And the same revolution arises from the fair system of aristocracy when any corruption has betrayed the nobles from the path of rectitude.

Thus the power is like the ball which is flung from hand to hand: it passes from kings to tyrants, from tyrants to the aristocracy, from them to democracy, and from these back again to tyrants and to factions; and thus the same kind of government is seldom long maintained.
XLV.

Since these are the facts of experience, royalty is, in my opinion, very far preferable to the three other kinds of political constitutions.

But it is itself inferior to that which is composed of an equal mixture of the three best forms of government, united and modified by one another.

I wish to establish in a commonwealth a royal and pre-eminent chief.