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A 'tyrant' is a single ruler holding vast, if not absolute power through a state or in an organization. The term carries connotations of a harsh and cruel ruler who places his/her own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population which s/he governs or controls. This mode of rule is referred to as 'tyranny'. Many individual rulers or government officials are accused of tyranny, with the label almost always a matter of controversy.
The word derives from Latin ''tyrannus'', from Greek τύραννος ''tyrannos''. There may be a connection with the biblical Hebrew word ''seren'', which means "captain of the Philistines": see Philistine language.

Contents

Historical forms

Aisymnetes

Hellenic Tyrants

Popularism

Sicilian Tyrants

Roman Tyrants

In the Arts

20th Century

References

See also

External links

Historical forms

In ancient Greece, tyrants were influential opportunists that came to power by securing the support of different factions of a deme. The word "tyrant" carried no ethical censure; it simply referred to anyone who illegally seized executive power in a polis to engage in autocratic government. 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.^[1]
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).

Aisymnetes

An aisymnetes (pl. aisymnetai) was a type of tyrant or dictator, such as Pittacus of Mytilene (c. 640 -568 BC), elected for life or a specified period by a city-state in a time of crisis. Magistrates in some city-states were also called aisymnetai.^[2]

Hellenic Tyrants

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.

Popularism

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 Peisistratus 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.

Sicilian Tyrants

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.

Roman Tyrants

Roman historians like Suetonius, Tacitus, Plutarch and Josephus often spoke of "tyranny" in opposition to "liberty". Tyranny was associated with imperial rule and those rulers who usurped too much authority from the Roman Senate. Those who were advocates of "liberty" tended to be pro-Republic and pro-Senate. For instance, regarding Julius Caesar and his assassins, Suetonius wrote:
:''Therefore the plots which had previously been formed separately, often by groups of two or three, were united in a general conspiracy, since even the populace no longer were pleased with present conditions, but both secretly and openly rebelled at his tyranny and cried out for defenders of their liberty.''^[3]

In the Arts

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''.

20th Century

Tyrants have existed throughout history and some tyrants of note during the 20th Century were Adolf Hitler of Germany, Joseph Stalin of the former USSR, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo of Dominican Republic and Augusto Pinochet of Chile. They have all controlled states with terror and also the use of the 'Cult of Personality'. This is when a leader is exalted and transformed from a normal person into a God-like figure, an embodiment of the nation and a father of all the people.

References

1. "Tyrant", ABC-CLIO, retrieved 16 February 2007
2. "Ancient Greece: government (tyranny)", Facts On File, retrieved 16 February 2007
3. Suetonius, ''The Lives of Twelve Caesars'', Life of Julius Caesar 80

See also

★ Monarch

★ Dynast

★ List of tyrants

★ Right of rebellion

★ Tyranny of the majority

External links

★ Livius, Tyrant by Jona Lendering