This city, ever a prey to licentiousness, or oppression, equally laboring under the sudden and alternate succession of liberty and servitude, and notwithstanding her external strength, constantly determined to a revolution by the least foreign power-this city, I say, had in her bosom an immense multitude of people, whose fate it was to have always this cruel alternative, either of choosing a tyrant to govern them, or of acting the tyrant themselves.
Hiri hark, beti lizunkerian edo inoren mendean, askatasunak eta esklabotzak berdin jorratu zutelarik-beti bata edo bestea jaso baitzituen ekaitz baten gisan-eta, kanpora begira zuen indarra eta guzti, arrotzen indar txikienak iraultza bidean jartzen zuelarik; hiri hark herri miresgarria zuen bere baitan, bi aukera hauek besterik izan ez zituen herria: tirano bat hartu, edota tirano izan.