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.Aristotle already recognised the general principle: most of those who gained power themselves retained their control, butthose who took it over from others all, so to speak, lost it straight away (Pol.5.1312b21 3; and cf.1313a10).In the cities ofAsia Minor, the Persians ruled through tyrants, who thus overstayed their welcome for additional reasons.6 It did not helpthat, by soon after the mid-fifth century at the latest, Sparta s claim to predominance was partly supported by an assertionthat, never having suffered tyranny herself, she had freed other cities from it (Thuc.1.18.1); and a new phenomenon, late-fifth-and fourth-century tyranny, made it all too easy to suppose that Archaic tyranny was similar to contemporary examples.The aspects of tyranny which were later emphasised give little ground for identifying constructive achievement.Variousfeatures are already found in Solon.He associated tyranny with violence: fr.32 West has the pairing tyrannis and bieameilichos.That is how Herodotus took the story of the lopping off of heads and he emphasises (and probably exaggerates)the violence of both Cypselus and Periander (3.49.2 53; 5.92.±.1, ´.2 ·.5).An association between tyranny and wealth isfound in Archilochus (fr.19 West), and is further emphasised by Solon (fr.33): he imagines a critic who sneers at him for notgrasping his opportunity, If I had the power, I should wish to take great wealth (ploutos aphthonos) and be tyrant of Athensfor but one day, if I were then flayed alive and my family wiped out.A further feature of tyranny was never quite explicitly stated by Aristotle in the Politics, but is none the less for him adefining characteristic: it was outside the law.The assumption lies behind many passages;7 the absence of an explicitstatement is not so much reason for doubt about the connection as evidence for such certainty that Aristotle took it for granted and could assume his readers would too.Violence and the personal advantage (and the sexual appetites) of the tyrant are JOHN SALMON 33equally prominent; the extra two centuries of experience Aristotle could draw on enabled him to add numerous methods andexamples of repression and self-indulgence.8Violence, perks and lawlessness do not read well as part of a citation for a Nobel Prize, or even an Oscar, for politicaldevelopment, and at least some of these characteristics were associated with tyranny from a very early period; but we cannotautomatically attribute any of them to the early tyrants.It is not entirely clear that they were known as tyrants to theircontemporaries even to their enemies among them.One of the oracles preserved by Herodotus in his story of Cypselusaddresses him as basileus (5.92.³.2).The same tide was presumably used by Pheidon, since he was a king of the traditionalkind (Arist.Pol.5.1310b16 28): only later experience enabled Herodotus to label him as a tyrant (6.127.3).For Archilochus,the type of the tyrant was the Lydian Gyges (fr.19); and the Greek tyrant contemporaries of Solon were already of the secondor even third generation: Periander of Corinth and Cleisthenes of Sicyon.I do not wish to deny that contemporaries calledCypselus, the early Orthagorids and others tyrants, though I know of nothing to demonstrate that they did; but even if they did,the case of Pittacus shows how misleading the term could be.He was a tyrant to his enemy Alcaeus (fr.163 Lobel and Page=163 LGS).Aristotle, however, preferred the title of aisymnetes, precisely because he recognised that Pittacus was no tyrantaccording to the definition he knew.9 Pittacus was no more a tyrant in that sense than he was kakopatrides which Alcaeusalso called him in the same fragment.We can conclude nothing from a name, especially one which acquired its definition later, and which in any case was notnecessarily applied by contemporaries to the reality.The early tyrants must be assessed for what they did, not for what theywere later called.There are persistent indications, even in the later sources, of a favourable view of early tyrants which thestandard view could not eradicate.Herodotus preserved stories about Cypselus not to mention other tyrants which sit veryill with his own hostile attitude.10 Aristotle has a good deal of information, and even some theory, which run counter to hisstandard view [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.Aristotle already recognised the general principle: most of those who gained power themselves retained their control, butthose who took it over from others all, so to speak, lost it straight away (Pol.5.1312b21 3; and cf.1313a10).In the cities ofAsia Minor, the Persians ruled through tyrants, who thus overstayed their welcome for additional reasons.6 It did not helpthat, by soon after the mid-fifth century at the latest, Sparta s claim to predominance was partly supported by an assertionthat, never having suffered tyranny herself, she had freed other cities from it (Thuc.1.18.1); and a new phenomenon, late-fifth-and fourth-century tyranny, made it all too easy to suppose that Archaic tyranny was similar to contemporary examples.The aspects of tyranny which were later emphasised give little ground for identifying constructive achievement.Variousfeatures are already found in Solon.He associated tyranny with violence: fr.32 West has the pairing tyrannis and bieameilichos.That is how Herodotus took the story of the lopping off of heads and he emphasises (and probably exaggerates)the violence of both Cypselus and Periander (3.49.2 53; 5.92.±.1, ´.2 ·.5).An association between tyranny and wealth isfound in Archilochus (fr.19 West), and is further emphasised by Solon (fr.33): he imagines a critic who sneers at him for notgrasping his opportunity, If I had the power, I should wish to take great wealth (ploutos aphthonos) and be tyrant of Athensfor but one day, if I were then flayed alive and my family wiped out.A further feature of tyranny was never quite explicitly stated by Aristotle in the Politics, but is none the less for him adefining characteristic: it was outside the law.The assumption lies behind many passages;7 the absence of an explicitstatement is not so much reason for doubt about the connection as evidence for such certainty that Aristotle took it for granted and could assume his readers would too.Violence and the personal advantage (and the sexual appetites) of the tyrant are JOHN SALMON 33equally prominent; the extra two centuries of experience Aristotle could draw on enabled him to add numerous methods andexamples of repression and self-indulgence.8Violence, perks and lawlessness do not read well as part of a citation for a Nobel Prize, or even an Oscar, for politicaldevelopment, and at least some of these characteristics were associated with tyranny from a very early period; but we cannotautomatically attribute any of them to the early tyrants.It is not entirely clear that they were known as tyrants to theircontemporaries even to their enemies among them.One of the oracles preserved by Herodotus in his story of Cypselusaddresses him as basileus (5.92.³.2).The same tide was presumably used by Pheidon, since he was a king of the traditionalkind (Arist.Pol.5.1310b16 28): only later experience enabled Herodotus to label him as a tyrant (6.127.3).For Archilochus,the type of the tyrant was the Lydian Gyges (fr.19); and the Greek tyrant contemporaries of Solon were already of the secondor even third generation: Periander of Corinth and Cleisthenes of Sicyon.I do not wish to deny that contemporaries calledCypselus, the early Orthagorids and others tyrants, though I know of nothing to demonstrate that they did; but even if they did,the case of Pittacus shows how misleading the term could be.He was a tyrant to his enemy Alcaeus (fr.163 Lobel and Page=163 LGS).Aristotle, however, preferred the title of aisymnetes, precisely because he recognised that Pittacus was no tyrantaccording to the definition he knew.9 Pittacus was no more a tyrant in that sense than he was kakopatrides which Alcaeusalso called him in the same fragment.We can conclude nothing from a name, especially one which acquired its definition later, and which in any case was notnecessarily applied by contemporaries to the reality.The early tyrants must be assessed for what they did, not for what theywere later called.There are persistent indications, even in the later sources, of a favourable view of early tyrants which thestandard view could not eradicate.Herodotus preserved stories about Cypselus not to mention other tyrants which sit veryill with his own hostile attitude.10 Aristotle has a good deal of information, and even some theory, which run counter to hisstandard view [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]