[1313a]
[1]
one when those who participate in it quarrel, and
another when the kings try to administer the government too tyrannically,
claiming to exercise sovereignty in more things and contrary to the law. Royal
governments do not occur any more now, but if ever monarchies do occur they are
rather tyrannies, because royalty is government over willing subjects but with
sovereignty over greater matters, but men of equal quality are numerous and no
one is so outstanding as to fit the magnitude and dignity of the office; so that
for this reason the subjects do not submit willingly, and if a man has made
himself ruler by deception or force, then this is thought to be a tyranny.
In cases of hereditary royalty
we must also set down a cause of their destruction, in addition to those
mentioned, the fact that hereditary kings often become despicable, and that
although possessing not the power of a tyrant but the dignity of a king they
commit insolent outrages; for the deposition of kings used to be easy, since a
king will at once cease to be king if his subjects do not wish him to be,
whereas a tyrant will still be tyrant even though his subjects do not wish
it.These causes then and others of the same
nature are those that bring about the destruction of monarchies.On the other
hand it is clear that monarchies, speaking generally, are preserved in safety as
a result of the opposite causes to those by which they are destroyed. But taking
the different sorts of monarchy separately—royalties are preserved by
bringing them
[20]
into a more moderate
form; for the fewer powers the kings have, the longer time the office in its
entirety must last, for they themselves become less despotic and more equal to
their subjects in temper, and their subjects envy them less. For this was the
cause of the long persistence of the Molossian royalty, and that of Sparta has continued because the office was
from the beginning divided into two halves, and because it was again limited in
various ways by Theopompus,1 in particular by
his instituting the office of the ephors to keep a check upon it; for by taking
away some of the kings' power he increased the permanence of the royal office,
so that in a manner he did not make it less but greater. This indeed as the
story goes is what he said in reply to his wife, when she asked if he felt no
shame in bequeathing the royal power to his sons smaller than he had inherited
it from his father: “Indeed I do not,” he is said to have
answered, “for I hand it on more lasting.”Tyrannies on the
other hand are preserved in two extremely opposite ways. One of these is the
traditional way and the one in which most tyrants administer their office. Most
of these ordinary safeguards of tyranny are said to have been instituted by
Periander2 of
Corinth, and also many such
devices may be borrowed from the Persian empire. These are both the measures
mentioned some time back to secure the safety of a tyranny as far as
possible—the lopping off of outstanding men and the destruction of the
proud,—and also the prohibition of common meals and club-fellowship
and education and all other things of this nature,
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