The Grrek's Tyrants, Summary

The limitations inherent within the extant sources render it a matter of considerable difficulty for the modern historian to ascertain with definitive certainty a common aetiology for the political phenomenon that swept across the greater part of the Hellenic world from approximately 650 to 510 ante Christum natum. It is patent that the success achieved by a tyranny in one city would serve as an impetus for other potential despots to endeavour a like revolution within their own polities – one might adduce, as a contemporary parallel, the manner in which Mussolini’s fascist movement during the 1920s acted as an inspiration in the subsequent decade for Herr Hitler in Germany and General Franco in Hispania. Furthermore, tyrants exhibited a willingness to furnish assistance to other aspirants in their endeavours to seize power, in the anticipation of securing a political ally of concordant sentiments, as exemplified by Lygdamis of Naxos, who dispatched military support to Polycrates in his successful bid to establish a tyranny in Samos. The other principal factors that appear to have exerted a salient influence upon the ascendance of tyranny are of a military, economic, and ethnic nature; however, whilst there exists evidence of a sufficiently persuasive character to identify these factors in the establishment of a tyranny in certain individual cities, it cannot be conclusively demonstrated that these selfsame factors were the root causes of tyranny in the remaining Hellenic cities. With respect to the cities situated upon the littoral of Asia Minor, the preponderance of tyrants succeeding 546 were imposed by the Persians as their preferred modality of governance for the subjugation of their Hellenic subjects within their Empire; and the successive tyrannies within Mytilene upon the isle of Lesbos, duly documented within the poetic compositions of Alcaeus, reveal that competition amongst ambitious aristocratic factions constituted the primary cause of tyranny, until such time as Pittacus was finally elected by the populace (presumably the hoplites) as their chosen tyrant (Alcaeus fragment 348). Nevertheless, the prevailing military, economic, and ethnic conditions extant during the seventh and sixth centuries provide compelling circumstantial evidence to suggest that these factors were instrumental in the rise of tyranny, to a greater or lesser extent, within the different cities throughout Hellas.