The first four paragraphs of this chapter recognize that the immediate causes of factions, which in themselves may concern important issues, may be quite trivial – typically a quarrel between powerful persons, which serves to bring the discontents of opposing sides to ‘flashpoint’ and ultimately involves the whole state. (Aristotle does not say so, but presumably antecedent conditions would have to be suitable: no quarrel could have such an effect if feelings on either side were not already exacerbated.) The next paragraph in effect links the theme of trivial or accidental or unlooked-for causes to a theme of V iii: excessive preponderance of one part of the state; for a preponderance may come about for reasons that have nothing to do with the faction which it ultimately provokes. These themes lend themselves to anecdotes, and Aristotle draws tellingly on his store of historical instances. He then briefly notes that faction may also arise, under certain conditions, when opposing parts of the state are, equally balanced. A few remarks on the use of force and fraud conclude his discussion of constitutional change in general, and in V v he turns to particular constitutions.
1303b17 Now factions, though arising from small matters, are not concerned with them but with large issues; and even small factions are important when they occur among those in sovereign power. An example of this happened at Syracuse in early times,1 when the constitution changed as a consequence of faction between two young men, both from among the office-holders, caused by a love-affair. When one of the two was away from home, the other seduced the boy-beloved of his friend. He in turn showed his indignation by inducing the other’s wife to come to him. As a result, all members of the citizen-body were enlisted on one side or the other, and were divided into two factions. It is therefore essential to guard against this kind of thing at the very start and resolve all factions among leaders and those in powerful positions. The false step is at the beginning, but ‘well begun is half done’, as the proverb says, so that a small error at the start is equivalent in the same proportion2 to those of the later stages.
1303b31 Disputes among the notables generally have an effect on the whole state, as happened in Hestiaea after the Persian wars, when two brothers quarrelled over the distribution of their father’s estate. One of them, the poorer, when his brother did not openly declare the amount of the property or reveal the cache which the father had discovered, won the support of the democrats. The other, who possessed a great deal, was supported by the wealthier class.
1303b37 At Delphi a quarrel arising from a marriage-alliance was at the bottom of all the later factions. The intended bridegroom, forecasting bad luck by an omen which he saw when he came to fetch his bride, went away without her. Her family considered that they had been ill-treated, and when the young man was sacrificing, they planted some temple-property, and subsequently put him to death for sacrilege.
1304a4 At Mytilene,3 too, faction arising out of heiresses was at the root of many troubles, including that war with the Athenians in which Paches captured their state. Timophanes, one of the wealthy, died and left two daughters. A certain Dexander wanted them for his two sons, but was rejected and came away empty-handed. Then, being local commissioner4 for Athenian affairs, he started the faction which spurred Athens into action. At Phocis faction arose out of an heiress, between Mnaseas father of Mnason and Euthycrates father of Onomarchus; and this faction became the origin for the Phocians of the Sacred War.5 At Epidamnus also a change of constitution arose out of matrimonial affairs. Someone had promised his daughter in marriage; the father of the intended bridegroom became one of the officials and imposed a fine on this man who, feeling insulted, attracted to his side those who were not sharers in the constitution.
1304a17 Another set of causes which may lead to change into democracy, into oligarchy, or into polity, is to be seen when a committee or a part of the state becomes great in size or esteem. Thus at Athens the Council of the Areopagus, after having been greatly in esteem during the Persian wars, was considered to have tightened up the constitution. Then conversely the Athenian democracy was strengthened by the crowd who served in the navy and who had been responsible for the victory at Salamis, because the leadership of Athens thus gained rested on sea-power. At Argos the notables gained much credit for the battle against the Spartans at Mantinea and tried to use the occasion to put down the democracy; while at Syracuse responsibility for the victory in the war against the Athenians belonged to the people, who changed the constitution from a polity into a democracy. At Chalcis the people joined with the notables in removing the tyrant Phoxus and then seized hold of the constitution; and in Ambracia the people joined with his attackers to cast out the tyrant Periander and got the constitution into their own hands.6
1304a33 The important thing to remember is that those who are responsible for the acquisition of power, whether they be private individuals or officials or tribes, or whatever aggregate or part you will, it is they who provoke faction. They may do so indirectly, as when the rest, jealous of the honour bestowed on them, start up the faction, but also directly, when they themselves are so preponderant that they are no longer content to remain on terms of equality with the rest.
1304a38 Constitutional changes are provoked also when what are regarded as opposing sections of the population are evenly balanced, such as the rich element and the people, but there is no middle element or only a very small one. For when one section of the population, whichever it may be, is preponderant, the other is not likely to risk opposing those who are obviously stronger. It is for this reason that those who are superior in virtue hardly ever start a faction: they amount to a few against many. 1304b5 Generally, then, in all types of constitution the causes and beginnings of factions and of changes are as I have described. As to method, violence and trickery are both used, violence sometimes immediately, at the beginning, but sometimes by way of subsequent compulsion. The use of trickery also is dual. In the one case they are successful in their deceit, and their change of the constitution is at first readily accepted, but subsequently they use force to keep control of it in spite of opposition. An example of this is seen in the rule of the Four Hundred:7 they deluded the Athenians by saying that the king of Persia wasgoing to supply money for the war against Sparta. This was not true, but they went on trying to keep control of the constitution. In the other case they use persuasion from the start and then go on using it in such a way that their rule is willingly accepted.
What has been said above describes in general terms change in all constitutions.