A tyrant was little more than an autocrat or leader who had overturned an existing regime of a Greek polis and was, therefore, an illegitimate ruler, a usurper. Greek Mythology to Rational Pre-Socratic Philosophy, 7 Points to Know About Ancient Greek Government, Definition and Examples of Ethos in Classical Rhetoric, Aristarchus of Samos: An Ancient Philosopher With Modern Ideas, Biography of Aristotle, Influential Greek Philosopher and Scientist, M.A., Linguistics, University of Minnesota. 145-172. Athens flourished under his ruling and hence the notion that a tyrant is not necessarily a bad and cruel person was set. After Sparta won a battle against Hippias he went into exile and that probably marked the end of the age of tyrants, but tyranny still prevailed in the Greek city-states like Anatolia which the Persians conquered. An Aesymnetes also experienced similar scope of power to the tyrant, such as Pittacus of Mytilene between 640 to 568 BC, and was elected for life or for a specified period by a city-state in a time of crisis; the only difference being that the Aesymnetes was a constitutional office and were comparable to the Roman dictator. Cypselus was the first Tyrant. One of the government models embraced by the politically inventive Greek city-states was the tyranny. History is full of tyrants. The glory days of the Archaic period Ancient Greece Tyrants came in the early 6th century BC, when Cleisthenes ruled Sicyon in the Peloponnesus and Polycrates ruled Samos. The word tyrannos, possibly pre-Greek, Pelasgian or eastern in origin, then carried no ethical censure; it simply referred to anyone, good or bad, who obtained executive power in a polis by unconventional means. However, in Ancient Greek Tyrants were not considered to be negative. This quality is also common to the modern version of the self-serving tyrant. Monarchy was the common form of government in the 10th and 9th century BC. 129-14. Parker says the use of tyrannos is common to a tragedy in preference to basileus, generally synonymously, but sometimes negatively. Parker adds that for Herodotus, the term tyrant and basileus are applied to the same individuals, although Thucydides (and Xenophon, on the whole) distinguishes them along the same lines of legitimacy as we do. Corinth prospered economically under his rule and Cypselus managed to rule without a bodyguard but when he managed to bequeath his position to his son, Periander, whose position was less secure, required a bodyguard of mercenary soldiers personally loyal to himself. Plato and Aristotle also defined a tyrant as, “one who rules without law, looks to his own advantage rather than that of his subjects, and uses extreme and cruel tactics — against his own people as well as others. In the famous city-state of Athens tyranny was established by Peisistratus. They even had some measure of popular support, … After his death, his elder son Hippias took over the reign and worked closely with his younger brother. They had monarchies and democracies for comparison. "Before Turannoi Were Tyrants: Rethinking a Chapter of Early Greek History," by Greg Anderson, suggests that because of this confusion with modern tyranny, the perfectly good Greek word should be removed from scholarship on early Greece. The historical definition is best understood from their historical perspective. Despite financial help from Persia, in 510BC, the Peisistratids were barred by a combination of intrigue, banish and Spartan arms. In ancient Greece, tyrants were influential opportunists who came to power by securing the support of different factions of a deme. Nevertheless, under Cypselus and Periander, Corinth not only extended but also tightened its control over her colonial enterprises, resulting in the flourishing exports of Corinthian pottery.eval(ez_write_tag([[300,250],'ancientgreecefacts_com-leader-1','ezslot_3',121,'0','0'])); However, tyrants rarely succeeded in establishing an untroubled line of succession. Ancient political commentators Plato and Aristotle lived late in the period of many tyrants. Magistrates in some city-states were also called Aesymnetai. The rulers were not always brutal or cruel and hence the current meaning of tyranny and the old meaning were a little different. The Semantics of a Political Concept from Archilochus to Aristotle," by Victor Parker; Hermes, 126. The Greeks defined many of our ideas about government structures, including democracies, oligarchies, and monarchies. Ancient Greek Tyranny first found its way in Ancient Greece in the city-state of Corinth. By superseding against the tyrants of Sicyon, Corinth, and Athens, Sparta thus came to assume Hellenic leadership prior to the Persian invasions. Which was the ancient concept participant democracy, unlike the modern representative democracy?The Thirty Tyrants whom the Spartans inflicted on a defeated Attica in 404 BC, however, cannot be referred to as tyrants in the usual sense as they were in practice an oligarchy. A tyrant—also known as a basileus or king—in ancient Greece meant something different from our modern concept of a tyrant as simply a cruel and oppressive despot. 173-222. Greek tyranny in the main grew out of the struggle of the popular classes against the aristocracy or against the kings where archaic traditions and mythology sanctioned hereditary rights to rule. A tyranny was a government run by a singl… In his article, "The First Tyrants in Greece," Robert Drews paraphrases Aristotle as saying that the tyrant was a degenerate type of monarch who came to power because of how insufferable the aristocracy was. He was succeeded by his sons, and with the subsequent growth of Athenian democracy, the title “tyrant” took on its usual negative connotations. Though it is true that they had no legal right to rule yet the people preferred them over kings or aristocracy. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC thereby ousting the aristocratic governments. Chilon, the ambitious and capable ephor of Sparta, built a strong alliance amongst neighboring states by making common cause with these groups seeking to oppose the much disliked tyrannical rule.