the cities were
considerably enlarged--others before that time, by kings who exceeded
the power which their country allowed them, from a desire of governing
despotically: others were founded by those who were elected to the
superior offices in the state; for formerly the people appointed
officers for life, who came to be at the head of civil and religious
affairs, and these chose one out of their body in whom the supreme power
over all the magistrates was placed. By all these means it was easy
to establish a tyranny, if they chose it; for their power was ready at
hand, either by their being kings, or else by enjoying the honours of
the state; thus Phidon at Argos and other tyrants enjoyed originally the
kingly power; Phalaris and others in Ionia, the honours of the state.
Pansetius at Leontium, Cypselus at Corinth, Pisistratus at Athens,
Dionysius at Syracuse, and others, acquired theirs by having been
demagogues. A kingdom, as we have said, partakes much of the nature of
an aristocracy, and is bestowed according to worth, as either virtue,
family, beneficent actions, or these joined with power; for those who
have been benefactors to cities and states, or have it in their powers
to be so, have acquired this honour, and those who have prevented a
people from falling into slavery by war, as Codrus, or those who have
freed them from it, as Cyrus, or the founders of cities, or settlers of
colonies, as the kings of Sparta, Macedon, and Molossus. A king desires
to be the guardian of his people, that those who have property may be
secure in the possession of it, and that the people in general meet with
no injury; but a tyrant, as has been often said, has no regard to the
common good, except for his own advantage; his only object is pleasure,
but a king's is virtue: what a tyrant therefore is ambitious of
engrossing is wealth, but a king rather honour. The guards too of a king
are citizens, a tyrant's foreigners.

That a tyranny contains all that is bad both in a democracy and an
oligarchy is evident; with an oligarchy it has for its end gain, as the
only means of providing the tyrant with guards and the luxuries of life;
like that it places no confidence in the people; and therefore deprives
them of the use of arms: it is also common to them both to persecute the
populace, to drive them out of the city and their own habitations. With
a democracy it quarrels with the nobles, and destroys them both
publicly and privately, or dri