Despotic Rule (Mastery)

In fact owing to this tyranny is a friend of the base; for tyrants enjoy being flattered, but nobody would ever flatter them if he possessed a free spirit—men of character love their ruler, or at all

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If, therefore, any man knows of a remedy that is truer and better than that which I am now about to propose, and puts it openly before us, he shall have the best right to the title Friend of Greece. T

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Kingship and despotism, in his judgment, were both forms of government, but he held that they differed. For government of men with their consent and in accordance with the laws of the state was kingsh

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And now that it is clear what are the component parts of the state, we have first of all to discuss household management; for every state is composed of households. Household management falls into dep

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Now the tools mentioned are instruments of production, whereas an article of property is an instrument of action; for from a shuttle we get something else beside the mere use of the shuttle, but from

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It is manifest therefore that there are cases of people of whom some are freemen and the others slaves by nature, and for these slavery is an institution both expedient and just. But at the same time

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to protect the owners of estates from suffering injustice and the people from suffering insult, but tyranny, as has repeatedly been said, pays regard to no common interest unless for the sake of its p

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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. Roy

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Some people then hold the former view, while others declare that the despotic and tyrannical form of constitution alone achieves happiness; and in some states it is also the distinctive aim of the con

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The best of these constitutions is Kingship, and the worst Timocracy. The perversion of Kingship is Tyranny. Both are monarchies, but there is a very wide difference between them: a tyrant studies his

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for they assume that just as from a man springs a man and from brutes a brute, so also from good parents comes a good son but as a matter of fact nature frequently while intending to do this is unable

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One may find likenesses and so to speak models of these various forms of constitution in the household. The relationship of father to sons is regal in type, since a father’s first care is for his chil

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And another kind of democracy is for all the citizens that are not open to challenge to have a share in office, but for the law to rule; and another kind of democracy is for all to share in the office

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It remained for us to speak of tyranny, not because there is much that can be said about it, but in order that it may receive its part in our inquiry, since we rank this also as one among the kinds of

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Soc. where every act has left its smirch upon his soul, where all is awry through falsehood and imposture, and nothing straight because of a nurture that knew not truth: or, as the result of an unbrid

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And is it not true that in like manner a leader of the people who, getting control of a docile mob, does not withhold his hand from the shedding of tribal blood, but by the customary unjust accusation

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But now, when under the tyranny of his ruling passion, he is continuously and in waking hours what he rarely became in sleep, and he will refrain from no atrocity of murder nor from any food or deed,

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Str. Such states, then, it seems, if they are to imitate well, so far as possible, that true form of government— by a single ruler who rules with science—must never do anything in contravention of the

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A despot much feared in Samos was Polycrates, as was Periander in Corinth, but nobody feared these men after he had removed to a free State governed by its own people. But as for the man who fears the

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Tyranny of Charops in Epirus There was a great change for the better in Aetolia when the civil war was stopped after the death of Lyciscus; and in Boeotia when Mnasippus of Coronea died; and similarly

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