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Thirty Tyrants
The Thirty Tyrants (, ''hoi triákonta týrannoi'') were an oligarchy that briefly ruled Classical Athens, Athens from 404 BC, 404 BCE to 403 BC, 403 BCE. Installed into power by the Sparta, Spartans after the Athenian surrender in the Peloponnesian War, the Thirty became known for their Tyrant, tyrannical rule, first being called "The Thirty Tyrants" by Polycrates (sophist), Polycrates. Although they maintained power for only eight months, their reign resulted in the killing of 5% of the Athenian population, the confiscation of citizens' property, and the exile of other Athenian democracy, democratic supporters. Historical background After the Athenian navy was destroyed at the battle of Aegospotami in 405 BCE, Lysander led the Spartan and Peloponnesian League naval force to Athens for the final destruction of the city. The Athenians prepared for a siege, but without a navy to defend them or import food, many Athenian citizens starved. After the Spartans began cutting them off by ...
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Oligarchy
Oligarchy (; ) is a form of government in which power rests with a small number of people. Members of this group, called oligarchs, generally hold usually hard, but sometimes soft power through nobility, fame, wealth, or education; or through corporate, religious, political, or military control. Throughout history, power structures considered to be oligarchies have often been viewed as coercive, relying on public obedience or oppression to exist. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as meaning rule by the rich, contrasting it with aristocracy, arguing that oligarchy was a corruption of aristocracy. Types Minority rule The consolidation of power by a dominant minority, whether religious or ethnic, can be considered a form of oligarchy. Examples include South Africa during apartheid, Liberia under Americo-Liberians, the Sultanate of Zanzibar, and Rhodesia. In these cases, oligarchic rule was often tied to the legacy of colonialism. In the early 20th ...
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Samos
Samos (, also ; , ) is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese archipelago, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the Mycale Strait. It is also a separate regional unit of the North Aegean region. In ancient times, Samos was an especially rich and powerful city-state, particularly known for its vineyards and wine production. It is home to Pythagoreion and the Heraion of Samos, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes the Eupalinian aqueduct, a marvel of ancient engineering. Samos is the birthplace of the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, after whom the Pythagorean theorem is named, the philosophers Melissus of Samos and Epicurus, and the astronomer Aristarchus of Samos, the first known individual to propose that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Samian wine was well known in antiquity and is still produced on the island. The island was governed by the semi-autonomous P ...
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Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelianism, Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science. Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira (ancient city), Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical Greece, Classical period. His father, Nicomachus (father of Aristotle), Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At around eighteen years old, he joined Plato's Platonic Academy, Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty seven (). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request ...
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Parmenides (dialogue)
''Parmenides'' () is one of the dialogues of Plato. It is widely considered to be one of the most challenging and enigmatic of Plato's dialogues. The ''Parmenides'' purports to be an account of a meeting between the two great philosophers of the Eleatic school, Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, and a young Socrates. The occasion of the meeting was the reading by Zeno of his treatise defending Parmenidean monism against those partisans of plurality who asserted that Parmenides' supposition that there is a ''one'' gives rise to intolerable absurdities and contradictions. The dialogue is set during a supposed meeting between Parmenides and Zeno of Elea in Socrates' hometown of Athens. This dialogue is chronologically the earliest of all as Socrates is only nineteen years old here. It is also notable that he takes the position of the student here while Parmenides serves as the lecturer. Most scholars agree that the dialogue does not record historic conversations, and is most likely an i ...
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Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born  BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in History of Athens, Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms, theory of forms (or ideas), which aims to solve what is now known as the problem of universals. He was influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself. Along with his teacher Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy. Plato's complete ...
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The Four Hundred (oligarchy)
The Athenian coup of 411 BC was the result of a revolution that took place during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The coup overthrew the democratic government of ancient Athens and replaced it with a short-lived oligarchy known as the Four Hundred. In the wake of the financial crisis caused by the failed Sicilian Expedition of the Athenian military in 413 BC, some high-status Athenian men, who had disliked the broad-based democracy of the city-state for a long time, sought to establish an oligarchy of the elite. They believed that they could manage foreign, fiscal, and war policies better than the existing government. The movement toward oligarchy was led by a number of prominent and wealthy Athenians, who held positions of power in the Athenian army at Samos in coordination with Alcibiades. Background By the time of the Peloponnesian War, the democracy in Athens was approximately 100 years old. Most of the upper class accepted this form of government, while ...
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Aristotle Of Athens
Aristoteles () or Aristotle was one of the thirty tyrants established at Athens in 404 BCE. From an allusion in the speech of Theramenes before his condemnation, Aristoteles appears to have been also one of the Four Hundred oligarchs in the Athenian coup of 411 BC, and to have taken an active part in the scheme of fortifying Eëtioneia and admitting the Spartans into the Piraeus in 411 BCE. In 405 BCE he was living in banishment, and is mentioned by the writer Xenophon as being with Lysander during the siege of Athens. Plato introduces him as one of the persons in the ''Parmenides'' and as a very young man at the time of the dialogue. There was also an "Aristotle of Athens" mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek ph ..., who was apparently an or ...
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Aeschines
Aeschines (; Greek: ; 389314 BC) was a Greek statesman and one of the ten Attic orators. Biography Although it is known he was born in Athens, the records regarding his parentage and early life are conflicting; but it seems probable that his parents, though poor, were respectable. Aeschines' father was Atrometus, an elementary school teacher of letters. His mother Glaukothea assisted in the religious rites of initiation for the poor. After assisting his father in his school, he tried his hand at acting with indifferent success, served with distinction in the army, and held several clerkships, amongst them the office of clerk to the '' Boule.'' This references: * Rudolf Hirzel, ''Der Dialog''. i. 129–140 * Theodor Gomperz, ''Greek Thinkers'', vol. iii. p. 342 (Eng. trans. G. G. Berry, London, 1905) Among the campaigns that Aeschines participated in were Phlius in the Peloponnese (368 BC), Battle of Mantinea (362 BC), and Phokion's campaign in Euboea (349 BC). The fall of ...
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Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; ; 355/354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, he was elected as one of the leaders of the retreating Ancient Greek mercenaries, Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, who had been part of Cyrus the Younger's attempt to seize control of the Achaemenid Empire. As the military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge wrote, "the centuries since have devised nothing to surpass the genius of this warrior". For at least two millennia, it has been debated whether or not Xenophon was first and foremost a general, historian, or philosopher. For the majority of time in the past two millennia, Xenophon was recognized as a philosopher. Quintilian in Institutio Oratoria, ''The Orator's Education'' discusses the most prominent historians, orators and philosophers as examples of eloquence and recognizes Xenophon's historical work, but ultimately places Xenophon next to Plato as a philosopher. Today, Xenophon is recognized as one of the gr ...
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Hellenica (Xenophon)/Book 2/Chapter 3
''Hellenica'' () simply means writings on Greek (Hellenic) subjects. Several histories of the 4th-century BC Greece have borne the conventional Latin title ''Hellenica'', of which very few survive.Murray, Oswyn, "Greek Historians", in John Boardman, Jasper Griffin and Oswyn Murray, ''Greece and the Hellenistic World'' (Oxford History of the Classical World I, 1986; 1988) p. 192.Thomas, "Introduction," xxvi. The most notable of the surviving histories is the ''Hellenica'' of the Ancient Greek writer Xenophon (also known as ''Hellenika,'' or ''A History of My Times''). The work was intended as a continuation of Thucydides' ''History of the Peloponnesian War'', which was left unfinished and ends abruptly in the year 411 BC.Xenophon (2010), Thomas, David, "Introduction," p. x. Xenophon's ''Hellenica'' covers the years 411-362 BC, through the end of the Peloponnesian War and its aftermath.Thomas, "Introduction," ix. ''Hellenica'' is usually considered to be a difficult work for modern ...
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Phylarch
A phylarch (, ) is a Greek title meaning "ruler of a tribe", from ''phyle'', "tribe" + ''archein'' "to rule". Athens In Classical Athens, a phylarch was the elected commander of the cavalry provided by each of the city's ten tribes. In 442/441 BC, during the cavalry reforms initiated by Pericles, each of these tribal groups was authorised to levy a cavalry unit (''phyle'') of 100 citizens. Each was led by a ''phylarch'', who in turn reported to two ''hipparchoi'' commanding the entire cavalry force. Both levels of officer were appointed by an electoral process carried out each year. As citizen auxiliaries to the regular Athenian cavalry, detachments of mounted archers were employed. These were also commanded by ''phylarch'' leaders. Athenian citizens provided their own equipment and clothing for military service and there is no evidence of required uniform items for any ranks. However there are literary references in drama to individual ''phylarch'' and other officers wearing ...
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Ephor
The ephors were a board of five magistrates in ancient Sparta. They had an extensive range of judicial, religious, legislative, and military powers, and could shape Sparta's home and foreign affairs. The word "''ephors''" (Ancient Greek ''éphoroi'', plural form of ''éphoros'') comes from the Ancient Greek ''epi'', "on" or "over", and ''horaō'', "to see", i.e., "one who oversees" or "overseer". The ephors were a council of five Spartan men elected annually who swore an oath monthly on the behalf of the state. The Spartan kings, however, would swear on behalf of themselves. The ephors did not have to kneel before the Kings of Sparta, and were held in high esteem by the citizens because of the importance of their powers and because of the holy role that they earned throughout their functions. Donald Kagan, ''The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War''. p. 29. Ithaca/New York 1969, . Several other Greek city-states with a Spartan ancestry also had ephors, such as Taras or Cyre ...
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