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Demos: The Men Who Made and Perfected Ancient Athenian Democracy

Khalid Elhassan January 13, 2025 16 min

Democracy - Ancient Athens — Ancient Athens. Imgur

17. The Rise of a Tyrant

A fictitious nineteenth century depiction of Pisistratus. Wikiart

When he returned from his travels, Solon discovered that Athens had divided into regional factions. One of them was controlled by Pisistratus, a popular general whom Solon suspected of intentions to overthrow the government and set himself up as tyrant. In Ancient Greece, “tyrant” did not carry modern connotations of brutal oppression. It had a narrower meaning of a populist strongman who, supported by commoners excluded from power by an aristocracy, overthrew an oligarchy and replaced it with his own one-man rule. Many tyrants were wildly popular – except with the aristocracy. Commoners had little power in the aristocratic system, so they were no worse off ruled by one tyrant than when they had been ruled by a clique of nobles. Moreover, with the power of aristocrats reduced, government under tyrants tended to be more equitable, rather than wildly skewed to benefit the nobles.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.