MONARCHY, from the Greek pomp Zia, a word compounded of novo*, alone,' and the element avow, ' govern,' and sig nifying the government of a single per son.' The word monarchy is properly applied to the government of a pohtical community in which one person exercises the sovereign power. [Sovaamorry.] In such cases, and in such cases alone, the government is properly styled a mo narchy. Examples of monarchy, properly so called, are afforded by nearly all the Oriental governments, both in ancient and modern times, by the governments of France and Spain in the last century, and by the existing governments of Rus sia, Austria, Prussia, and the several States of Italy.
But since monarchs have in many cases borne the honorary title of fistras6t, rex, re, roi, k6nig, or king, and since per sons so styled have, in many states not monarchical, held the highest rank in the government, and derived that rank by inheritance, governments presided over by a person bearing one of the titles just mentioned have usually been called monarchies.
The name monarchy is however incor rectly applied to a government, unless the king (or person bearing the equiva lent title) possesses the entire sovereign power ; as was the case with the king of Persia (whom the Greeks called the great king,' or simply the king'). and in more recent times with king Louis XIV., called by his contemporaries the Grand Monarque.
Now a king does not necessarily pos sess the entire sovereign power ; in other words, he is not necessarily a monarch. Thus the king has abated the sovereign power either with a class of nobles, as in the early Greek States, or with a popular body, as in the Roman kingdom, in the feudal kingdoms of the middle ages, and in modern England, France, Holland, and Belgium. The appellation of monarch properly implies the possession of the entire sovereign power by the person to whom it is affix ed. The title of king, on the other hand, does not imply that the king possesses the entire sovereign power. In a state-where the king once was a monarch, the kingly office may cease to confer the undivided sovereignty ; and it may even dwindle into complete insignificance, and become a merely honorary dignity, as was the case with the Illixom finmAtos at Athens, and the rex sacrificed= at Rome.
In Sparta there was a double line of hereditary kings, who shared the sove reign power with some other magistrates and an assembly of citizens. The go vernment of Sparta has usually been termed a republic, but some ancient wri ters have called it monarchical, on ace ootuit of its kings ; and Polybius applies the same epithet to the Roman republic, on account of its two consuls. (Philo logical Museum, vol. ii., p. 49, 57.) States which were at one time govern ed by kings possessing the entire sove reign power, and in which the king has subsequently been compelled to share the sovereign power with a popular body, are usually styled mixed monarchies or limited monarchies. These expressions mean that the person invested with the kingly office, having once been a mo narch, is so no longer ; and they may be compared with a class of expressions not unfreqnent in the Greek poets, by which a privative epithet, denying a por tion of the essence of the noun to which it is prefixed, is employed for the pur pose of circumscribing a metaphor. Thus .Eschylus (Sept. ad Theb. 82) calls the dust the speechless messenger of the army; and Aristotle in his Poetic (c. 35) speak ing of the same class of metaphors, says that the shield of Mars might be called his winless cup. (See Blomfield's Glos sary on Esch. Ag. 81.) Still life, as a term in painting, is analogous to limit ed monarchy, since it denotes dead ani mals; i. e. animals which were alive, but are so no longer.
Governments are divided into monar chies and republics ; and therefore all governments which are not monarchies are republics. As we have already stated, a monarchy is a government in which one person possesses the _entire sovereign power; and consequently a republic is a government in which the Sovereign power is shared between several persons. [Rir. pantie.] These definitions of monarchy and republic however do not agree with existing usage ; according to which, the popular, though royal, governments of England and France, for example, are monarchies (viz, mixed or limited mo narchies), not republics.