Before Turannoi Were Tyrants: Rethinking a Chapter of Early Greek History

Abstract

Abstract According to classical and postclassical sources, the early Greekturannoi were, by definition, illegitimate rulers who overturned existing political arrangements and installed rogue monarchic regimes in their place. And on this one fundamental point at least, modern observers of archaicturannides seem to have little quarrel with their ancient informants. To this day, it remains axiomatic that Cypselus, Peisistratus, and the rest were autocrats who gained power by usurpation. Whatever their individual accomplishments, they were still, in a word, "tyrants." Relying mostly on evidence from the contemporary literary and material records, my paper aims to challenge this time-honored conventional wisdom and restore the firstturannoi to the political mainstream.