The archon basileus superintended the holy places, the mysteries, the Lampadephoria (Torch race), &c., questions of national religion and certain cases of bloodguiltiness.
There were rajas in the clan, but the word meant at most something like consul or archon.
They alone held the two offices, those of polemarch and archon, which were instituted during the 8th century B.C. to restrict the powers of the kings.
There are some resemblances to the Valentinian system, but whereas the great Archon sins in ignorance, Ialdabaoth sins against knowledge; there is also less of Greek philosophy in the Ophite system.
The king, in fact, both in Greece and in Rome, was the acting head of the state religion, and when the regal power came to an end his sacred functions were not transferred to the ordinary priests, but either they were distributed among high officers of state, as archons and prytanes, or the title of " king " was still preserved as that of a religious functionary, as in the case of the rex sacrorum at Rome and the archon basileus at Athens.