Just now noticed this thread and it looks like it could be help me with soem ideas i've had for a setting I've been trying to develope.

Question 1: a cultural question, how safe from attack(either from good nations opposed to things such as doing business with thieves or demons or from pirates/raiders) would a very small nation that makes most of it's income from being a completely neutral merchant city be?, I was planning for it to be both a place where pirates might fence goods, but also one where an order of knights might get their supplies from. I was also planning on having it be strongly anti-slavery, as the true natives of the city are extremely diverse in species(the city contained everything from demons to angelic beings)
If it changes anything; the city/country is on a small island in an archipelago in the middle of the setting's largest ocean(the archipelago is a very large one, but not very inhabited), and the city itself is inside of a bay(the island is a circle of "mountains" leading to a bay with an semi-active volcano in the center. The mountains are actually remains of an enormous volcano which exploded millions of years before the setting's date), the entrance to the bay I also fairly treacherous due to sandbars and jutting stones, but once inside is very deep(or at least there is a deep ring surrounding the center volcano, the water right by the city is only about 6-10 feet deep for about 100-150 feet from the docks).
the cities population is about 50K, with most of them being non-humans, it also has about 10k people visiting the city to trade in it's constantly active bazaar(which is located near the docks and is well patrolled by the city's guards to keep it safe from thieves trying to steal goods)

Question 2: has there ever been a real world culture/country that used a system of having three leaders?, For the city/country in the setting that I mentioned above in question 1, i had been planning to have it have 3 main leaders, one to manage currency and trade(he also handles most public conferences), one which acts as the country's main diplomat, and one that manages guards and the city's defenses.
I was also having some trouble coming up with names for the positions so I thought I would see if any names came to mind for those sorts of position. The only ones I have so far are; brigadier general for the one in charge of the nations military and guards, and maybe minister of finance?, for the one in charge of currency and trade