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The Top Benevolent and Malevolent Dictators From History

Khalid Elhassan November 30, 2020 32 min

Augustus - Ancient Rome — 'The Emperor Augustus Rebukes Cornelius Cinna for His Treachery', by Etienne Jean Delecluze, 1814 - Augustus pardoned Cinna and gave him a government job. Van Go Yourself

29. Cincinnatus Became Antiquity’s Iconic Good Dictator

Cincinnatus at his farm when Rome’s emissaries arrived to inform him that he had been appointed dictator. Encyclopedia Britannica

When a delegation arrived to inform Cincinnatus that he had been appointed dictator, they found him toiling in his farm. Whatever hard feelings he might have harbored towards his countrymen over the vitriol directed his way, and the fine that had ruined him financially, Cincinnatus put those sentiments aside in his country’s hour of need.

He put aside the plow and took up the sword, and led the Romans to a swift victory. He then promptly resigned from the dictatorship and went back to laboring on his small farm. Cincinnatus was appointed dictator again in 439 BC, when Rome was threatened with an internal conspiracy. He put it down, then once more laid down his power as soon as the crisis was over, and returned to his farm.

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.