III. _The Basileus._ This officer became a conspicuous character in the Grecian society of the heroic age, and was equally prominent in the legendary period. He has been placed by historians in the centre of the system. The name of the office (basileus) was used by the best Grecian writers to characterize the government, which was styled a basileia (basileia). Modern writers, almost without exception, translate basileus by the term _king_, and basileia by the term _kingdom_, without qualification, and as exact equivalents. I wish to call attention to this office of basileus, as it existed in the Grecian tribes, and to question the correctness of this interpretation. There is no similarity whatever between the basileia of the ancient Athenians and the modern kingdom or monarchy; certainly not enough to justify the use of the same term to describe both. Our idea of a kingly government is essentially of a type in which a king, surrounded by a privileged and titled class in the ownership and possession of the lands, rules according to his own will and pleasure by edicts and decrees; claiming an hereditary right to rule, because he cannot allege the consent of the governed. Such governments have been self-imposed through the principle of hereditary right, to which the priesthood have sought to superadd a divine right. The Tudor kings of England and the Bourbon kings of France are illustrations. Constitutional monarchy is a modern development, and essentially different from the basileia of the Greeks. The basileia was neither an absolute nor a constitutional monarchy; neither was it a tyranny or a despotism. The question then is, what was it.
Mr. Grote claims that "the primitive Grecian government is essentially monarchical, reposing on personal feeling and divine right;"[262] and to confirm this view he remarks further, that "the memorable dictum in the Iliad is borne out by all that we hear in actual practice: 'the rule of many is not a good thing; let us have one ruler only--one king--him to whom Zeus has given the sceptre, with the tutelary sanctions.'"[263] This opinion is not peculiar to Mr. Grote, whose eminence as a historian all delight to recognize; but it has been steadily and generally affirmed by historical writers on Grecian themes, until it has come to be accepted as historical truth. Our views upon Grecian and Roman questions have been moulded by writers accustomed to monarchical government and privileged classes, who were perhaps glad to appeal to the earliest known governments of the Grecian tribes for a sanction of this form of government, as at once natural, essential and primitive.