The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

nations; some, like Codrus, have
prevented the state from being enslaved in war; others, like Cyrus,
have given their country freedom, or have settled or gained a
territory, like the Lacedaemonian, Macedonian, and Molossian kings.
The idea of a king is to be a protector of the rich against unjust
treatment, of the people against insult and oppression. Whereas a
tyrant, as has often been repeated, has no regard to any public
interest, except as conducive to his private ends; his aim is
pleasure, the aim of a king, honor. Wherefore also in their desires
they differ; the tyrant is desirous of riches, the king, of what
brings honor. And the guards of a king are citizens, but of a
tyrant mercenaries.
    That tyranny has all the vices both of democracy and oligarchy
is evident. As of oligarchy so of tyranny, the end is wealth; (for
by wealth only can the tyrant maintain either his guard or his
luxury). Both mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of
their arms. Both agree too in injuring the people and driving them
out of the city and dispersing them. From democracy tyrants have
borrowed the art of making war upon the notables and destroying
them secretly or openly, or of exiling them because they are rivals
and stand in the way of their power; and also because plots against
them are contrived by men of this dass, who either want to rule or
to escape subjection. Hence Periander advised Thrasybulus by
cutting off the tops of the tallest ears of corn, meaning that he
must always put out of the way the citizens who overtop the rest.
And so, as I have already intimated, the beginnings of change are
the same in monarchies as in forms of constitutional government;
subjects attack their sovereigns out of fear or contempt, or
because they have been unjustly treated by them. And of injustice,
the most common form is insult, another is confiscation of
property.
    The ends sought by conspiracies against monarchies, whether
tyrannies or royalties, are the same as the ends sought by
conspiracies against other forms of government. Monarchs have great
wealth and honor, which are objects of desire to all mankind. The
attacks are made sometimes against their lives, sometimes against
the office; where the sense of insult is the motive, against their
lives. Any sort of insult (and there are many) may stir up anger,
and when men are angry, they commonly act out of revenge, and not
from ambition. For example, the attempt made upon the
Peisistratidae arose out of the public dishonor offered to the
sister of Harmodius and the insult to himself. He attacked the
tyrant for his sister’s sake, and Aristogeiton joined in the attack
for the sake of Harmodius. A conspiracy was also formed against
Periander, the tyrant of Ambracia, because, when drinking with a
favorite youth, he asked him whether by this time he was not with
child by him. Philip, too, was attacked by Pausanias because he
permitted him to be insulted by Attalus and his friends, and
Amyntas the little, by Derdas, because he boasted of having enjoyed
his youth. Evagoras of Cyprus, again, was slain by the eunuch to
revenge an insult; for his wife had been carried off by Evagoras’s
son. Many conspiracies have originated in shameful attempts made by
sovereigns on the persons of their subjects. Such was the attack of
Crataeas upon Archelaus; he had always hated the connection with
him, and so, when Archelaus, having promised him one of his two
daughters in marriage, did not give him either of them, but broke
his word and married the elder to the king of Elymeia, when he was
hard pressed in a war against Sirrhas and Arrhabaeus, and the
younger to his own son Amyntas, under the idea that Amyntas would
then be less likely to quarrel with his son by Cleopatra—Crataeas
made this slight a pretext for attacking Archelaus, though even a
less reason would have sufficed, for the real cause of the
estrangement was the disgust which he felt at his connection with
the king. And from a like motive Hellonocrates of Larissa conspired
with him; for when Archelaus, who was his lover, did not fulfill
his promise of restoring him to his country, he thought that the
connection between them had originated, not in affection, but in
the wantonness of power. Pytho, too, and Heracleides of Aenos, slew
Cotys in order to avenge their father, and Adamas revolted from
Cotys in revenge for the wanton outrage which he had committed in
mutilating him when a child.
    Many, too, irritated at blows inflicted on the