 Piccolomini’s argument starts, but does not finish, with kingship. Kings were first authorized in the earliest times of human history in order to shield the rights of weaker men from injury by the stronger. This is a theme common to numerous republican civic humanists, drawn from a position held by Cicero, who was an important source for them. The king is regarded as the personification of justice. His moral character outshines that of his fellows, so he does not require law as the foundation of his rule, since his judgments are so rooted in a sense of justice and equity that they enjoy the force of law. A conventional account of the breakdown of kingship would involve the declining morality of successive kings, leading to tyranny. By contrast, Piccolomini detects a quite different inherent weakness in political arrangements associated with kingship, regardless of the moral qualities of a particular royal incumbent.