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A tyrant (from Ancient Greek τύραννος (túrannos) 'absolute ruler'), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to repressive means.
In Thomas Aquinas's commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Aquinas gave a defense not only of disobedience to an unjust authority, using as an example Christian martyrs in the Roman Empire, but also of "one who liberates his country by killing a tyrant." For Aquinas, "when what is ordered by an authority is opposed to the object for ...
Melas the Elder, 7th century BC, brother-in-law to king Gyges; Miletus, grandson of Melas, son-in-law of king Ardys; Pythagoras, son of Miletus, 6th century BC
Sic semper tyrannis is a Latin phrase meaning "thus always to tyrants".In contemporary parlance, it means tyrannical leaders will inevitably be overthrown. The phrase also suggests that bad but justified outcomes should, or eventually will, befall tyrants.
Socrates remained in the city through this period, which caused the public to associate him with the Thirty and may have contributed to his eventual death sentence, especially since Critias had been his student.
Hippias succeeded Peisistratos as tyrant of Athens in 528/7 BC when his father died of advanced age. He was a patron of poets and craftsmen and under his rule Athens experienced a time of prosperity. His brother Hipparchus , who may have ruled jointly with him, was murdered by Harmodius and Aristogeiton (the tyrannicides ) in 514 BC during the ...
Thinkers often emphasise the great responsibility in taking hold of the right to revolution. Aquinas believed that would-be revolutionaries held no right to rebel against a tyrant if "the tyrant's rule be disturbed so inordinantly that his subjects suffer greater harm from the consequent disturbance than from the tyrant's government". [44]
Portrait from Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum (1553) by Guillaume Rouillé. Dionysius I or Dionysius the Elder (c. 432 – 367 BC) was a Greek tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily.He conquered several cities in Sicily and southern Italy, opposed Carthage's influence in Sicily and made Syracuse the most powerful of the Western Greek colonies.