Pagina 341 di 1391

Now there are occasions on which the governors and the governed

meet together,-at festivals, on a journey, voyaging or fighting.

The sturdy pauper finds that in the hour of danger he is not

despised; he sees the rich man puffing and panting, and draws the

conclusion which he privately imparts to his companions,-'that

our people are not good for much;' and as a sickly frame is made

ill by a mere touch from without, or sometimes without external

impulse is ready to fall to pieces of itself, so from the least

cause, or with none at all, the city falls ill and fights a

battle for life or death. And democracy comes into power when the

poor are the victors, killing some and exiling some, and giving

equal shares in the government to all the rest.