"Checks and balances are our only security" — John Adams
In his well-known counterpoint between Athens and Persia in Laws.III, Plato praises the admixture of freedom and authority under King Cyrus (694a). He does not provide much detail—he has other fish to fry. On possible clue is to be found in Herodotus (III.31) when the historian presents Persia's royal judges (βασιλήιοι δικασταὶ) as "specially chosen men, who hold office either for life or until they are found guilty of some misconduct". Wow! This looks a lot like England's 1701 Act of Settlement, providing stability of tenure for English judges quamdiu se bene gesserint (during good behaviour).
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Even more striking is the fact that Persian judges appeared to take precedents as a source of law. When confronted with the madness of the tyrant Cambyses (Cyrus'son) they could "discover no law [that] allowed" to satisfy his desires in the particuclar case brought to them (*). It looks to me like an instance of βασιλεία κατὰ νόμον (Politics 1285.a), where rulers are bound by the law. Would that not go a long way in explaining the tremendous success of the Persian empire? As Plato himself wrote, the admixture of freedom and authority in a monarchic regime led to "friendship and unity (koinonia), and an increase in intelligence available to the leadership"(†).
(*) Fearing for their life, they promptly found another law that allowed the Great King to do as he wished. (I'm using Aubrey de Sélincourt's translation and the Perseus edition). The royal judges of a later period are mentioned by name in the Book of Esther (1.14). In his multi-volume analysis of Sparta's 'grand strategy', Paul Rahe cites numerous modern sources on the Persian empire, in particular Amelie Kuhrts's The Persian Empire. A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period (Routledge, 2007).
(†) David E. Hahm: "The Mixed Constitution in Greek Thought", in Ryan K. Balot. A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought. Blackwell Publishing, 2009, p. 184.
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