The following is an excerpt from a chapter in my upcoming book on Thucydides.
In [Thucydides] chapters 1.13-1.17, we take our first step out of the age of myth and into the age of the historical Greeks. With just a few paragraphs, Thucydides glides over another large span of time from about 800 B.C to 500 B.C. During this vital period of progress for the Greeks there is much to discuss, but Thucydides directs our attention to tyrants and navies. These were the political and military developments that contributed most to the accumulation of wealth, power, and daring among the historical Greeks during this early period before the Persian Wars. Typically, I have been providing commentary one chapter at a time, but given the continuity of themes throughout these five chapters, I will present the entire wall of Thucydides’ text immediately below and thereafter address the entire section as a single unity:
[1.13] But as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth became more an objective, the revenues of the states increasing, tyrannies were established almost everywhere – the old form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite prerogatives – and Hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself more closely to the sea. [2] It is said that the Corinthians were the first to approach the modern style of naval architecture, and that Corinth was the first place in Hellas where triremes were built; [3] and we have Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright, making four ships for the Samians. Dating from the end of this war, it is nearly three hundred years ago that Ameinocles went to Samos. [4] Again, the earliest sea fight in history was between the Cornthians and Corcyraeans; this was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from the same time. [5] Planted on an isthmus, Corinth had always been a commercial emporium; as formerly almost all communication between the Hellenes within and without the Peloponnesus was carried on overland, and the Corinthians territory was the highway through which it traveled. She had consequently great money resources, as is shown by the epithet “wealthy” bestowed by the old poets on the place, and this enabled her, when traffic by sea became more common, the procure her navy and put down piracy; and as she could offer a market for both branches of the trade, she acquired for herself all the power which a large revenue affords. [6] Subsequently the Ionians attained to great naval strength in the reign of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of his son Cambyses, and while they were at war with the former commanded for a while the seas around Ionia. Polycrates also, the tyrant of Samos, had a powerful navy in the reign of Cambyses with which he reduced many of the islands, and among them Rhenea, which he consecrated to the Delian Apollo. About this time also the Phocaeans, while they were founding Marseilles, defeated the Carthaginians in the sea fight.
[1.14] These were the most powerful navies. And even these, although so many generations had elapsed since the Trojan war, seem to have been principally composed of the old fifty-oars and long boats, and to have counted few triremes among their ranks. [2] Indeed it was only shortly before the Persian war and the death of Darius the successor of Cambyses, that the Sicilian tyrants and the Corcyraeans acquired any large number of triremes. For after these there were no navies of any account in Hellas till the expedition of Xerxes; [3] Aegina, Athens, and others may have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally fifty-oars. It was quite at the end of this period that the war with Aegina and the prospect of the barbarian invasion enabled Themistocles to persuade the Athenians to build the fleet with which they fought at Salamis; and even these vessels had not complete decks.
[1.15] The navies, then, of the Hellenes, during the period we have traversed were what I have described. All their insignificance did not prevent their being an element of the greatest power to those who cultivated them, alike in revenue and in domination. They were the means by which the islands were reached and reduced, those of the smallest area falling the easiest prey. [2] Wars by land there were none, none at least by which power was acquired; we have the usual border contests, but of distant expeditions with conquest the object we hear nothing among the Hellenes. There was no union of subject cities round a great state, no spontaneous combination of equals for confederate expeditions; what fighting there was consisted merely of local warfare between rival neighbors. [3] The nearest approached to a coalition took place in the old war between Chalcis and Eretria; this was a quarrel in which the rest of the Hellenic world did to some extent take sides.
[1.16] Various, too, were the obstacles which the national growth encountered in various localities. The power of the Ionians was advancing with rapid strides, when it came into collision with Persia, under King Cyrus, who, after having dethroned Croesus and overrun everything between the Halys and the sea, stopped not till he had reduced the cities of the coast; the islands only being left to be subdued by Darius and the Phoenician navy.
[1.17] Again, wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing simply for themselves, of looking solely to their personal comfort and family aggrandizement, made safety the great aim of their policy, and prevented anything great proceeding from them; though they would each have their affairs with their immediate neighbors. All this is only true of the mother country, for in Sicily they attained to very great power. Thus for a long time everywhere in Hellas do we find causes which make the states alike incapable of combination for great and national ends, or of any vigorous action of their own.
The first notable theme in the above passage is regime change, and there is some confusion in the story that Thucydides presents. Hereditary monarchy was in fact the form of government that existed in the time Homer’s heroes or the late Mycenean Bronze Age; however, our historian draws a straight line from the hereditary monarchies of this prior age to the tyrannies that started popping up in Greece around the middle of the seventh century. This passes over the fact that the tyrannies were preceded by a long and extremely formative period of aristocratic rule. By the time the Greeks emerged out from the Dark Age in 800 BC, the old kings had mostly been displaced by noble ruling families. Argos stands out as it was ruled by kings up until the middle of the seventh century, but the Spartans were the most famous exception as their monarchical form of government survived into the Hellenistic period. The monarchy of classical Sparta however does not provide a good example of the kind of government practiced in heroic or Mycenean times. Sparta famously had two kings and this unique diarchy (the source of which was actually a remnant of the old Return of the Heracleidae legend) was just one element of a larger mixed government that evolved over the centuries as the grand strategy of the Spartan regime adapted to both internal and external exigencies.
Barring these few exceptions to the rule, Greek history essentially begins with established aristocratic ruling elements dominating the political and military life of the early city-states. And it was precisely in this period of early aristocratic rule that the Janus-faced ideals of the Greeks – which simultaneously honored the older Homeric ideal of personal arete, emphasizing the individual’s prowess in battle and ability to provide wise councils, while embracing the new communal morality that grew up alongside the political notion of citizenship – crystalized into the culture that informed all future Western conceptions of culture. It is important that we do not misunderstand the particular culture of Greece by thinking about the word in its basic anthropological sense. Every race or nation possess culture insofar as we consider their own language, religion, artistic expression, and traditions as components of culture, but the Greeks were the first to achieve culture in a greater humanistic sense. For them, culture was born out of an ideal of human perfection which was consciously pursued and rooted in a logical perception of nature. The ever-present aim of culture was to mold man into what was best and most beautiful, or in short – the creation of a higher caliber of man. The great German historian Werner Jaeger helps us see how the unique culture of the Greeks was a kind of active work where both the outer and inner man was deliberately produced by a conscious process of selection and discipline:
The nobility is the prime mover in forming a nation’s culture. The history of Greek culture — that universally important aspect of the formation of the Greek national character — actually begins in the aristocratic world of early Greece, with the creation of a definite ideal of human perfection, an ideal towards which the elite of the race was constantly trained.
To connect back to Thucydides’ earlier mention of tyrants, all we can deduce is that sometime in the seventh century, the aristocracies of the early city-states faced a general crisis. In short, the sociological basis for their political rule and higher conception of culture began to face pressure from progressive historical forces. A serviceable comparison might be drawn from the crisis of nineteenth century Europe where the political and cultural influence of “Old Europe” began to crumble against “modernity” and the pressures of democratization, industrialization, and nationalism. For the Greeks of early antiquity, the regime change from aristocratic rule to tyrannical rule was largely driven by economic pressures. As sea exploration, trade, and colonization opened the door to ambitious adventure seekers, a new class of wealthy, prominent, and capable men began to rise amidst the declension and disintegration of the aristocrats.
The wealth of the aristocracy was comprised of several key components: their ownership of the land, social prestige gained by their superior ability to lead their cities in both politics and war, their cultural education, and finally their blood. The reactionary poet Theognis of Megara helps paint a picture of how the aristocracies became thoroughly impoverished. Many noble families simply could not keep up with the nouveau riche and were reduced to literal poverty while others succumbed to greed, corruption, and degenerated morally to the point where their claim to superior arete was no longer self-evident to the rest of society. One particularly ugly example of the aristocrats diminishing their own luster was the practice of debt slavery where they effectively reduced a significant portion of their fellow countrymen to groveling serfs. In many city-states, this caused a simple yet ruinous rich versus poor partisan dynamic to develop that severely disrupted political life and poisoned the ideals of harmony, justice, and ultimately glory that aristocratic leadership was expected to yield. Discontent aristocrats could even take advantage of this new social divide to position themselves as shining champions of the people’s rising demands for economic relief and greater political equality. Most importantly, Theognis reports how disciplined breeding largely fell by the wayside. Instead of being cemented by the endearment of beautiful children and every other instance of love and friendship, marriages were often manufactured with low and venal views. For striver aristocrats sliding down the social ladder, mercenary marriages were a form of insurance against poverty and political irrelevance. In total, by the middle of the sixth century the aristocracy was losing their vital essence. They had become bad aristoi who could no longer preserve their rule and lead their cities well. Thus, the door had been thrown open for tyrants to takeover.
Regarding the characteristics of tyrannical rule, the Greeks differ from us moderns in that they did not hold tyrants to be metaphysical manifestations of evil. Tyranny was both a logical and natural phenomenon. First, if the ship that is the state is piloted poorly and veers off course justice demands, above everything else, that the state be moved back on course. To this supreme end, a tyrant may become necessary. Second, wherever the best men do not rule everything becomes fake, crooked, and monstrous; thus, as a general principle, the best men must rule. If a supremely talented man exists, and the current political arrangements work to deny this man command, how can he be justified in watching his state suffer under the rule of lesser men if the means to seize power are within reach? The Greeks maintained a nuanced relationship with tyranny because general distaste for it was not spurred on by popular protests against the trampling of constitutional laws, for such sacral legalisms (outside of Sparta) were still taking form and did not yet exist; instead, opposition came from above and was fueled by the aristocrats and their own agonal drive to rule. Every noble man wanted their share of that higher species of prestige and glory which could only be attained by commanding the political and military affairs of a city and ruling its people.
We cannot know for certain, but Cypselus of Corinth is often credited as being the first Greek tyrant. He married into the Bacchiadae clan which had ruled Corinth since the expulsion of the early kings. Sometime around 650, the Corinthians had become dissatisfied with the performance of their aristocratic rulers. Cypselus, who was a military commander at the time, used his influence to seize control of the state and subsequently expelled the Bacchiadae. These aristocratic émigrés fled across the Mediterranean to other Doric states like Sparta or existing Corinthian colonies like Corcyra and Syracuse. Perhaps the most interesting exile was one Demartus who made his way to Italy and established a new dynastic line amongst the Etruscans. His descendants lorded over the Romans until their far-famed republic rose in 509. Incredible stories about the scattered Bacchiadae aside, all the ancient sources point to Cypselus being a new kind of energetic ruler who was very much interested in spurring on economic growth and colonial expansion, but it was in this principal regard that Cypselus would be eclipsed by his son Periander who turned Corinth into a real powerhouse.
The ancient sources have different interpretations of this tyrannical father-son duo, and they tend to dwell on the moral qualities of their rule. In a speech where Herodotus has one character opining against tyranny, the real difference between Cypselus and Periander was only said to be a matter of degree. Both tyrants exhibited all those negative qualities that Herodotus’ contemporaries would certainly have associated with tyrannical rule, but Periander in particular was infamous for becoming more bloodthirsty over time. Aristotle, in order to a develop a contrast between the two, frames Cypselus as a milder ruler whose popularity among the Corinthians secured him against the need of maintaining an armed bodyguard. Nevertheless, all this later moralizing on the subject of tyranny should be superseded by the odd factoid that Periander was commonly regarded as one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Nietzsche once quipped that while other nations had saints the Greeks had their sages, and this distinction provides a foundational lens into understanding the valuations of the ancient Greeks and their cultural ideals. Sages were regarded for their practical wisdom and influence, not their moral perfection. Periander achieved political stability by means of force, he built up and beautified his city, grew its navy and military power, conquered the neighboring city of Epidaurus, established new colonies, and constructed the famed diolkos which was a paved track for ships and supplies to travel overland between the Corinthian and Saronic gulfs. Similar to Solon, who was also regarded as one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Periander’s exploits have an undeniable stateman-like quality to them, but the unique greatness of Periander lies in the fact that he increased the power of Corinth in a very real and tangible, or Thucydidean, sense. (Solon was also a practical man who intervened to solve immediate political problems for Athens, but he also planted in the minds of his countrymen ideals for a new political morality that shaped their future character).
The tyrants of ancient Greece were exceedingly mindful of the fact that they achieved power through unconventional and often violent means. To guaranty the security of their precarious rule, circumstances helped steer them into becoming practical rulers who delivered concrete results. Traditionally, tyrants usurped power from the ruling aristocracy, so cliques of vengeful and always scheming nobles were their natural enemies. The tyrants would hedge against these natural enemies and stabilize their rule by usually preserving the aristocratic form of government that the city was already accustomed to. The traditional mechanisms for administering the polis, like its councils, courts, and military organization remained intact to project legitimacy, and the aristocrats who gave fealty to the tyrant became the obvious candidates to fill those offices. A tyrant’s base of support during this early period was always popular, so they typically did not have to worry about spontaneous convulsions from below. If disturbances from this quarter ever flared up, they were spurred on and led by aristocrats. When needed, the tyrants could protect themselves against their aristocratic rivals through more direct means like murder and exile. If there was a particularly devious clique of aristocrats trying to scheme against a popular tyrant, measured cruelties could be carefully applied without stirring the broader public into revolt.
Upon these reflections in might be appropriate to posit that success and good governance, not fear and force, formed the real ballast at the center of these ancient tyrannical regimes. The tyrants ushered in a period of rapid societal progress that brought the interests of both the many and the few together under their dominion. When commerce is bustling and everyone is becoming better off, and when the city is growing stronger, more orderly, and ultimately more beautiful, complaints against the tyrant’s unconventional form of rule will lose their salience. The tyrants made it easier for people to enjoy life and feel a simple yet effective pride in their obligations to religion, the state, and culture. Overall, compared to the slow and conservative nature of the older aristocratic regimes, the security of a tyrant’s rule was in his motion, action, and the wise application of this energy. The tyrants had to restlessly expend and expand; there was, at this time, a kind of practical vision and daring within the tyrants that could not be matched by declining aristocrats.
A whole series of books could be dedicated to the subject of tyranny and how it relates to the historical development of the Greeks. However, distilled to its finest point, we can say that it arose naturally as a political reaction to the general decline in the power of traditional aristocracies. In this way, tyranny itself became a progressive historical force for the Greeks, but as with all such forces of this kind, progress should not be measured as a linear function of mere chronology, technological improvement, or material well-being; rather, progress must be understood in terms of tradeoffs since advancement in one area always comes at the expense of another. The tyrants were able to rapidly advance their cities in terms of both wealth and power, but their brief period of rule broke the political supremacy of the old aristocracies to a point in which they would never recover. At the dawn of the fifth century, once the political landscape on the Greek mainland had been resettled after the dazzling age of tyrants had concluded, “the few” within a Greek polis were now mere oligarchs whose stubborn conservatism never strayed too far from their monied interests instead of true aristocrats that prized above all else traditional arete. Thus “the few” were reduced to a political faction who could only conceive of politics and the state in a purely Thucydidean sense. The old ideal of organizing the state for culture – to cultivate human excellence through a deliberate program of education and breeding – was blown away by the tumult of the fifth century, and even if “the few” wanted to renew this old ideal in some form, they could not afford to cede any ground to “the many” who also conceived of politics through the same Thucydidean lens but just represented the immeidate interests of a broader section of society. Across Thucydides’ history, it is only through Athens and Sparta and the few careful glimpses the historian exposes of their higher ideals amidst their disintegration that lifts students above the simple material motives for increased wealth and power and toward some contemplation of the ultimate goal. With the Peloponnesian War ending as it did, movement toward this next cultural and civilizational progression and knowledge of its secret pathways were, after several failed coups that aimed for some degree of restoration, condemned to the “thinkeries” of fourth century philosophers; and there, far above in the clouds, it has long since remained, rarely disturbed, and still waiting to be pulled down and resumed in earnest.
The costs of measuring greatness through the measures of wealth and power are evident when the apparent advantages of tyrannical rule are peeled back and its limitations exposed. The ideal a tyrant sets, as a supremely able man who seizes power to solve political problems and pursues practical policies that increase the might of his city, is invariably limited by the realities involved in the maintenance of his security. Managing a successful tyrannical regime is not as simple as mechanically balancing various interests on a neat ledger. The tyrants of ancient Greece existed in a hot house of agonal energy with equally cunning rivals ready to pounce at the first sign of weakness; they did not have the luxury of contending against modern domesticated masses and today’s impotent oligarchs like Jeff Bezos who are far more concerned with “fitting in” with our society’s culturally fraudulent elite and “just being a decent human being” instead of clenching his fist and furrowing his brow over who is ruling the state. A tyrant had to dedicate immense energy and attention to maintaining his fragile social pact, and between all the bribery, coercion, and persistent need for surveillance, there was little time for succession planning. The apparent cost of this style of rule was that it never lasted very long as most tyrannies flared out in a single generation without cementing an enduring dynasty. The real cost of tyrannical rule and the great burden of its exhausting upkeep however was the suspension of a people’s cultural horizon in the most inward and fundamental sense. What does this mean?
In those rare moments of potential crystallization, where one supremely able man finds himself at the head of a state, a tyrant will never transcend into an educator and have the pure cultural effect that only a great poet or lawgiver can impart upon a people. The tyrant can make excellent use of his special opportunity to solve political problems and carry his city’s inhabitants to greater wealth and power, but he cannot educate them toward a greater ideal both as individuals and as citizens. It is precisely the lack of this educative element that makes tyrannical regimes culturally shallow as the tyrant cannot mold a people in the ways a great people must be molded. Tyrants can ape culture, further embellishing and extending its enjoyment in the many forms in which it already exits, but they cannot generate it and stir the souls of their countrymen in new ways that reveal the true horizons of their historical destiny. It is interesting to observe that no matter what a tyrant achieves externally in terms of culture, their eventual overthrow usually produces a more powerful effect in shaping the inward character of a people – Harmodius and Aristogeiton send their regards.
With a tyrannical regime, the tyrant becomes the ideal; thus, his educative or cultural power is limited by the imperfections of his own image, and what people see in the life of a tyrant is invariably a mixed bag. On the one hand, they are awestruck by this talented political leader and brilliant generalissimo; on the other, they see a man desperately holding on. Tyrants have a kind of fastidious anxiety about them as they navigate the day-to-day uncertainty of their rule, and an obvious neurosis radiates around their whole being. In this retarded state, where the leap to lawgiver or great educator is never made, no internal spring develops within the broader public where they overcome the ephemeral creatures they once were and begin to unify and transfigure themselves into something more. Amidst whatever momentary increase a people gain in material comfort or feel in the sense of their city’s power, they are always culturally hamstrung by an insecure sense that their tyrants are only serving as steppingstones. This point against the limitations of tyrants should not be misunderstood however as some kind of triumph over their importance. Tyrants share a kinship to Nietzsche’s Cyclopes of Culture; the uncertainty of their rule suspends the cultural development and historical destiny of a people as nobody knows if they are being led toward new beginnings or painful misfortunes; tyrants provide a bridge, or better yet a tightrope, and shove souls across. In this way, tyranny is truly one of the most exciting and dynamic phenomena to study – love or hate, someday your state might desperately require the rule of one supremely able man.
Tyrant & Teacher: Philosopher King