The Rise of Greek Tyrannies
Brief description on how class conflict led many Greek Polies to be subject to Tyrannies and how those same class conflicts aided the conquest of Rome
In many Greek polies income inequality had reached critical levels leaving the general population in destitution while a few families held all the wealth. In most cases these families also held a general monopoly on political power and formed an oligarchic class which continued to economically (and politically) repress the growing lower classes.
Polies that weren't able to resolve this tension inevitably reached civil war (stasis) with the oligarchic party on one end and the popular party on the other. The popular parties were typically led by a single man who in the words of Aristotle:
"declar[ed] himself the enemy of the rich"
The tyrants typically killed the oligarchs in the ensuing conflict and then seized their properties and redistributed them to the their followers: the general population. Naturally of course, it was typically impossible to kill every oligarch in a city and many would flee to foreign polies and try to enlist their help in overthrowing the tyranny and restoring themselves to power and property.
A tyrant ruled in a state of anxiety, constantly aware that his enemies were plotting to kill him, whether by means of warfare or assassinations. Nor was it that when the oligarchs were restored to power and property, did they make concessions to the popular party which threw them out. Typically what followed was a bloody reactionary counter purge where the poor masses were killed in reprisal.
Citizenship and the soil ceased to have meaning. The walls of the polis now no longer demarcated a shared space and people, but the arena of battle for two different factions. These factions hated each other and often found greater kinship in foreign factions than of their enemy factions. This is partially how the Peloponnesian Wars resulted and ultimately how Rome came to conquer the whole of Greece. For Rome was an aristocratic City and was more than willing to aid Greek aristocrats take control of a polis if they were willing to acquiesce to Roman suzerainty.
In the words of Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges:
"There were few Greeks who were not ready to sacrifice municipal independence in order to obtain the Constitution which they preferred." (emphasis mine)
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