The Archaic Tyrants
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The Archaic Tyrants
The age of the tyrants in the Archaic Greek city-state (polis) began during the middle of the seventh century B.C., and ended in 510 B.C. (Pomeroy 84). The word tyrant often makes people think of cruel, overbearing and unreasonable leaders. Perhaps some tyrants did not respect the people that they led. However, this was not always the case in Ancient Greece.
A tyrant was a word, not for a mean person necessarily, but for a ruler how is a little similar to a dictator in that there was no consensus of the populace concerning him coming into power, but that is where the similarity ends between a tyrant and a dictator. A tyrant is a person who came into rule through independent means of force rather than election. It was the tyrant who gave himself absolute power. How fairly the tyrant used his new power depended on his character. Though not all tyrants were bad leaders, many of them were bad enough to give tyrants the bad reputation they have today.
More often than not, tyrants came from very wealthy aristocratic families. This means that they had been brought up with a real intersection the government and how it worked. Many of the tyrants of Ancient Greece took over the government because they recognized how unstable their existing it was and wanted to change it. This occurred sometimes for the good of the people and sometimes for their personal gain of the tyrant (Herodotus 208-9).
One may wonder if all the people objected to the rule of the tyrant. More often than not, the poor were large supporters to the tyrants, as the tyrants made many promises to the lower class in order to gain their approval and favor (Pomeroy 85). Some of the promises that the tyrants made were: the cancellation of debts, ending debt bondage (a form of slavery) and the redistribution of land. It was because of this that the rich people (the upper class) did not like the tyrants; this is one reason that we think of this word as meaning something bad today.
Many good things came from tyranny, for example military techniques and strategy were at an all time high. Also many of the Greek tyrants were great supporters of art, literature and building beautiful and historic buildings and monuments that still stand today. Tyranny also focused on equal living among the overall community and encouraged trade with other countries, which in turn, helped to raise the standard of living (Pomeroy 85-86).
Since their power was illegal, and in opposition to the once ruling aristocracies, some tyrants tended to get harsher and harsher as their reigns progressed. This harshness would lead to their being overthrown; but even when a tyrants rule was mild, and he was not overthrown, tyrannical dynasties usually did not last longer than two generations (Pomeroy 85). The problems of the city-states before the age of tyranny coupled with the tyrants themselves wearing out their welcome led