In III vii six forms of constitution were set out, three ‘right’ (kingship, aristocracy, polity), and three ‘deviations’ (tyranny, oligarchy, democracy). Kingship and tyranny were both ‘rule by one man’, the literal meaning of the Greek word monarchia, monarchy. The intervening discussions about justice and sovereignty in the state have been carried on with the rule of the few or of the many as a constitutional background, and there has been no mention of monarchy – naturally enough, since it would be only slightly relevant to questions about sovereignty and the just distribution of political power, and not relevant at all if the monarchy’s powers are unlimited. But obviously not all monarchies have such powers, and most of this chapter is devoted to discussing four types of limited monarchy (the Spartan, the non-Greek, ‘aisumnēteia’, and the ‘heroic’), in the light of four main criteria: (a) whether they are subject to law, (b) whether their tenure is for life or for a set term, (c) whether they are elective, (d) whether they are over willing subjects. Confusingly, Aristotle calls all these four monarchies ‘kingships’, but admits that two are effectively tyrannies. Lastly he describes a fifth kind of monarchy, which presumably looks back to the unfettered kingship of the ‘god among men’ envisaged at the end of the last chapter, and forward to the ‘absolute’ kingship mentioned at the beginning of the next. The discussion is pleasingly enriched by Aristotle’s intimate knowledge of Greek history, and by his felicitous quotations from Homer and Alcaeus.
1284b35 After what has just been said it will be a good thing to change the subject and consider kingship, since we hold that it is one of the right forms of constitution. We have to inquire whether or not a king’s rule, rather than some other constitution, is advantageous for the good management of any country or state, or if it is advantageous for some and not for others. But first we must decide whether there is only one kind of kingship or several different varieties of it. It is easy to see that there are several kinds, and that the mode of rule is not the same in every case.
1285a3 The clearest example of kingship according to law is the one to be found in the Spartan constitution. It is, however, not sovereign over everything; though when a king goes out of the country he is leader in all matters relating to the war, and to the kings1 is committed also the care of religious matters. So such a kingship is like a perpetual generalship held on terms of personal authority, in that the king has no sovereign power to put anyone to death except for cowardice, as on military expeditions of old, by law of force. There is a clear example in Homer: Agamemnon put up with being abused in meetings of assemblies, but once an expedition had begun, he had sovereign power of life and death. So much is implied in his words: ‘Anyone whom I shall catch absent from the fighting… his body shall become the prey of dogs and birds, and no escape, for the power of death is in my hand.’2 This then is one type of kingship – a generalship tenable for life, which may be acquired either by birth or by election.
1285a16 Alongside this there is another type of monarchy, such as kingships found among certain non-Greeks. All these have power approximating to that of tyrannies, but they are legally established and ancestral. For it is because non-Greeks are by natural character more slavish than Creeks (and the Asiatics than the Europeans) that they tolerate master-like rule without resentment. Therefore, while such kingships are for these reasons like tyrannies, their legality and ancestral status make them safe. And for the same reason the ruler has a royal, not a tyrant’s bodyguard; for a king’s bodyguard is composed of citizens carrying arms, a tyrant’s of foreigners. And the king rules over willing subjects according to law, the tyrant over unwilling subjects; so that whereas the one draws his bodyguard from among his citizens, the other uses it against them.
1285a29 These then are two types of monarchy; and there is a third, which used to exist among Greeks of old. This third type is called aisumnētēs, and was in rough terms an elective tyranny. It differs from the non-Greek monarchy only in not being ancestral; it is equally subject to law. The rulers held office sometimes for life, sometimes for a stated period or until certain things should be accomplished; for example the people of Mytilene elected Pittacus for the purpose of repelling the exiles who tried to come back led by Antimenides and the poet Alcaeus.3 That Pittacus was chosen is clear from one of Alcaeus’ banqueting songs in which he grumbles that ‘With mass-adulation they appointed low-born Pittacus to be tyrant of their easy-going and unlucky state’. Of these kinds of rule, we may say that by being like that of a master, they are and were like tyrannies; but royal, in being elective, and in being exercised over willing subjects.
1285b3 There is a fourth kind of royal monarchy, which existed in heroic times. It was both ancestral and subject to law, and willingly accepted by its subjects. The first of these kings had been benefactors of the mass of the people in the arts of peace or in warfare, or in welding the people together, or in providing them with land. So they became kings, willingly accepted by their subjects, and ancestrally established in the eyes of their successors in the next generation. They held sovereign control of leadership in war, and of sacrifices not reserved for priests. They also gave judgements at law; some did this on oath, some without oath, the oath being the raising aloft of the royal sceptre. In early times these kings ruled continuously over the affairs of the city, of the country, and across the borders; but later in some cases they themselves relinquished some of their duties, in others they were deprived of them by the populace. The duty of offering sacrifices was in some states the only one which was left in the hands of the kings; and even where one could justifiably say a kingship did still exist, they retained only the leadership of armies on expeditions beyond the borders.
1285b20 These then are the four forms of kingship: (a) that of heroic times, willingly accepted by the people and exercised on certain specified conditions, the king being general, judge, and religious head; (b) the non-Greek rule, acquired by birth, exercised as by a master, and subject to law; (c) what men call aisumnēteia, i.e. an elective dictatorship; and (d) the Lacedaemonian, in rough terms an hereditary permanent generalship. These then are the distinguishing marks of these four kinds. But there is also a fifth, in which one man single-handed is in sovereign control of everything, in the same way as each state or foreign nation controls its own public affairs. This fifth kind comes under the same heading as household-management, for just as household-management is, as it were, the kingship of the household, so this kingship is the household-management of a state, or of a foreign nation or nations.