Tyrant: Did you mean...?

Bust of Pisistratus, Roman plaster cast of original 5th-century Greek marble statue. While there is dispute about the exact figure depicted by this bust, its likeness has been attributed to Pisistratus (c. 600-527 BCE), the populist tyrant...

Pisistratus (circa 600-527 BCE), or Peisistratus, was an ancient Greek tyrant who ruled the city-state of Athens. Initially a student of the lawgiver and political philosopher Solon, Pisistratus presented himself as the champion of the poor...

Tyrannies existed across the Greek world from the city-states to the islands of Sicily and Samos. Most historians date the Great Age of Greek Tyranny from 750 to 500 BCE, ending with the ousting of Hippias; however, some authors extend the...

Gela (Greek: Ghéla), in southern Sicily, was a Greek colony founded c. 689 BCE and it remained an important cultural centre throughout antiquity. Prospering on trade and expanding its territory, the city-state founded Agrigento. In the 5th...

Periander was the second tyrant of Corinth (d. c. 587 BCE); Diogenes Laertius only mentions that he was eighty when he died, meaning that he was probably born c. 667 BCE. His father Cypselus (r. 657-627 BCE), from whom the short-lived Cypselid...

Polycrates (r. c. 535-522 BCE) was the tyrant of Samos who established Samian naval supremacy in the eastern Aegean and strove for control of the Aegean Sea and mainland towns of Ionia in the 6th century BCE. Polycrates had a successful career...

Agathocles of Syracuse (c. 361 - 289 BCE) ruled as tyrant of the Sicilian city for over 25 years. Ambitious, unprincipled, and seeing himself as a new Alexander, he famously attacked Carthage in a three-year campaign and made conquests in...

Timoleon (c. 411 - c. 337 BCE) was a Corinthian statesman and general who famously defeated the tyrant of Syracuse Dionysius II and an army of Carthage against the odds. Permanently settling on the island, he re-organized the governments...

The Thirty Tyrants (οἱ τριάκοντα τύραννοι) is a term first used by Polycrates in a speech praising Thrasybulus (Arist. Rhet. 1401a) to describe the brief 8-month oligarchy which governed Athens after the Peloponnesian War – roughly late-summer...

The Old Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2613-2181 BCE) is also known as the 'Age of the Pyramids' or 'Age of the Pyramid Builders' as it includes the great 4th Dynasty when King Sneferu perfected the art of pyramid building and the pyramids of Giza...