Hence mankind will
not, if they can help, endure it, and any one who obtains power by
force or fraud is at once thought to be a tyrant. In hereditary
monarchies a further cause of destruction is the fact that kings often
fall into contempt, and, although possessing not tyrannical power, but
only royal dignity, are apt to outrage others. Their overthrow is then
readily effected; for there is an end to the king when his subjects do
not want to have him, but the tyrant lasts, whether they like him or
not.
The destruction of monarchies is to be attributed to these and the
like causes.
XI
And they are preserved, to speak generally, by the opposite
causes; or, if we consider them separately, (1) royalty is preserved
by the limitation of its powers. The more restricted the functions
of kings, the longer their power will last unimpaired; for then they
are more moderate and not so despotic in their ways; and they are less
envied by their subjects. This is the reason why the kingly office has
lasted so long among the Molossians. And for a similar reason it has
continued among the Lacedaemonians, because there it was always
divided between two, and afterwards further limited by Theopompus in
various respects, more particularly by the establishment of the
Ephoralty. He diminished the power of the kings, but established on
a more lasting basis the kingly office, which was thus made in a
certain sense not less, but greater.
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