Kingship

And he entrusted to Heracles the kingship over the whole race of men, as to one who was fit for it.

that no one who is base and dissolute and a lover of money is ever able to rule even himself or be master of himself, let alone of anything else;

that not all hold the sceptre and this office from Zeus, but only the good man, and on no other just terms than that he take counsel and have care for those he rules;

When, therefore, the supreme control of all things lies in the hands of one man, we call that one a king, and the condition of that commonwealth a kingdom.

But in kingdoms the rest have too small a share in the common law and counsel, and under the rule of the best men the multitude can scarcely have any part in liberty, since it lacks all share in common counsel and power;

but in war obeys as a king;

) The Athenians at first used kingship.

The best of these constitutions is Kingship, and the worst Timocracy.

The friendship of a king for his subjects is one of superiority in beneficence;

When a change of constitution takes place, Kingship passes into Tyranny, because Tyranny is the bad form of monarchy, so that a bad king becomes a tyrant.

And fourth, the worst of all, is set down the kingship that is according to the desires, like that of Sardanapallus and of those who make their end in the desires, to gratify as much as possible.

" And a second kind of kingship, after the pure rational and divine administration, is that which uses for kingship the spirited part of the soul alone — the kind by which Heracles reigned over Argos and Alexander over the Macedonians.

Assuming this to be the purport of the oracle, they joined forces with your forefathers and organized an army, sharing meantime their own country with their followers, but receiving from them the kingship as the prize reserved for themselves alone;

For I should feel disgraced, I who am descended from Heracles, who am the son of the ruling king and likely myself to attain to this honor, if I did not strive with all the strength that is in me to prevent this territory, which our fathers left to us, from becoming the possession of our slaves.

Ashamed of what he had planned to do, and taking up the war afresh, he destroyed countless hosts of the Carthaginians, strengthened his authority over his subjects, acquired far greater dominion than he had possessed before, ruled with absolute power until his death, and left his son in possession of the same honors and powers as he himself had enjoyed.

For how could anyone have surpassed in nobility of birth the descendants of Heracles and Zeus—and all men know that to your family alone confessedly belongs this honor—or in valor the founders of the Dorian cities in the Peloponnese who occupied that land, or in the multitude of the perilous deeds and the trophies erected as a result of your leadership and rule?

But for you it is fitting, giving attention to all that I have said, to deliberate upon the question whether you should shrink from the conduct of the affairs of Hellas—you, whose noble lineage I have a little while ago described, leader of the Lacedaemonians, addressed by the name King, and a man who enjoys the greatest renown of all the Hellenes—or, disdaining the matters you now have in hand, y …

in the matter of its appointments, splendidly and royally;

First, then, we must consider what is the function of kings;

To all foreigners, see that the city offers security and good faith in its engagements;

And to accomplish all this from your present status is much easier for you than it was for you to advance to the power and renown you now possess from the kingship which you had in the beginning.

Accordingly, if one man who is really scientific rules, he will assuredly be called by the same name, king, and by no other;

And again, when one man rules according to laws and imitates the scientific ruler, we call him a king, making no distinction in name between the single ruler who rules by science and him who rules by opinion if they both rule in accordance with laws.

People nowadays are likely to take into consideration enforced subjection and voluntary obedience, poverty and wealth, law and lawlessness as they occur in governments, and so they divide two of the forms we mentioned, giving to the two aspects of monarchy the two names tyranny and royalty.

for now it looks as if it were you who are our king.

He ruled over these nations, even though they did not speak the same language as he, nor one nation the same as another;

Thus, as we meditated on this analogy, we were inclined to conclude that for man, as he is constituted, it is easier to rule over any and all other creatures than to rule over men.