of the kings extended to everything
whatsoever, both civil, domestic, and foreign; but in after-times they
relinquished some of their privileges, and others the people assumed, so
that, in some states, they left their kings only the right of presiding
over the sacrifices; and even those whom it were worth while to call
by that name had only the right of being commander-in-chief in their
foreign wars.

These, then, are the four sorts of kingdoms: the first is that of the
heroic times; which was a government over a free people, with its rights
in some particulars marked out; for the king was their general, their
judge, and their high priest. The second, that of the barbarians; which
is an hereditary despotic government regulated by laws: the third is
that which they call aesumnetic, which is an elective tyranny. The
fourth is the Lacedaemonian; and this, in few words, is nothing more
than an hereditary generalship: and in these particulars they differ
from each other. There is a fifth species of kingly government, which is
when one person has a supreme power over all things whatsoever, in
the manner that every state and every city has over those things which
belong to the public: for as the master of a family is king in his own
house, so such a king is master of a family in his own city or state.

CHAPTER XV

But the different sorts of kingly governments may, if I may so say,
be reduced to two; which we will consider more particularly. The last
spoken of, and the Lacedaemonian, for the chief of the others are placed
between these, which are as it were at the extremities, they having less
power than an absolute government, and yet more than the Lacedaemonians;
so that the whole matter in question may be reduced to these two points;
the one is, whether it is advantageous to the citizens to have the
office of general continue in one person for life, and whether it should
be confined to any particular families or whether every one should be
eligible: the other, whether [1286a] it is advantageous for one person
to have the supreme power over everything or not. But to enter into the
particulars concerning the office of a Lacedaemonian general would be
rather to frame laws for a state than to consider the nature and utility
of its constitution, since we know that the appointing of a general is
what is done in every state. Passing over this question then, we will
proceed to consider the other part of their government,