TYRANT (Gr. r6pavvos,

See also:

• MASTER (Lat. magister, related to tnagis, more, as the corresponding minister is to minus, less; the English form is due partly to the O. Eng. maegister, and partly to O. Fr. maistre, mod. maitre; cf. Du. meester, Ger. Meister, Ital. maestro)

master, ruler)  , a term applied in modern times to a ruler of a cruel and oppressive character . This use is, however, based on a complete misapprehension of the application of the Greek word, which implied nothing more than unconditional sovereignty . Such rulers are not, as is often supposed, confined to a single period, the 7th and 6th centuries B.C . (the so-called " Age of the Tyrants ") of Greek history, but appear sporadically at all times, and are frequent in the later city-states of the Greek world . The use of the term " tyrant " in the bad sense is due largely to the ultra-constitutionalists of the 4th century in Athens, to whom the democracy of Pericles was the ideal of government . Thus the government which Lysander set up in Athens at the close of the Peloponnesian War is called that of the " Thirty Tyrants " (see CRITIAS) . The same term is applied to those Roman generals (really 18) who usurped authority locally under Gallienus .