<head>Philip and the People of Cius</head>There was certain Molpagoras at Cius, a capable speaker and politician, but in character a demagogue, greedy of power.
This man, by flattering the populace, by inciting the rabble against men of means, by finally killing some of the latter and banishing others whose property he confiscated and distributed among the people, soon attained by these means to supreme power . . . .
Now the people of Cius met with such disasters not so much owing to chance or to the injustice of their neighbours, but chiefly owing to their own stupidity and misgovernment.
For by advancing ever the worst men to power and punishing those who opposed them in order to plunder the fortunes of their fellow-citizens,
they fell as of their own free will into those misfortunes of which we may say that men in general, after being caught in them with their eyes open, not only cannot cure themselves of their folly, but cannot conceive the least suspicion, as even some of the brutes do.
For the latter not only when they have got into trouble themselves from snares and nets, but if they see another animal in danger will not readily approach such engines again, but are even suspicious of the place and mistrust everything they see.
Men on the other hand, though they have heard that some cities have been utterly destroyed by the means I have described, and though they see ruin overtaking others, nevertheless, whenever anyone courts favour with them and holds out to them the hope of repairing their fortunes by laying hands on those of their neighbours, approach the snare without a moment's reflection, though quite aware that of those who have swallowed such baits not a single one has ever been saved, but that measures like the above are well known to have brought destruction on all governments which adopted them . . . .
Walbank Commentary