History

Positive Aspects of Tyrant Rule in Greek States

The world tyranny ' has an extremely negative meaning in our language However , in Ancient Greece a tyrant was simply a ruler elected by public consent and exercising very broad powers . A tyrant was good for Greeks until he cared of public wellbeing and bad in case he did not

In the light of this , the Greeks were not particularly concerned with the broad powers of a tyrant as such , they would become concerned in case a tyrant would misuse his powers . Such misuse could take

a form of both overuse of powers resulting in harsh and bloody ruling and tyrant 's failure to use his powers for the common good . Greeks hardly imagined the idea of human rights of one man . They were rather interested in the general right of the community to survive and prosper that had to be secured by a tyrant

The positive aspects of tyranny for the Greeks were the following : 1 Centralization of power 2 ) extinction of civil conflicts between tribes and clans when numerous chiefs were replaced with one tyrant 3 effective organization of political , economic and social life when common efforts became directed by the will of one tyrant 4 ) protection against external attacks provided by armies that were now under centralized command . It can thus be observed that tyranny did play a positive role at a certain stage of development in Ancient Greece when old tribal relations were ruined and the idea of democracy...