In spite of the last sentence of V ix, Aristotle has discussed the preservation and destruction of oligarchy and democracy only. He now discusses, in V x and xi, the various origins and downfalls of monarchy, a word which means literally ‘the rule of one’ and therefore embraces both tyranny and kingship; the differences between these two are described in paragraphs 3–5. Four causes of their overthrow are distinguished: (a) injustice (especially hubris, treating others with overbearing arrogance); (b) anger, hatred and fear; (c) contempt; (d) ambition and desire for gain. Of these, (a) refers to the actions of the monarch, while (b–d) are the feelings and motives of his subjects. In short, personal animosities play a large role in the overthrow of monarchies. Towards the end of the chapter (1312a39 ff.) Aristotle divides the causes of destruction into the external and the internal; and the latter prompt him to give further examples of personal enmities. Before going on to speak briefly of the possibility of revolution in a good monarchy, he sums up on tyranny by recalling that oligarchies and democracies of the wrong type could also be destroyed either from without or from within, and that if from within, the causes there too are generally moral and psychological.
The chapter is very long, and by contrast with its two predecessors is replete with historical references (which I have annotated fairly lightly, many being in any case obscure). Anyone with an interest in ancient scandal, particularly the sexual kind, will find much to engage him, but there is a certain tedium in these lists of examples: in places Aristotle seems to be (as it were) copying out his card-index. Yet, as always in Aristotle, we see a powerful intellect arranging, classifying and analysing a bewildering variety of material ranging over several centuries of Greek history. And much of the value of this chapter lies in observations and discussions that are almost incidental to its main theme, e.g. the brief remarks on the different effects of anger and hatred (1312b27 ff.), the nice description of extreme democracies and extreme oligarchies as tyrannies held by more than one person (1312b37, cf. 1312b5–6), and the psychological analysis of the various kinds of contempt (1311b40 ff.). What Aristotle is presumably doing here is to draw on and apply the results of his own detailed analysis of the emotions in the second book of his Art of Rhetoric. This, the first comprehensive and systematic study of the emotions by a Western philosopher, makes invaluable background reading to this chapter of the Politics.
1310a39 It remains to deal with monarchy, and to establish both the causes of its destruction and the means of its preservation. What we find happening in both kingship and tyranny follows closely what has been said about constitutions in general; for kingship has the same basis1 as aristocracy, and tyranny is a compound of extreme oligarchy and democracy. This is precisely what makes tyranny most hurtful to the ruled: it is made up of two bad types and contains the deviations and errors that derive from both. As for origins, the two styles of monarchy arise directly out of that which contrasts with them Kingship develops with the aim of helping the respectable men against the people: a king is created from among respectable men on account of his superiority in virtue or deeds of virtue, or the superiority of his virtuous family. The tyrant springs from the people, from the populace, and directs his efforts against the notables, to the end that the people may not be wronged by them. This is clear from the record; for it is fairly generally true to say that tyrants have mostly begun as demagogues, being trusted because they abused the notables.
1310b16 Certainly in cities that have already grown to considerable size this is the way tyrannies originate. But there have been other ways: some early tyrannies arose out of kingships that had deviated from ancestral traditions and were aiming at making their rule more masterlike; others arose from those who had been elected into the sovereign offices (in very early times the peoples elected to office2 and religious missions for long periods of tenure). Tyrannies have also come into being when oligarchies have chosen one man and invested him with sovereign powers in the highest offices. In all these ways the opportunity to prevail lay ready to hand, provided only that the will was there, for the power existed either in the royal rule or in the honour.3 Some examples of tyrannies of different origins are: (a) from an established kingship: Pheidon of Argos and others; (b) from honours:3 Phalaris and the tyrants of Ionia; (c) from the position of dema gogue: Panaetius of Leontini, Cypselus of Corinth, Peis istratus4 of Athens, Dionysius5 of Syracuse and others in the same way.
1310b31 Kingship, as we have remarked, is organized on the same basis as aristocracy: merit – either individual virtue, or birth, or distinguished service, or all these together with a capacity for doing things. For it is just those who have done good service or have the capacity to do it, either for states or for foreign nations, that have been honoured with the position of king. Some, like Codrus,6 saved their people by war from slavery; others, like Cyrus,7 set them free or acquired territory or settled it, like the kings of the Lacedaemonians, of the Molossians, and of the Macedonians.
1310b40 A king aims to be a protector – of the owners of possessions against injustice, of the people against any ill-treatment. But a tyrant, as has often been said,8 does not look to the public interest at all, unless it happens to contribute to his personal benefit. The tyrant’s aim is pleasure: the king aims at what is good.9 Hence they differ even in the advantages they seek: the tyrant grasps at wealth, the king at honour. A king’s bodyguard is made up of citizens, a tyrant’s of foreigners.10
1311a8 That tyranny has the disadvantages of both democracy and oligarchy is clear. From oligarchy it derives two things: (1) the notion of wealth as the end to be pursued (certainly wealth is essential to it, as it provides the only way of keeping up a bodyguard and a luxurious way of living), and (2) mistrust of the populace; hence it deprives them of weapons, harms the common crowd and relegates them from the city to live in scattered communities. These features are common to oligarchy and tyranny. From democracy is derived hostility to the notables, whom the tyrant brings low by open methods or secret, and sends into exile as being rivals and hindrances to his rule. These, of course, are the people who also originate plots for his overthrow, some themselves wishing to be rulers, others not to submit like slaves. We are reminded of the advice given by Periander to Thrasybulus,11 to lop off the tallest ears of corn, implying that he should always remove the outstanding among the citizens. 1311a22 Now it has been said, or at any rate suggested, that the same origins of change must be supposed to operate in monarchies as in constitutions in general. For injustice (particularly in the form of ill-treatment),12 and contempt and fear, often cause those who are ruled to rebel against monarchies; and loss of private possessions is also sometimes a cause. And the ends are the same too: great wealth and great honour are characteristic of the sole ruler, king or tyrant, and these are things which all men want for themselves. Attacks on rulers may be directed against their persons or against their office. If men have been ill-treated, their attack will be on the tyrant’s person; for ill-treatment may take many forms and each will provoke anger. And most angry attackers are keener on vengeance than on supremacy.
1311a36 Here are some examples, (a) The fall of the Peisistratidae, whose insults to Harmodius and affront to his sister caused Harmodius to attack on her account, and Aristogeiton on account of Harmodius.13 (b) The occasion for the attack on Periander,14 tyrant of Ambracia, was that when he was drinking in company with his boy-beloved he asked the lad whether he was yet with child by him. (c) Pausanias’s attack on Philip15 was due to the fact that he allowed him to be ill-treated by Attalus’s men. (d) Amyntas the Little was attacked by Derdas for boasting about the flower of Derdas’s youth.16 (e) Evagoras17 of Cyprus was attacked and murdered by the eunuch, who felt ill-treated because his wife had been seduced by Evagoras’s son. Many attacks on rulers have arisen out of resentment caused by a monarch’s offences against his subjects’ persons,18 such as (f) Crataeas’s attack on Archelaus.19 Crataeas was always resentful of the liaison, and the slightest excuse was enough; but there was also, perhaps, the reason that the king had promised one of his two daughters to him but gave him neither. (Involved in a war against Sirrhas and Arrhabaeus, he gave the older to the king of Elimea and the younger to Amyntas his son, thinking that this was the best way to avoid discord between him and his son by Cleopatra.) But at the bottom of the coolness between them was Crataeas’s disgust with granting erotic favours. And for the same reason, Helleno-crates of Larissa joined in the attack. Archelaus had made sexual use of his young body but did not, as he had promised, let him return to his home town. Hellanocrates concluded that the liaison had been inspired by arrogance12 and not by passionate love. (g) At Aenos, Python and Heracleides killed Cotys20 to avenge their father, and Adamas deserted Cotys, feeling arrogantly ill-treated because he had as a boy suffered castration at his hands.
1311b23 There are many cases also of anger being aroused by blows and assaults on the person, the victims of which, feeling themselves arrogantly ill-treated,12 have killed or tried to kill the perpetrators, who include even members of official circles and of royal power-groups. In Mytilene, for example, when the Penthilidae21 went about in gangs, carrying clubs and beating up people, Megacles with the help of friends attacked them and put them down. Later Smerdes, because he had been dragged out from beside his wife and beaten, killed Penthilus. Then there was the attack on Archelaus instigated and led by Decamnichus. The reason for his anger was that Archelaus had given him to the poet Euripides to be scourged; and Euripides was angry because Decamnichus had made some remark about the poet’s foul-smelling breath.22 There were many other plots and assassinations arising out of causes of this kind.
1311b36 Similarly when fear is the reason; for this too was one of the list of causes,23 both in constitutions in general and under the rule of one man. For example, Artapanes murdered Xerxes24 because he feared the accusation that he had hanged Darius not on Xerxes’ orders, but thinking that Xerxes would excuse him, being at dinner and unlikely to remember.
1311b40 Thirdly, contempt. Sardanapalus25 rendered himself contemptible by being seen carding wool with the women, and was murdered by someone who saw him. (At least, that is the story of the legend-tellers; and if it is not true of him, it is pretty sure to be true of someone else.) Dion’s attack on the younger Dionysius26 was due to contempt: he saw that the tyrant was never sober and the citizens shared his contempt for him. Sometimes even some of a monarch’s friends despise him so much that they attack him. His reliance on them allows them to despise him and makes them confident that he will never notice anything. And those whose aim is to seize power for themselves are also, up to a point, actuated by contempt when they attack: they feel they are strong enough and contemn the risk, and their strength causes them to undertake the attack lightly, as do commanders of armies when they attack their monarchs. A case in point is Cyrus, who despised Astyages,27 both his power and his manner of life: the power had become inert, the life one of self-indulgence. Similar was the attack of Seuthes the Thracian, while a general, on Amadocus. Some attack for a mixture of these reasons; Mithridates for instance, attacked Ariobarzanes both because he despised him and because he wanted to profit. Attacks that are inspired by contempt are generally carried out by men who are by nature bold, and also hold military office28 in the service of a monarch. For courage combined with physical power makes men bold, and for this double reason they are confident of easy success before they make their attack.
1312a21 But when the reason for an attack is ambition, a different style of cause operates from those already mentioned. It is not true to say that, just as some men attack tyrants because they have an eye on the immense profits and honours which accrue to them, every ambitious attacker chooses to take the risk in that spirit. The fact is that, while the former act for the reason given, the latter act as they would on any other exceptional venture that offers men a chance of making themselves famous and notable: they attack a monarch in order to win glory for themselves, not because they want his monarchy. Still, there are not very many who go ahead for this reason: there must be in addition disregard of personal safety, should the venture miscarry. They should not lose sight of Dion’s attitude, difficult though it is for many men to adopt it. Dion29 took only a few men with him against Dionysius, saying he felt that whenever he could advance with success, he was satisfied to have completed that much of the enterprise; thus, if it should happen that after taking but a few steps in that country he should be slain, he would have died a death that pleased him.
1312a39 One of the ways tyranny, like each of the other constitutions, may be destroyed is from without, if there is a more powerful constitution that is opposed to it; the desire to destroy it will certainly exist because of the opposition of aims, and when power is added to desire men always act. The constitutions are opposed thus: democracy is opposed to tyranny, on Hesiod’s principle30 that ‘two potters never agree’; for democracy is the extreme form of tyranny. Kingship and aristocracy are also opposed to tyranny, being opposite to it as constitutions; and for this reason the Lacedaemonians brought low very many tyrannies, as did also the Syracusans during the time when they had a good constitution. Another way is from within, when there is faction among those who share the tyrant’s power, for example the tyranny of Gelon’s circle,31 and, more recently,32 that of Dionysius. In the former, Thrasybulus, brother of Hiero, established an influence like a demagogue’s over Gelon’s son, and led him into a life of sensual pleasure. His purpose was to be ruler himself. The family got together a conspiracy with the aim of bringing about the fall of Thrasybulus, not of the tyranny as a whole. But their supporters in the conspiracy, seizing their chance, threw out the lot of them. In the other case Dion led a force against Dionysius,33 to whom he was related by marriage, and enlisted popular support; he threw out Dionysius but was afterwards slain himself.
1312b17 The two chief reasons for attacks on a tyranny are hatred and contempt. Hatred of tyrants is always present, but in many cases their fall comes from their being despised. This can be seen from the fact that men who have themselves won the position have generally maintained their rule, but those who had acquired it from a predecessor nearly all lose it straight away. Living only to enjoy themselves, they soon become easy to despise and give their attackers plenty of chances. We ought to include anger as part of hatred, since in a way it leads to the same actions. But anger is often more active than hatred. Angry men go into the attack with greater intensity just because this feeling does not involve their reasoning powers, which hatred uses more. To be ill-treated makes men follow their passions rather than their reason, and this is just what brought about the fall of the tyranny of the Peisistratidae13 and many of the others. Anger is accompanied by pain, which makes it difficult to exercise reason, whereas hostility is not painful. In short then the same causes which we said34 destroyed unmixed and extreme oligarchies and extreme democracies are just those which must be regarded as destroying tyrannies too; for these extreme forms are really distributed35 tyrannies.
1312b38 Kingship least suffers destruction from without; it is therefore long-lasting. When kingships are destroyed it is most often from within, and in two ways: one, when those who participate in the royal rule form factions among themselves, the other when kings try to run affairs too tyrannically, claiming sovereign power over more than they are legally entitled to. But nowadays kingships no longer arise, and such as do are more like a tyranny or a monarchy.36 For kingship is government by consent as well as sovereignty over more important affairs; the number of persons who are all on a similar level is large, and none of them stands out enough to measure up to the greatness and grandeur of the office. So for this reason men do not readily consent to be ruled by such people, and if by force or by fraud one of them attains that position, that is regarded as a tyranny without further ado.
1313a10 We must add a further cause of downfall to those stated, one that is characteristic of hereditary kingships. Those who inherit are often persons whom it is easy to despise; and though they possess the honour of a king, not the power of a tyrant, they ill-treat others. The overthrow of kingship is then easy, for when people cease to wish him to be king, a king will be at once a king no more; but a tyrant is still a tyrant even though people do not want him.
For these reasons and others like them monarchies suffer destruction.