TYRANT (Gr. tyrannos,• Doric for koiranos, from kuros or kurios, a lord or master), a name given in modern times to an arbitrary and oppressive ruler, but originally applied, not necessarily to one that exercised power badly, but merely to one that had obtained it illegally, and therefore equivalent to our word usurper. The ancient Greek "repub lics," it must be remembered, were generally aristocratic and even oligarchic in their constitution. When the " governing families" among the Athenian or Syracusan nobles, for example, quarreled with each other, it was natural, if they could not otherwise agree, that the boldest and most reckless of the set should seek for success by allying with the masses of the people, should figure as their champion, promise to redress their wrongs or increase their comforts, and when a fitting occa sion presented itself, should, by a clever if somewhat violent stratagem—coup d'etat, it is now called—deliver them from the domination of his order by himself grasping possession of absolute power, and ruling without any other restraint than the neces sity of retaining his popularity imposed—even this limitation being frequently absent when a body-guard of foreign mercenaries rendered it superfluous. If the political
adventurer who thus rose on the ruins of the constitution happened to be a man of sense, and wisdom, and generosity, his "tyranny" might prove a blessing to a state torn by the animosities of selfish oligarchs, and be the theme of praise in after-ages, as was the case with the "tyrannies" of Peisistratos (q.v.), Gelon (q.v.), Hiero II. (q.v.), and many others; but if he was insolent, rapacious, and cruel, then he sought to reduce the citizens to a worse than Egyptian bondage, and his name became infamous to all time. Such has been the fate of most of the "thirty tyrants of Athens" (q.v.), more particularly of the blood-thirsty Critias, of Alexander of Pheru, of Dionysius the younger, etc. It was the method of exercising authority pursued by these and similar usurpers that latterly, even in ancient times, gave the word tyrant that evil significance it has ever since uninterruptedly retained.—See Plasz, Die Tyrannis bei den drieehen (Bremen, 1852); Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alt.; vol. i. pp. 279-88; and the histories of Thirlwall and Grote.