Paul Rhodes

In a world in which it was easy to contrast slavery as being ruled by others with freedom as the power to rule others, it might have been said that subjection to a tyrant was bad but being a tyrant was good if one could get away with it. But in the fourth century Plato and Aristotle created a contrast between kings as good rulers and tyrants as bad rulers, which has been standard ever since. However, recent studies have tried to move away from the polarisation of good kings and bad tyrants, and look more generally at the nature of monarchic rule in Greece. This article explores the topic of tyrants and the use of the notion of tyranny in classical Greece, at the end of the sixth century and in the fifth and fourth.

There have been two recent attempts to disentangle the evidence for the procedures in fourth-century Athens for the enactment and revision of nomoi, by D. M. MacDowell and by M. H. Hansen. I have learned from both, but think that further progress can be made. MacDowell distinguishes five separate measures: The Old Legislation Law, requiring action at a specified time, advance publicity for the new proposal, concurrent repeal of any existing law with which the new proposal conflicts, and a decision by nomothetae who are omomokotes, men who have sworn the dicastic oath : this is described as a παλαις νόμος, and as the law καθ' ν σαν ο πρότεροι νομοθέαι. Replacing that c. 370, the New Legislation Law, no longer requiring action at a specified time, advance publicity, concurrent repeal, or that the nomothetae should be omomokotes: as a result of the change conflicting laws have been enacted, and for some time continuing to the mid 350s commissioners have had to be elected to sort out the conflicts. Still valid in the 350s, the Review Law, requiring an annual epicheirotonia of the laws in four subject divisions in the assembly on 11 Hecatombaeon , advance publicity for new proposals, and at the third assembly after 11 Hecatombaeon the appointment of nomothetae who are omomokotes to decide between the existing laws and the new proposals