Tyrant
This article discusses rulers and autocrats. For other uses, see Tyrant (disambiguation).
A
tyrant (
Latin Tyrranis, from
Greek τύραννος
týrannos) possesses absolute
power through the people in a
state or in an
organization: one refers to this mode of rule as a
tyranny. In
ancient Greece, tyrants were generally aristocrats who had gained power over the others by getting the support of the poor people by giving them land, freeing them from slavery, etc.
The word is of pre-Greek origin, and like
basileus has been connected to the
Anatolian sphere, perhaps
Lydian, and also to
Etruscan or "
Tyrsenian"
Turan "lord/lady". None of these hypotheses found wide acceptance, and the word's etymology must be considered unknown (Windekens
KZ 74, 123ff).
In the original Greek meaning, the word "tyrant" carried no ethical censure; it simply referred to anyone who overturned the established government of a
city-state (usually through the use of popular support) to establish himself as
dictator, or to the heir of such a person. Support for the tyrants came from the growing class of business people and from the peasants who had no land or were in debt to the wealthy land owners. It is true that they had no legal right to rule, but the people preferred them over kings or the aristocrats. The Greek tyrants stayed in power by using mercenary soldiers from outside of their respective city state.
Cypselus, the first tyrant of
Corinth in the
7th century BC, managed to bequeath his position to his son,
Periander. Tyrants seldom succeeded in establishing an untroubled line of succession. In
Athens, the inhabitants first gave the title to
Pisistratus of
Athens in
560 BC, followed by his sons, and with the subsequent growth of Athenian
democracy, the title "tyrant" took on its familiar negative connotations. The
Thirty Tyrants whom the Spartans imposed on a defeated Attica in
404 BC would not class as tyrants in the usual sense. The murder of the tyrant
Hipparchus by
Aristogeiton and Harmodios in Athens in 514 BC marked the beginning of the so-called "cult of the
tyrannicides" (i.e. of killers of tyrants). Contempt for tyranny characterised this
cult movement. The attitude became especially prevalent in Athens after 508 BC, when
Cleisthenes reformed the political system so that it resembled
demokratia (ancient participant democracy as opposed to the modern representative democracy).
The heyday of the classical Hellenic tyrants came in the early
6th century BC, when
Cleisthenes ruled
Sicyon in the
Peloponnesus, and
Polycrates ruled
Samos. During this time, revolts overthrew many governments in the
Aegean world. Simultaneously
Persia first started making inroads into Greece, and many tyrants sought Persian help against forces seeking to remove them.
Greek tyranny in the main grew out of the struggle of the popular classes against the
aristocracy or against priest-kings where archaic traditions and mythology sanctioned hereditary and/or traditional rights to rule. Popular
coups generally installed tyrants, who often became or remained popular rulers, at least in the early part of their reigns. For instance, the popular imagination remembered Pisistratus for an episode (related by [pseudo-]
Aristotle, but possibly fictional) in which he exempted a farmer from taxation because of the particular barrenness of his plot. Pisistratus' sons
Hippias and
Hipparchus, on the other hand, were not such able rulers and when the disaffected aristocrats Harmodios and Aristogeiton slew Hipparchus, Hippias' rule quickly became oppressive, resulting in the expulsion of the Peisistratids in
510.
The tyrannies of Sicily came about due to similar causes, but here the threat of Carthaginian attack prolonged tyranny, facilitating the rise of military leaders with the people united behind them. Such Sicilian tyrants as
Gelo,
Hiero I,
Hiero II,
Dionysius the Elder, and
Dionysius the Younger maintained lavish courts and became patrons of culture.
Later
ancient Greeks, as well as the
Roman Republicans, became generally quite wary of anyone seeking to implement a popular coup.
Shakespeare portrays the struggle of one such anti-tyrannical Roman,
Marcus Junius Brutus, in his play
Julius Caesar.
The term "tyrant", used literally or metaphorically, now carries connotations of cruel
despots who place their own interests or the interests of a small
oligarchy over the "best" interests of the general population which they govern or control. Many individual rulers or government officials get accused of tyranny, with the label almost always a matter of controversy.
*
Monarch*
Dynast*
List of Ancient Greek tyrants*
Right of rebellion (first theorized by
John Locke)
*
Outposts of tyranny (apparently meaning "centres of tyranny")
*
Livius,
Tyrant by Jona Lendering
