Tyrants
Discussion
On the historical, ‘populist’ role of the ‘Tyrants’
Via Deep Noetics:
“We can observe the rise of Hellenistic tyrants in the late 7th century BC. Tyrants, therefore, are the first rulers known to have passed laws to limit competitive luxury. The main reason was not that the costs of such luxury would be better diverted to public use for the community’s good. Luxury was divisive in the upper class and a threat, too, to the tyrant’s own pre-eminence. [...] After a particular outrage, a fellow aristocrat, perhaps a commander in war, could urge the citizenry to take up the new style of ‘hoplite’ arms, eject their most troublesome aristocrats and install himself as their ruler instead. He would stop faction, ‘set things to rights’ and preside over high society’s spiralling competition.”
- Robin Lane Fox. The Classical World (2008)