This was the case at Larissa, where the guardians of the citizens endeavoured to gain over the people because they were elected by them; and such is the fate of all oligarchies in which the magistrates are elected, as at Abydos, not by the class in which they belong, but by the heavy armed or by the people, although they may be required to have a high qualification, or to be members of a political club; or, again, where the law courts are composed of persons outside the government, the oligarchs flatter the people in order to obtain a decision in their own favour, and so they change the constitution; this happened at Heraclea in Pontus.