New York
How fair a rule is monarchy? A Byzantine scholar wrote that it was the fairest, to the point that God sustained it, as long as the emperors were elected by the army or an aristocratic senate. With their coronation, legitimate successors and usurpers alike automatically became sacred. The ancient Greeks went a step further. They did not require a god-like sustenance nor perfection from their kings, only greatness. Agamemnon, Menelaus, Odysseus, Achilles, Leonidas — they were all great kings but not perfect human beings.
Practical Romans distrusted Greek morality about kings and heroes, and in Marcus Aurelius they produced the supreme type of philosopher-king that Plato had merely dreamed of. Marcus wrote in his Meditations: ‘One should rule in accordance with reason, in obedience to Providence, in the service of his subjects.’ (Just like the self-appointed King of Kings, the scumbag Gaddafi.) Poor old Marcus, his reign was one disaster after another.
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