History of the Peloponnesian War

As for the allied states, again, to whom, forsooth, they had promised an oligarchy, because they themselves also would cease to be under a democracy, he well knew that neither those which had revolted would any the more on that account come over to them, nor those that were left be more staunch to them; for they would not wish to be slaves with either an oligarchy or a democracy, rather than to be free, under whichever of those two forms of govern ment they might obtain their liberty.