First Published in 1956 The Greek Tyrants is concerned primarily with an early period of Greek history, when the aristocracies which ruled in the eighth and seventh centuries were losing control of their cities and were very often overthrown by a tyranny, which in its turn gave way to the oligarchies and democracies of the classical period. The tyrants who seized power from time to time in various cities of Greece are analogous to the dictators of our own day and represented for the Greeks a political problem which is still topical: whether it is ever advantageous for a State to concentrate power in the hands of an individual.
Those early tyrannies are an important phase of Greek political development: the author discusses here the various military, economic, political, and social factors of the situation which produce them. The book thus forms an introduction to the central period of Greek political history and will be of interest to scholars and researchers of political thought, ancient history, and Greek philosophy.
1. The Background of Tyranny 2. The Word Tyrant 3 The Military Factor: Pheidon of Argos 4. The Overthrow of an Aristocracy at Corinth 5. The Racial Factor: Cleisthenes and Others 6. The Spartan Alternative to Tyranny 7. The Economic Factor: Solon of Athens 8. Aristocratic Disorder at Mytilene 9. Peisistratus and the Consolidation of Attica 10. The Threat of Persian Conquest 11. Military Monarchy in Sicily 12. Epilogue Bibliography Notes Index Selected List of Books Available in this Series
Biography
A. Andrews
