Aristotle is greatly puzzled in treating of monarchy.
[13]
He makes five species; and he does not distinguish them by the
form of constitution, but by things merely accidental, as the
virtues and vices of the prince; or by things extrinsic, such as
tyranny usurped or inherited.
Among the number of monarchies he ranks the Persian empire and the
kingdom of Sparta. But is it not evident that the one was a despotic
state and the other a republic?
The ancients, who were strangers to the distribution of the three
powers in the government of a single person, could never form a just
idea of monarchy.
