Aristocracy is derived from the compound word for "rule of the best".
 Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Xenophon, and the Spartans considered aristocracy (the ideal form of rule by the few) to be inherently better than the ideal form of rule by the many (democracy), but they also considered the corrupted form of aristocracy (oligarchy) to be worse than the corrupted form of democracy (mob rule)
The concept of aristocracy according to Plato has an ideal state ruled by the philosopher king

