The word tyrant ( "tuparros", in Greek) often makes people think of cruel, overbearing and unreasonable leaders. Perhaps someone who does not respect the people that he rules. However, this was not always the case in Ancient Greece.

A tyrant was a word, not for a mean person necessarily,but for a ruler how is a little similar to a dictator in that there was no consensus of the populace concerning him coming into power, but that is where the similarity ends between a tyrant and a dictator. A tyrant is a person who came into rule through independent means of force rather than election. It was the tyrant who gave himself absolute power. How fairly the tyrant used his new power depended on his character. Though not all tyrants were bad leaders, many of them were bad enough to give tyrants the bad reputation they have today.

More often than not, tyrants came from very wealthy aristocratic families. This means that they had been brought up with a real intersection the government and how it worked. Many of the tyrants of Ancient Greece took over the government because they recognized how unstable their existing it was and wanted to change it. This occurred sometimes for the good of the people and sometimes for they personal gain of the tyrant.

One may wonder if all the people objected to the rule of the tyrant. More often than not, the poor were large supporters to the tyrants, as the tyrants made many promises to the lower class in order to gain their approval and favor. Some of the promises that the tyrants made were: the cancellation of debts, ending debt bondage ( a form of slavery) and the redistribution of land. It was because of this that the rich people ( the upper class) did not like the tyrants; this is one reason that we think of this word as meaning something bad today.

Many good things came from tyranny, for example military techniques and strategy were at an all time high. Also many of the Greek tyrants were great supporters of art, literature and building beautiful and historic buildings and monuments that still stand today. Tyranny also focussed on equal living among the overall community and encouraged trade with other countries, which in turn, helped to raise the standard of living.

Tyrants were not the only leaders in ancient Greece. At different times there were also monarchies (kings led), aristocracies (the oldest families led), oligarchies (the richest families led), and democracies (kind of like ours).

Sparta had a kind of government all its own, a special kind of monarchy. To learn about how the Spartans did things, click here.

It is important that we examine the other forms of government that are mentioned above. Then I will talk about two city-states that had tyrants, Corinth and Athens. They are good examples of what tyrannies were and how they began and ended. And then we shall look at the Greek tyrants of Sicily.