Tyrant
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A tyrant (from
Plato deemed tyranny the "fourth and worst disorder of a state." Tyrants lack "the very faculty that is the instrument of judgment"—reason. The tyrannical man is enslaved because the best part of him (reason) is enslaved, and likewise, the tyrannical state is enslaved, because it too lacks reason and order. [5]
The philosophers Plato and Aristotle defined a tyrant as a person who rules without law, using extreme and cruel methods against both his own people and others.[6][7] 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".[8] In the late fifth and fourth centuries BC, a new kind of tyrant, one who had the support of the military, arose – specifically in Sicily.
One can apply accusations of tyranny to a variety of types of government:
- to government by one individual (in an autocracy)
- to government by a minority (in an oligarchy, tyranny of the minority)
- to government by a majority (in a democracy, tyranny of the majority)
Etymology
The English noun tyrant appears in Middle English use, via Old French, from the 1290s. The word derives from
Definition
"The word 'tyranny' is used with many meanings, not only by the Greeks but throughout the tradition of the great books."[12] The Oxford English Dictionary offers alternative definitions: a ruler, an illegitimate ruler (a usurper), an absolute ruler (despot), or an oppressive, unjust, or cruel ruler. The term is usually applied to vicious autocrats who rule their subjects by brutal methods. Oppression, injustice, and cruelty do not have standardized measurements or thresholds.
Greco-Roman culture
The Greek tyrants stayed in power by using mercenary soldiers from outside of their respective city-state. To mock tyranny,
Archaic tyrants
One of the earliest known uses of the word tyrant (in Greek) was by the poet Archilochus, who lived three centuries before Plato, in reference to king Gyges of Lydia.[14] The king's assumption of power was unconventional.
The heyday of the
Corinth
Corinth hosted one of the earliest of Greek tyrants.
Nevertheless, under Cypselus and Periander, Corinth extended and tightened her control over her colonial enterprises, and exports of Corinthian pottery flourished. However, tyrants seldom succeeded in establishing an untroubled line of succession. Periander threw his pregnant wife downstairs (killing her), burnt his concubines alive, exiled his son, warred with his father-in-law and attempted to castrate 300 sons of his perceived enemies.[17] He retained his position. Periander's successor was less fortunate and was expelled. Afterward, Corinth was ruled by a lackluster oligarchy, and was eventually eclipsed by the rising fortunes of Athens and Sparta.
Athens
Athens hosted its tyrants late in the Archaic period.
He was followed by his sons, and with the subsequent growth of Athenian
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.
Sicilian tyrants
The best known Sicilian tyrants appeared long after the Archaic period.
Later tyrants
Under the
Against these rulers, in 280 BC the democratic cities started to join forces in the
Roman tyrants
Roman historians like Suetonius, Tacitus, Plutarch, and Josephus often spoke of "tyranny" in opposition to "liberty".[21] Tyranny was associated with imperial rule and those rulers who usurped too much authority from the Roman Senate. Those who were advocates of "liberty" tended to be pro-Republic and pro-Senate. For instance, regarding Julius Caesar and his assassins, Suetonius wrote:
Therefore the plots which had previously been formed separately, often by groups of two or three, were united in a general conspiracy, since even the populace no longer were pleased with present conditions, but both secretly and openly rebelled at his tyranny and cried out for defenders of their liberty.[22]
Citizens of the empire were circumspect in identifying tyrants. "...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."[23] There has since been a tendency to discuss tyranny in the abstract while limiting examples of tyrants to ancient Greek rulers. Philosophers have been more expressive than historians.
Josephus identified tyrants in Biblical history (in Antiquities of the Jews) including Nimrod, Moses, the Maccabees and Herod the Great. He also identified some later tyrants.
Greek political thought
The Greeks defined both usurpers and those inheriting rule from usurpers as tyrants.[4] Polybius (~150 B.C.) indicated that eventually, any one-man rule (monarchy/executive) governing form would become corrupted into a tyranny.[24]
The Greek philosophers stressed the quality of rule rather than legitimacy or absolutism. "Both Plato and Aristotle speak of the king as a good monarch and the tyrant as a bad one. Both say that monarchy, or rule by a single man, is royal when it is for the welfare of the ruled and tyrannical when it serves only the interest of the ruler. Both make lawlessness – either a violation of existing laws or government by personal fiat without settled laws – a mark of tyranny."[12]
In the classics
Tyranny is considered an important subject, one of the "Great Ideas" of Western thought. The classics contain many references to tyranny and its causes, effects, methods, practitioners, alternatives... They consider tyranny from historical, religious, ethical, political and fictional perspectives. "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."[12] 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. "They that are discontented under monarchy, call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy, call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy, call it anarchy..."[25]
The
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. He also identifies liberty with republican regimes. Sometimes he calls leaders of republics "princes". He never uses the word in The Prince. He also does not share in the traditional view of tyranny, and in his Discourses he sometimes explicitly acts as an advisor to tyrants.[26][27]
In Gibbon's 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. "After a decent resistance, the crafty tyrant submitted to the orders of the senate; and consented to receive the government of the provinces, and the general command of the Roman armies..." Emperors "humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed." The Roman Empire "may be defined as an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth." Roman emperors were deified. Gibbons called emperors tyrants and their rule tyranny. His definitions in the chapter were related to the absolutism of power alone – not oppression, injustice or cruelty. He ignored the appearance of shared rule.
Enlightenment
During the
Enlightenment philosophers seemed to define tyranny by its associated characteristics.[citation needed]
- "The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice." Voltaire in a Philosophical Dictionary
- "Where Law ends Tyranny begins." Locke in Two Treatises of Government
Edward Sexby's 1657 pamphlet, "Killing, No Murder" outlined 14 key traits of a tyrant, as the pamphlet was written to inspire the assassination of Oliver Cromwell, and show in what circumstances an assassination might be considered honorable. The full document mulls over and references points on the matter from early pre-Christian history, up into the 17th century when the pamphlet was writ. Of the most prevailing traits of tyranny outlined, "Killing, No Murder" emphasizes:
- Prior military leadership service – tyrants are often former captains or generals, which allows them to assume a degree of honor, loyalty, and reputability regarding matters of state
- Fraud over force – most tyrants are likely to manipulate their way into supreme power than force it militarily
- Defamation and/or disbanding of formerly respectable persons, intellectuals, or institutions, and the discouragement of refined thinking or public involvement in state affairs
- Absence or minimalization of collective input, bargaining, or debate (assemblies, conferences, etc.)
- Amplification of military activity for the purposes of public distraction, raising new levies, or opening future business pathways
- Tit-for-tat symbiosis in domestic relations: e.g. finding religious ideas permissible insofar as they are useful and flattering of the tyrant; finding aristocrats or the nobility laudable & honorable insofar as they are compliant with the will of the tyrant or in service of the tyrant, etc.
- Pretenses toward inspiration from God
- Pretenses toward a love of God and religion
- Grow or maintain publish impoverishment as a way of removing the efficacy of the people's will
[Original 1657 text: https://archive.org/details/killingnomurderb00sexbuoft/page/n3/mode/2up]
In Scotland,
A modern tyrant might be defined by proven violation of international criminal law such as crimes against humanity.[29][30][31]
Lists of tyrants
Lists include:
- List of ancient Greek tyrants numbering several hundred plus those of Syracuse.
- List of tyrants of Syracuse numbering about 20.
- 100 throughout history, including 40 from the 20th century[32]
- 13 20th century tyrants[33]
- 30 tyrants of the late 20th century[34]
- 20 tyrants of the early 21st century[34]
There are also numerous book titles which identify tyrants by name or circumstances.[35][36]
Among English rulers, several have been identified as tyrants by book title:
Methods of obtaining and retaining power
The path of a tyrant can appear easy and pleasant (for all but the aristocracy). Will Durant wrote:
Hence the road to power in Greece commercial cities was simple: to attack the aristocracy, defend the poor, and come to an understanding with the middle classes. Arrived at power, the dictator abolished debts, or confiscated large estates, taxed the rich to finance public works, or otherwise redistributed the over-concentrated wealth; and while attaching the masses to himself through such measures, he secured the support of the business community by promoting trade with state coinage and commercial treaties, and by raising the social prestige of the bourgeoisie. 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. And they did all these things, in many cases, while preserving the forms of popular government, so that even under despotism the people learned the ways of liberty. 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.[41]
Ancient Greek philosophers (who were aristocrats) were far more critical in reporting the methods of tyrants. The justification for ousting a tyrant was absent from the historian's description but was central to the philosophers.
Obtaining
In the Republic, Plato stated: "The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. [...] This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector".
Tyrants either inherit the position from a previous ruler, rise up the ranks in the military/party or seize power as entrepreneurs.[42] Early texts called only the entrepreneurs tyrants, distinguishing them from "bad kings". Such tyrants may act as renters, rather than owners, of the state.
The political methods of obtaining power were occasionally supplemented by theater or force. Peisistratus of Athens blamed self-inflicted wounds on enemies to justify a bodyguard which he used to seize power. He later appeared with a woman dressed as a goddess to suggest divine sanction of his rule.[43] The third time he used mercenaries to seize and retain power.[44]
Retaining
Lengthy recommendations of methods were made to tyrants by Aristotle (in Politics for example) and
The methods of tyrants to retain power include placating world opinion by staging
See also
- Big lie – Propaganda technique
- Despotism – Government by a single entity with absolute power
- Dictator – Political leader who possesses absolute power
- Dictatorship – Form of government
- List of ancient Greek tyrants
- Outposts of tyranny – US foreign policy terminology used in the 2000s
- Political repression
- State terrorism
- Tyrannicide – Killing of a tyrant or unjust ruler
- Tyranny of the majority – Inherent oppressive potential of simple majority rule
References
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 548.: "TYRANT (Gr. τύραννος, master, ruler), a term applied in modern times to a ruler of a cruel and oppressive character."
- ^ Compare: "Tyrant". Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert – Collaborative Translation Project. 2009-11-06. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
[...] today by tyrant one understands, not only a usurper of sovereign power, but even a legitimate sovereign who abuses his power in order to violate the law, to oppress his people, and to make his subjects the victims of his passions and unjust desires, which he substitutes for laws.
- ^ "tyrant | Definition & Facts". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-10-13.
- ^ ISBN 9780684863955. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
- ^ a b "Constitutional Rights Foundation". www.crf-usa.org. Retrieved 2023-01-24.
- ^ "The Internet Classics Archive | Politics by Aristotle". classics.mit.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-21.
- ^ "The Republic, by Plato". Retrieved 2019-05-21 – via Project Gutenberg.
- .
[...] today by tyrant one understands, not only a usurper of sovereign power, but even a legitimate sovereign who abuses his power in order to violate the law, to oppress his people, and to make his subjects the victims of his passions and unjust desires, which he substitutes for laws.
- ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary".
- ^ R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, pp. 1519–20.
- ^ tyrant, Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition
- ^ a b c d Adler, Mortimer J., ed. (1952). "95: Tyranny". Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 3: The Great Ideas: II. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.
- ^ Forrest, George "Greece, the history of the Archaic period" in Boardman, John et al. (1986), The Oxford History of the Classical World (OUP)
- ISBN 978-0-19-280146-3. Based on Herodotus, The History 1.7–14
- ^ Langer, William L., ed. (1948). An Encyclopedia of World History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 48.
- ISBN 978-0670-885152.
- ^ Durant, Will (1939). The Life of Greece. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 90–91.
- ^ Langer, William L. (1948), pp. 50–52
- ^ Durant, Will (1939). The Life of Greece. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 235.
- ^ Langer, William L. (1948), pp. 57, 66
- ISBN 978-0-87140-423-7.Beard says that most accounts of the period were written from the senatorial perspective (described at length). Tacitus was mentioned by Beard in this context, perhaps because he was a senator (the others were aristocrats of a lower rank). The senate discussed a return to the liberty of the republic almost 70 years into the empire (based on Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XIX, Chapter II). Adler cites Tacitus and Plutarch on liberty.
- The Lives of Twelve Caesars, Life of Julius Caesar 80
- ISBN 978-0-87140-465-7.
- ^ Polybius. The Rise of the Roman Empire: Book 6. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert (1979). Penguin; London.
- ^ Hobbes, Leviathan Chapter 19
- ISBN 9780226230979.
- ISBN 9780226503721.
- ^ Two Treatises of Government (199)
- ^ Robertson, Geoffrey (2005). "Ending Impunity: How International Criminal Law Can Put Tyrants on Trial". Cornell International Law Journal. 38 (3): 649–671.
- ^ Liolos, John J. (2012-05-01). "Justice for Tyrants: International Criminal Court Warrants for Gaddafi Regime Crimes". Boston College International and Comparative Law Review. 35 (2): 589–602.
- ^ Thorp, Jodi. "Welcome Ex-Dictators, Torturers and Tyrants: Comparative Approaches to Handling Ex-Dictators and Past Human Rights Abuses" (PDF). Gonzaga Law Review. 37 (1): 167–199.
- ISBN 978-0572030254.
- ISBN 9780029054772.
- ^ ISBN 978-0060590048.
- ISBN 9780670016570.
- ISBN 9781931646864.
- ISBN 9780230772458.
- ISBN 9781848680982.
- ISBN 9780060837334.
- ^ "Killing No Murder, Originally Applied to Oliver Cromwell – A Discourse Proving it Lawful to Kill a Tyrant According to the Opinion of the Most Celebrated Ancient Authors." by Col. Titus, Alias William Allen
- ^ Durant, Will (1939). The Life of Greece. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 122–123.
- ^ ISBN 978-0060590048.
- ISBN 978-0-691-16647-6. Based on Herodotus, The History 1.59–60
- ^ Herodotus, The History 1.61–64
- ^ "Politics by Aristotle, Book Five". classics.mit.edu. Retrieved 2019-06-13.
- ISBN 9780060590048.
External links
- Tyrant by Jona Lendering at livius.org.
- Loretana de Libero, Die archaische Tyrannis Bryn Mawr Classical Review
- Victor Parker, A History of Greece, 1300 to 30 BC (chapter 7)