Tyranny In Ancient Greece

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Few Archaic Greek poleis avoided the phenomenon of one-man rule that superseded the previously prevalent oligarchical system. The emergence of this specific form of autocratic control has fostered much historical debate about which conditions led to and sustained it. Despite the use of the word specific, it is important to acknowledge that our understanding of tyranny is complex, and evidence is limited. In an attempt to resolve this, the impact of continuous elite class conflict will be first investigated, then turning to the argument that the polis did not in fact seek to prevent tyrannical rule during the archaic period. First, it can be considered that the typical composition of aristocratic rule in an early archaic polis provided a prime …show more content…
This was typically achieved by exiling (a degree of power likely already needed for this) or even killing others off. Anderson offers a particularly useful comparison between archaic and classical tyrants, noting how forcefully overcoming challenging families was typical as rising tyrants did not have to “[subvert] decades of popular government” as they did in the classical era. Violent political confrontations between elites and their families in a competition for power was common. However, as Greece was a violent place at this time it is not surprising that this cultural norm was also in …show more content…
If the rich were exploiting the poor in what Foxhall describes as an agrarian crisis, the farmers/poor would be agitated and therefore likely to support someone in over-turning aristocracy and creating new laws such as land redistribution. This contradicts Anderson (also lacking on acknowledging the oppression of the poor) who boldly suggests that tyrants cannot be qualitatively distinguished as a group from “normal” archaic leaders, and that they were never actually regimes that brought down aristocratic rule at all. This leads to the question of the role which class struggle played. For the purpose of answering this, it must first be considered if conscious homogenous classes existed during this time. Raflauub has validity in advocating that the rising middle ‘hoplite’ class was not conscious of their identity as a group. Without this it is not plausible that they collectively fought as farmer warriors supporting a specific tyrant. Therefore, tyrannies arose from conflict in aristocracy, not from hoplite army upheaval. It does not, however, mean that non-elite support was non-existent. Indeed, aspiring tyrants may have used the support of the people to turn against their fellow aristocrats. Rose’s approach, as a Marxist, applies modern concepts to this which is, to a degree, ineffective because people did not identify with class the same as they do in modern and
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