Tyrant

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(Redirected from Tyranny)

This article discusses rulers and autocrats. For other uses, see Tyrant (disambiguation).

A tyrant (from Greek τύραννος týrannos) possesses absolute power in a state or in an organisation: one refers to this mode of rule as a tyranny. Tyrants generally usurp power by force rather than inheriting it.

1 Historical forms
2 Modern forms
3 See also
4 External links

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Historical forms

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. 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, succumbed to a reaction (514 - 510 BC), which left Hipparchus dead and Hippias exiled.

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 Gelon, 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.

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Modern forms

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.

For example, US president George W. Bush labelled Saddam Hussein as a tyrant (among other things) in justification for invading Iraq in 2003.

Tales of tyrants often make good plot-lines and give extensive opportunities for psychological drama in literature.

Compare:

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