Tyrants and Popular Support
As in the case of the Cypselid tyranny at Corinth, most tyrannies needed to cultivate
support among the masses of their city-states to remain in power because their armies
were composed primarily of non-aristocrats. The
dynasty of tyrants1 on the island of
Samos2 in the eastern Aegean Sea, for example, who came to power
about 540 B.C., built enormous public works to benefit their city-state and provide
employment. They began construction of a
temple to Hera3 meant to be the
largest in the Greek world, and they dramatically improved the water supply of their
urban center by excavating a great tunnel connected to a distant spring. This marvel of
engineering with a channel eight feet high ran for nearly a mile through a 900-foot high
mountain. The
later tyrannies that emerged in city-states on Sicily4 similarly graced their cities with beautiful temples and public buildings.
By working in the interests of their peoples, some tyrannies, like that founded by
Cypselus at Corinth, maintained their popularity for decades. Other tyrants experienced
bitter opposition from aristocrats jealous of the tyrant's power or provoked civil war
by ruling brutally and inequitably. The poet Alcaeus of the city-state of Mytilene on
the island of Lesbos in the northeastern Aegean, himself a rebellious aristocrat,
described such strife around 600 B.C.: “Let's forget our anger; let's quit our
heart-devouring strife and civil war, which some god has stirred up among us, ruining
the people but bestowing the glory on our tyrant for which he prays.” In
short, the title tyrant in Archaic Greece did not automatically label a
ruler as brutal or unwelcome, as the use of the same word in English implies. Greeks
evaluated tyrants as good or bad depending on their behavior as rulers.
