Title: Tyranny - Greek tyrants | Britannica
Headings: Greek
tyrants

Greek tyrants
Tyranny in Rome
Tyranny and the people
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Content: He chose to lay down the role and returned to private life, but his example was noted by Julius Caesar. In 46 bce Caesar also took an army into Italy and was made dictator—first for 10 years and then, in 44, for life. That made him effectively a king, superior to all other magistrates and not subject to their veto or appeal, and in that context the idea of tyranny began to be discussed by historians and philosophers. Thinkers such as Cicero adopted the language of Greek tyranny to describe Caesar’s position and debated the moral justification for tyrannicide. The assassins of Caesar presented themselves as overthrowing a tyranny, but the removal of one man could not prevent the drift to monarchic power in Rome, and Caesar’s heir Augustus took control as the first emperor. At several points under the early emperors, conspiracies were formed to remove the ruler and restore the republic on the grounds that the imperial power was unconstitutional and therefore illegal, but they failed owing to lack of support by the people (who strongly favoured monarchic rule) and the individual ambitions of the conspirators. Soon imperial rule was established as constitutional, and the language of tyranny again became ethical in application rather than political. Accusations of tyranny came to refer to the quality of rule rather than its legitimacy: an emperor who abused his power or used it for personal ends was seen as despotic, although it took a brave man to say so in public. Tyranny and the people
The most-significant change in the conception of tyranny from the ancient world to the modern lies in the role of the people under a tyrant.