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Originally Posted by Graeme
The Spartans had an interesting monarchy composed of two kings who were not hereditary. That type of elected short term monarchy seems better.
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The Visigothic monarchy in Hispania was an elected monarchy. That brought a number of conflicts, rebellions and civil wars between parties throughout the entire period of the Visigothic kingdom. To those rebellions/civil wars foreign intervention was usually called in. The last rebellion/civil war is known as the
Moslem invasion and had the Berbers as the invited to the party.
Short term it was too. The first step to be elected a king was to kill the elected king and organize a war of factions. 35 kings in only 300 years. Not bad. See the entire list here:
http://members.fortunecity.es/alexaf/visigodo.html
Also, the odious character that Shakespeare depicts in MacBeth has much to do with this too. MacBeth did what was expected from him, to kill the king to become a king.
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum
prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem:
hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris,
et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.'
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.