27. In Ancient Greece, Being a Tyrant Was Not Always a Bad Thing
The words dictator and tyrant are often used interchangeably. However, in ancient Greece, while a tyrant was like a Roman dictator in that he exercised one-man rule with few checks on his power, the tyrant’s term was open-ended, and lasted for as long as he could hold on to power. Also, to contemporary Greeks – at least initially – the word “tyrant” did not carry the modern connotations of brutal oppression. It had instead a narrower meaning of a populist strongman who, with a support base of commoners excluded from power by an aristocracy, overthrew an oligarchy and replaced it with his own one-man rule.
Many ancient Greek tyrants were wildly popular – except with the aristocracy. Commoners had little power in the aristocratic system, so they were no worse off if ruled by one tyrant than when they had been ruled by a small clique of nobles. Also, with the power of an overbearing aristocracy reduced, government under tyrants tended to be more fair, rather than wildly favoring the nobles.
