Greek tyranny grew out of the struggle of the under classes against the aristocracy, or against priest-kings where archaic traditions and mythology sanctioned hereditary and/or traditional rights to rule. Citizens of the empire were circumspect in identifying tyrants. The anti-tyrannical attitude became especially prevalent in Athens after 508 BC, when Cleisthenes reformed the political system so that it resembled demokratia. Despite financial help from Persia, in 510 the Peisistratids were expelled by a combination of intrigue, exile and Spartan arms. Josephus identified tyrants in Biblical history (in Antiquities of the Jews) including Nimrod, Moses, the Maccabees and Herod the Great. Examples were Cleon of Sicyon, Aristodemus of Megalopolis, Aristomachus I of Argos, Abantidas of Sicyon, Aristippus of Argos, Lydiadas of Megalopolis, Aristomachus II of Argos, and Xenon of Hermione. The path of a tyrant can appear easy and pleasant (for all but the aristocracy). However, tyrants seldom succeeded in establishing an untroubled line of succession. Sometimes he calls leaders of republics “princes”. sparta. Support for the tyrants came from the growing middle class and from the peasants who had no land or were in debt to the wealthy landowners. They often brought with them stable, secure rule that benefitted trade and the normal functioning of society after periods of anarchy and infighting. Political and military leaders arose to manage conflicts. In Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I, Chapter III, Augustus was shown to assume the power of a tyrant while sharing power with the reformed senate. Hippias (Peisistratus’ other son) offered to rule the Greeks on behalf of the Persians and provided military advice to the Persians against the Greeks.[25]. In the Enlightenment, thinkers applied the word tyranny to the system of governance that had developed around aristocracy and monarchy. ... rule by a few what other city states were still ruled by. [26] 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. All leaders were once tyrants in their own ways. And when his equally bloodthirsty military successors took over this year, we broke our own laws to financially support them instead. Peisistratus' 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 BC, who resided henceforth in Persepolis as clients of the Persian Shahanshah (King of kings). Under the Macedonian hegemony in the 4th and 3rd century BC a new generation of tyrants rose in Greece, especially under the rule of king Antigonus II Gonatas, who installed his puppets in many cities of the Peloponnese. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; History remembers the rulers, their rises, methods, and ends and the environment in which they ruled. 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Enlightenment philosophers seemed to define tyranny by its associated characteristics. Tyrants, dictators, despots, autocrats, authoritarians, imperialists, fascists, Czars, Nazis, and monarchs practice their tyranny, totalitarianism, absolute rule, and domination on a larger and more destructive scale.Tyranny leads to oppression, the sustained humiliation of a group of people. - Gene Luen Yang. Niccolò Machiavelli conflates all rule by a single person (whom he generally refers to as a “prince”) with “tyranny,” regardless of the legitimacy of that rule, in his Discourses on Livy. “If any point in political theory is indisputable, it would seem to be that tyranny is the worst corruption of government – a vicious misuse of power and a violent abuse of human beings who are subject to it.”[11] While this may represent a consensus position among the classics, it is not unanimous – Thomas Hobbes dissented, claiming no objective distinction, such as being vicious or virtuous, existed among monarchs. [34] Early texts called only the entrepreneurs tyrants, distinguishing them from “bad kings”. We will start the list with one of history’s oldest, cruelest and most unpredictable tyrants. No one said he’d win the Presidency. Oppression, injustice and cruelty do not have standardized measurements or thresholds. To mock tyranny, Thales wrote that the strangest thing to see is “an aged tyrant” meaning that tyrants do not have the public support to survive for long. [5][6] The Encyclopédie defined the term as a usurper of sovereign power who makes "his subjects the victims of his passions and unjust desires, which he substitutes for laws". Citizens of the empire were circumspect in identifying tyrants. Forced to depend upon popularity instead of hereditary power, the dictatorships for the most part kept out of war, supported religion, maintained order, promoted morality, favored the higher status of women, encouraged the arts, and lavished revenues upon the beautification of their cities. Tyrants either inherit the position from a previous ruler, rise up the ranks in the military/party or seize power as entrepreneurs. When the dictatorship [of the tyrant] had served to destroy the aristocracy the people destroyed the dictatorship; and only a few changes were needed to make democracy of freemen a reality as well as a form.[33]. Clan members were killed, executed, driven out or exiled in 657 BC. He also identifies liberty with republican regimes. Nevertheless, under Cypselus and Periander, Corinth extended and tightened her control over her colonial enterprises, and exports of Corinthian pottery flourished. When he then bequeathed his position to his son, Periander, the tyranny proved less secure, and Periander required a retinue of mercenary soldiers personally loyal to him. (1952). Rise of Tyrants is a turn-based strategy game that is set in the Battle Nations universe. By intervening against the tyrants of Sicyon, Corinth and Athens, Sparta thus came to assume Hellenic leadership prior to the Persian invasions. The rule builder might not be able to display some rules constructed in the text box. [11] These are, in general, force and fraud. History has labeled a set of ancient Greek and Sicilian leaders as tyrants. Bad results are relative. “…Cicero’s head and hands [were] cut off and nailed to the rostrum of the Senate to remind everyone of the perils of speaking out against tyranny.”[29] There has since been a tendency to discuss tyranny in the abstract while limiting examples of tyrants to ancient Greek rulers. There are also numerous book titles which identify tyrants by name or circumstances. Philosophers have been more expressive than historians. Tyranny is considered an important subject, one of the "Great Ideas" of Western thought. History is full of tyrants. They appointed a police force and a group of 10 to guard the Piraeus. Shakespeare portrays the struggle of one such anti-tyrannical Roman, Marcus Junius Brutus, in his play Julius Caesar. The Greek tyrants stayed in power by using mercenary soldiers from outside of their respective city-state. The word derives from Latin tyrannus, meaning "illegitimate ruler", and this in turn from the Greek τύραννος tyrannos "monarch, ruler of a polis"; tyrannos in its turn has a Pre-Greek origin, perhaps from Lydian. The Greek philosophers stressed the quality of rule rather than legitimacy or absolutism. He also does not share in the traditional view of tyranny, and in his Discourses he sometimes explicitly acts as an advisor to tyrants.[30][31]. The Thirty Tyrants whom the Spartans imposed on a defeated Attica in 404 BC would not be classified as tyrants in the usual sense and were in effect an oligarchy. The word tyrannos, possibly pre-Greek, Pelasgian or eastern in origin,[19] then carried no ethical censure; it simply referred to anyone, good or bad, who obtained executive power in a polis by unconventional means. Control over which groups supported the rule of the tyrants colonial enterprises, and was buried with the terra-cotta soldiers in Boardman,.... 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