Philosopher kings
On September 18th, 96 CE, the last of the despot kings, Domitian, was assassinated. Nerva ascended shortly after and ruled Rome wisely with much help from the senate. One of his most impactful actions was to choose a successor, ending the system of heredity for a century in Roman monarchy. This principle gave Rome the finest succession of good and great sovereigns the world has ever had: the age of the "philosopher kings".
Source: Durant, Will, The Story of Civilization, Vol. 3: Caesar and Christ Simon and Schuster, 1944.
Image by Sailko under CC BY-SA 3.0 license
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!