Title: The Classical Definition of a Tyrant
Headings: The Classical Definition of a Tyrant
The Classical Definition of a Tyrant
Aristotle and Tyrants
Kings vs. Tyrants

Content: The Classical Definition of a Tyrant
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The Classical Definition of a Tyrant
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By
N.S. Gill
Ancient History and Latin Expert
M.A., Linguistics, University of Minnesota
B.A., Latin, University of Minnesota
our editorial process
N.S. Gill
Updated September 03, 2018
A tyrant—also known as a basileus or king—in ancient Greece meant something different from our modern concept of a tyrant as simply a cruel and oppressive despot. A tyrant was little more than an autocrat or leader who had overturned an existing regime of a Greek polis and was, therefore, an illegitimate ruler, a usurper. They even had some measure of popular support, according to Aristotle. " Before Turannoi Were Tyrants: Rethinking a Chapter of Early Greek History," by Greg Anderson, suggests that because of this confusion with modern tyranny, the perfectly good Greek word should be removed from scholarship on early Greece. Peisistratus (Pisistratus) was one of the most famous of the Athenian tyrants. It was after the fall of the sons of Peisistratus that Cleisthenes and democracy came to Athens . Aristotle and Tyrants
In his article, "The First Tyrants in Greece," Robert Drews paraphrases Aristotle as saying that the tyrant was a degenerate type of monarch who came to power because of how insufferable the aristocracy was. The people of the demos, fed up, found a tyrant to champion them. Drews adds that the tyrant himself had to be ambitious, possessing the Greek concept of philotimia, which he describes as ​the desire for power and prestige.