In the fourth century tyrannies appeared again. Dionysius I was the most successful of these so-called younger tyrants who came to power mostly in response to the fourth century's endemic warfare. Dionysius I provides a clear instance of this since the period when no tyrants reigned in Syracuse (467 to 406) largely coincided with an unbroken era of peace. When hostilities with the Carthaginians flared anew, Dionysius I became tyrant; and his reign (406-367) consisted largely of wars against them.
In mainland Greece as well, tyrants rose again, so in both the West and the mainland trends coincided even if developments took place discretely. Jason and his successors ruled over the Thessalian city of Pherae as tyrants from the 370s to the 350s. Jason's assassination in 370 may have ended his ambitious plans for conquest, and his successors such as his nephew Alexander and sons Tisiphonus and Lycophron may have had little success miltarily given whom they had to contend against (e. g., Epaminondas), but the Pheraean tyrants too appear to have functioned principally as warlords. Euphron of Sicyon (368-366), after his election as a general, made himself tyrant at the head of mercenaries he had hired (Xen. Hell. VII 1,44-46; 2,11; 3,1-12). Other tyrants such as Themison of Eretria (mid - to late 360s; Diod. XV 76) are too poorly known for much comment under this aspect.
Other than in their pronounced military role, these younger tyrants did not differ materially from their older predecessors. The same sorts of vicious stories that circulated about the older tyrants were told of them too. Moreover, they too viewed their rule as hereditary, and successful tyrants passed it on to a son or at least kept it in the family. There were successful tyrant dynasties in Heracleia Pontica (Memnon, BNJ 434, Fr.1.1-4) as well as in a far-flung corner of the Greek world, in Panticapaeum and
Phanagoreia (old Milesian and Megarian colonies respectively) on the Cimmerian Bosporus, the so-called Kingdom of the Bosporus (Diod. xII 31). In theory and vocabulary Plato (and others such as Xenophon) may have distinguished between "tyrants" and "kings," but in practice Plato made no distinction and could envision his "philosopher-king" as coming from either group (see Box 17.2).
Underpinning these new tyrants' rule intellectually was the era's prevailing political thought. The soldier and historian Xenophon held up before his readers numerous monarchs as ideal rulers in a profusion of literary genres. First, there was the biography of Agesilaus, the King of Sparta from circa 400 to 360. The strong idealizing tendency of this tract emerges in comparison with the treatment of Agesilaus in Xenophon's Hellenica. Second, Xenophon composed a philosophical dialogue, the Hiero, with that tyrant of Syracuse (478 to 467) as an ideal ruler. Finally, there is the sprawling historical romance, the Cyropaedia ("Education of Cyrus"), with the nonGreek Cyrus the Great incorporating the ideal.
Xenophon was not alone in looking up to kings and tyrants. The pamphleteer Isocrates presented Evagoras, the king of the Cyprian city of Salamis, in much the same fashion (e. g., Evagoras). And a far more sophisticated thinker than either Xenophon or Isocrates, the philosopher Plato, conceived of the ideal state as ruled by a monarch, the "philosopher-king." His ideas influenced many tyrants. Clearchus of Heracleia Pontica even studied under him (Memnon, BNJ 434, Fr. 1.1). Finally, Plato traveled to Syracuse to turn Dionysius II into a "philosopher-king" (see Box 17.2).
World History
