Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

134 ARISTOCRATIA. AIlISTOCRATIA.
aries ill its simplest state, and as it was borne and I existing along with a class personally free, and
impelled by human hands, without other assistance. possessed of civil rights, but excluded from the
In an improved form, the ram was surrounded with exercise of the highest political functions) the goiron bands, to which rings were attached for the vernment of a class whose supremacy was founded
purpose of suspending it by ropes or chains from a not on wealth merely, but on personal distinction
beam fixed transversely- over it. See the lower (i7rov 1j /os'vv 7rXovTruvS77, aAXa iral apploL-riv
figure in the woodcut. By this contrivance the apporuvram ras &pXas, Aristot. Pol. iv. 5. p. 127,
soldiers were relieved from the necessity of sup- ed. Gittl.'H apioToKpaTLa 30fAe-am',v n7rEpox;z'
porting the weight of the ram, and they could with a&rov4tel, Troo7s apliarots rv 7roAXLrcV, Ibid. p.
ease give it a rapid and forcible motion backwards 128 ). That there should be an aristocracy, moreand forwards. over, it was essential that the administration of
affairs should be conducted with a view to the
promotion of the general interests, not for the exelusive or predominant advantage of the privileged
4J),. ~ class. (Aristot. Pol. iii. 5, p. 83, ed. GOttl.; Plat.
J Polit. p. 301, a.) As soon as the government: ceased to be thus conducted, or whenever the only
i title to political power in the dominant class was the,l~ —~-~ i!; \\kx1 \'tl~it 1! e possession of superior wealth, the constitution was
termed an oligarchy (oiAryapXia), which, in the
technical use of the term, was always looked upon
as a corruption (7rap~ao'esas, Aristot. Poi. iii. 5.
p. 84, ed. Gbtti.) of an aristocracy. (Comp. Plat.
1. c.; Arist. Pol. iv. 3. pp. 117, 11, ed. Gbttl. iv. 6,
aplsrroKpaTrtas yap opos apeT'-r, OAhyapXias E 7rAoior ost.) In the practical application of the term aristocracy, however, the personal excellence which was
held to be a necessary element was not of a higher
f l i n t l kind than what, according to the deeply-seated
ideas of the Greeks, was commonly hereditary in
The use of this machine was further aided by families of noble birth (Plat. Milenex. p. 237, a.,
placing the frame in which it was suspended upon Cratyl. p. 394, a.; Aristot. Poi. iv. 6, ij y&p Eswheels, and also by constructing over it a wooden yE'VEld fO-TlV apxaos irAo'os ical &pesr. v. 1,
roof, so as to form a " testudo " (XeAhvrl KtpolOppOS, e eevY5t yap ei'an &OKOO'IYV OlS v7rdpXEL rpoydveov
Appian, Bell. Mlith. 73; testudo arietariae, Vitruv. x. apesri Kal 7rAoros), and in early times would
1.9), which protected the besieging party from the be the ordinary accompaniments of noble rank,
defensive assaults of the besieged. Josephus, who namely, wealth, military skill, and superior edugives a description of the machine (B. J. iii. 7. ~ 19), Cation and intelligence (comp. Aristot. Pol. iv. 6,
adds, that there was no tower so strong, no wall sELdOaorc KarXev'..... &porocgarias as 8a irb F2iiaXov
so thick, as to resist the force of this machine, if &aoAovOeYv 7ralreiav eal ebuyEv'eav TroSs el7vropTreits blo\ws were continued long enouogh. The beam pots). It is to be noted that the word SplioToof the aries was often of great length, e. g. 80, 100, cpa'ria is never, like the English term aristocracy,
or even 120 feet. The design of this was both to the name of a class, but only of a particular political
act across an intervening ditch, and to enable those constitution.
who worked the machine to remain in a position of On tracing the historical development of ariscomparative security. A hundred men, or even a tocratical government, we meet with a condition
greater number, were sometimes employed to strike of things which may almost be called by that
with the beam. name in the state of society depicted in the
The aries first became an important military Homeric poems, where we already see the power
engine in the hands of the Macedonians, at the of the kings limited by that of a body of princes
time of Philip and Alexander the Great, though or nobles, such as would naturally arise in the init was known at a much earlier period. (Comp. fancy of society, especially among tribes in which,
Thuc. ii. 76.) Vitruvius speaks (I. c.) of Polydus, from the frequency of wars, martial skill would
a Thessalian, in the time of Philip, who greatly be a sure and speedy method of acquiring supeimproved the machine, and his improvements were riority. WhenI the kingly families died out, or
carried out still further by Diades and Chaereas, were stripped of their peculiar privileges, the suwho served in the campaigns of Alexander the preme power naturally passed into the hands of
Great. The Romans learnt from the Greeks the these princes or chieftains, who formed a body of
art of building these machines, and appear to have nobles, whose descendants would of course for the
employed them for the first time to any considerable most part inherit those natural, and be also alone in
extent in the siege of Syracuse in the second Punic a position to secure those acquired advantages, espewar. [YHELErPOLIS.] cially warlike skill, which would fornl their title
ARISTOCRA'TIA (apmoroKepaTra)5 a term to political superiority. Some aristocracies thus
in common use among Greek writers on politics, arose from the natural progress of society: others
though rarely employed by historians, or otherwise arose from conquest. The changes consequent on
than in connection with political theories. It sig- the rise of the Hellenes, and the Thessalian,
nifies literally " the government of the best men," Boeotian and Dorian conquests in Greece, estaand as used by Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, &c.. it blished pretty generally a state of things in which
meant (in reference to a state where political we find the political power in the hands of a body
power was not shared by the bulk of the commu- of nobles consisting chiefly or entirely of the conulity, but was in the hands of a privileged class, querors, beneath whom is a free population not