TYRANT ( Lat. tyrannus, from Gk. rt/parrae, master, sovereign, connected with Skt. turanyu, pressing forward, tar, fur, to pass through, lab. turcti, to have). A Hanle given in modern times to an arbitrary and oppressive ruler, but by the ancient Greeks applied not necessarily to one that exercised power badly, but merely to one that obtained it illegally, or to one who held the sovereignty originally established by usurpa tion. While tyrants appear sporadically at all periods in Greek history, they were especially nu merous during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., when it was not difficult for an ambitious and unscrupulous man, often a noble, to appear as a leader of the populace and by its aid secure power. Often a violent seizure of the power was welcomed as affording relief from present evils. In other cases the 'tyrant' of the nobles was a lawgiver to the demos. These early tyrants seem usually to have ruled generously toward the poorer classes, but toward other nobles they were naturally suspicious and frequently stern and cruel. While there are eases in which ancient testimony declares the `tyrant' a true tyrant in the modern sense, the greater number of these men seem to have aimed at a just rule, and the glory and prosperity of their States, and were fre quently the patrons of literature and the fine arts.
This is especially noticeable in the Sicilian tyrants of the fifth century B.C. After the Persian Wars, the development of democracy and the rise of Athens led to the passing away of this form of government, to revive with the general weakening of the Greek States, This later period of tyranny, which begins in the fourth century B.C., is not marked by so wide an extension of the evil, but, on the other hand, a few of the possessors of the power are men of extraordinary ability, who, having proved capable of restoring or reselling an enfeebled State, have seized or been given the supreme control. Such were Dionysius I. of Syracuse and Jason of Pherte. In general this second series of tryants were more cruel and arbitrary than the earlier generation. The Thirty Tyrants of Athens were only an oligarchical board established in the interest of Sparta in n.c. 404. and owed the name 'Tyrants' to later writers, their contemporaries referring to them as 'The Thirty.' Consult: Plass, Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen (Bremen, 1852) ; Zeller, Ucher den Bcprilf der Tyrannis, bci den Griechen (Berlin, 1887) : Sao mann-Lipsius, Grieehische A Itertlairacr (4th ed., ib., 1897).