At first, one-man rule will be accepted and even invested with the legal trappings of kingship. However, “the man who tastes a single piece of human flesh,” Socrates says, “is fated to become a wolf.” As the ruler’s appetite for power grows, kingship, too, “degenerates into its corrupt but associated form, by which I mean tyranny” (this is Polybius, not Plato, writing). Tyranny triggers resentment, revolution, and violent overthrow again. Out of the rubble of the rule of One emerges the rule of those who have led the revolt against it, namely a jealous and self-interested aristocracy.
