Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/463

 CHAP. Xn. . KICH AND POOK — THE TYEANTS. 457 sprang from the popular party, and had the aristocracy as enemies. " The mission of the tyrant," says Aris- totle, "is to protect the people against the rich; he lias always commenced by being a demagogue, and it is the essence of tyranny to oppose the aristocracy." " The means of arriving at a tyranny," he also says, "is to gain the confidence of the multitude; and one does this by declaring himself the enemy of the rich. This was the course of Peisistratus at Athens, of Thc-agenes at Megara, and of Dionysius at Syracuse." ' The tyrant always made war upon the Mch. At Megara, Theagenes surprises the herds of the rich in the country and slaughters them. At CumaB, Aristo- demus abolishes debts, and takes the lands of the rich to give them to the poor. This was the course of Nicocles at Sicyon, and of Aristomachns at Argos. All these tyrants writers represent as very cruel. It is not probable that they were all so by nature; but they were urged by the pressing necessity, in which they found themselves, of giving lands or money to the poor. They could maintain their i)ower only while they sat- isfied the cravings of the multitude, and administei'ed to their passions. The tyrant of the Greek cities was a personage of whom nothing in our day can give us an idea. He was a man who lived in the midst of his subjects, without intermediate officers and without ministers, and who dealt with them directly. He was not in that lofty and independent position which the sovereign of a great state occupies. He had all the little passions of the private man; he was not insensible to the profits of a confiscation; he was accessible to anger and to the ' Aristotle, Politics, V. 8; VIII. 4, 5; V. 4.