Title: tyrant | Definition & Facts | Britannica
Headings: Tyrant
Tyrant
ancient Greece

Content: his brother and successor, Hieron, patron of Pindar and others, won a celebrated victory over the Etruscans at Cumae in 474. In 405 Dionysius I of Syracuse, the most powerful of all tyrants, first established his rule during the crisis of another Carthaginian invasion. In the Hellenistic period some tyrants rested their power on class feeling; others were foreign nominees, such as the tyrants supported by the Macedonian kings in the Peloponnese in the 3rd century. The phenomenon continued as long as Greece was free. The great tyrants were notable patrons of the arts and conspicuous builders. They often aided in the transition from narrow aristocracy to more-democratic constitutions, but the Greeks in principle chafed under their illegal autocracy. Tyranny thus early acquired a bad name, and tyrannicides such as Harmodius and Aristogiton, who killed the tyrant Hippias’s brother and possible coruler Hipparchus at Athens, received the highest honours. Harmodius and Aristogeiton
Harmodius and Aristogeiton murdering Hipparchus, the brother of Hippias, tyrant of Athens. INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen, Corrections Manager.