opinion he might please;

And this oligarchy came into being in the way hereafter described — it was voted by the people to choose thirty men to frame the ancient laws into a constitution under which to conduct the government.

Now we, believing that for men like ourselves and you democracy is a grievous form of government, and convinced that the commons would never become friendly to the Lacedaemonians, our preservers, while the aristocrats would continue ever faithful to them, for these reasons are establishing, with the approval of the Lacedaemonians, the present form of government.

But I, Critias, am forever at war with the men who do not think there could be a good democracy until the slaves and those who would sell the state for lack of a shilling should share in the government, and on the other hand I am forever an enemy to those who do not think that a good oligarchy could be established until they should bring the state to the point of being ruled absolutely by a few.

or who had recorded against them any act performed under the oligarchy—alway excepting those publicly recorded as fugitives:

Then the Thirty came into power, and there followed the occupation of Phyle and Munychia, and those terrible struggles which I am loath to recall either to myself or to you.

That is how you come to be walking about this city alive—hardly the fate which you deserved after making a living as a common informer under the democracy, and becoming the tool of the Thirty under the oligarchy to avoid having to disgorge your profits.

but of the notables, those in the political clubs, and those of the exiles who had returned after the peace, desired oligarchy, while those who belonged to no club, but were otherwise thought to fall short of none of the citizens, sought the ancestral constitution.

The oligarchy, then, was established in this way, in the archonship of Callias, about a hundred years after the expulsion of the tyrants, those chiefly responsible being Pisander, Antiphon, and Theramenes, men both of good birth and reputed to excel in understanding and judgement.

When the husband controls everything, he transforms the relationship into an oligarchy, for he governs in violation of fitness, and not in virtue of superiority.

Aristocracy passes into Oligarchy owing to badness in the rulers, who do not distribute what the State has to offer according to desert, but give all or most of its benefits to themselves, and always assign the offices to the same persons, because they set supreme value upon riches;

I shall not, then, trouble to show that the defendant has proved himself more brutal than any oligarchy anywhere in the world.

If you care to inquire why a man would sooner live under a democracy than under an oligarchy, you will find that most obvious reason is that in a democracy everything is more easy-going.

For the people may be led astray by them to make many mistakes, and such men may attempt either to overthrow the democracy completely,—for in an oligarchy, even if there are viler livers than Androtion, no one may speak evil of dignities—or to debauch the people, so that they may be as nearly as possible like themselves.

under oligarchical government everybody is entitled to undo the past, and to prescribe future transactions according to his own pleasure;

Again, we may discern how monstrously he has acted in making his law retrospective, by asking ourselves what is the real difference between government by law and oligarchy;

with oligarchies you fight for none of these things, but for your constitution and your liberty.

Then those who, by adopting oligarchical principles, abandon the post taken over by us from our ancestors, ought to be disqualified from ever giving you advice.

Therefore I should not hesitate to say that I think it a greater advantage that all the Greeks should be your enemies under democracy than your friends under oligarchy.

but let us choose a group of the best men and invest these with the power.

but when he tells you to give the power to the multitude, his judgment strays from the best.

But in an oligarchy, the desire of many to do the state good service often produces bitter hate among them;

for I have so lived all my life till now that no man either under the oligarchy or under the democracy has ever charged me with any offense, whether of violence or injury, nor will any man be found to have sat either as arbitrator or as judge upon my actions.

and they warned me that I even ran the risk, although giving you the very best advice, of being thought an enemy of the people and of seeking to turn the state into an oligarchy.

Yes, and who of my own generation does not remember that the democracy so adorned the city with temples and public buildings that even today visitors from other lands consider that she is worthy to rule not only over Hellas but over all the world;

Furthermore they considered that this way of appointing magistrates was also more democratic than the casting of lots, since under the plan of election by lot chance would decide the issue and the partizans of oligarchy would often get the offices;

We are concerned about our polity no less than about the safety of the whole state and we know that our democracy flourishes and endures in times of peace and security while in times of war it has twice already been overthrown, but we are hostile to those who desire peace as if suspecting them of favoring oligarchy, while we are friendly to those who advocate war as if assured of their devotion to democracy.

and when they disregard the laws, we call it an oligarchy.

And the state that is ruled by the few is called, as the case may be, aristocracy or oligarchy.