Death to Tyrants! (ebook)

Argumento de Death to Tyrants! (ebook)

Death to Tyrants! is the first comprehensive study of ancient Greek tyrant-killing legislation--laws that explicitly gave individuals incentives to "kill a tyrant." David Teegarden demonstrates that the ancient Greeks promulgated these laws to harness the dynamics of mass uprisings and preserve popular democratic rule in the face of anti-democratic threats. He presents detailed historical and sociopolitical analyses of each law and considers a variety of issues: What is the nature of an anti-democratic threat? How would various provisions of the laws help pro-democrats counter those threats? And did the laws work?

Teegarden argues that tyrant-killing legislation facilitated pro-democracy mobilization both by encouraging brave individuals to strike the first blow against a nondemocratic regime and by convincing others that it was safe to follow the tyrant killer's lead. Such legislation thus deterred anti-democrats from staging a coup by ensuring that they would be overwhelmed by their numerically superior opponents. Drawing on modern social science models, Teegarden looks at how the institution of public law affects the behavior of individuals and groups, thereby exploring the foundation of democracy's persistence in the ancient Greek world. He also provides the first English translation of the tyrant-killing laws from Eretria and Ilion.

By analyzing crucial ancient Greek tyrant-killing legislation, Death to Tyrants! explains how certain laws enabled citizens to draw on collective strength in order to defend and preserve their democracy in the face of motivated opposition.

"Teegarden offers some interesting insights into tyrant-killing legislation in ancient Greece. . . . An important contribution to the research of ancient anti-tyranny legislation."--Maria Osmers, Phoenix

"Presenting a close reading of six tyrant-killing laws enacted between the fifth and second centuries BCE, this crisp and lucid book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of how ancient democracies came to power--and how they maintained that power--in the face of constant and serious internal and external threats from individuals and parties seeking to destroy popular rule."--Peter van Alfen, American Numismatic Society

"Death to Tyrants! develops an original and substantial model of ancient Greek civic uprisings. Teegarden argues persuasively that Greek inscriptions reveal that resistance to oppressive oligarchs had a consistent pattern, on different continents across a span of several centuries."--Daniel P. Tompkins, Temple University

"[Death to Tyrants!] is on the whole an admirably thorough and moreover sociologically informed analysis of a fundamental article of ancient Greek political belief, attested diversely and complexly by literary and especially epigraphical sources."--P. C., Anglo-Hellenic Review0List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
Part I The Invention of Tyrant-Killing Legislation
Chapter 1 The Decree of Demophantos 15
Part II Tyrant-Killing Legislation in the Late Classical Period
Chapter 2 The Eretrian Tyrant-Killing Law 57
Chapter 3 The Law of Eukrates 85
Part III Tyrant-Killing Legislation in the Early Hellenistic Period
Chapter 4 The Anti-Tyranny Dossier from Eresos 115
Chapter 5 The Philites Stele from Erythrai 142
Chapter 6 The Ilian Tyrant-Killing Law 173
Conclusion 215
Appendix:The Number and Geographic Distribution of Different Regime Types from the Archaic to the Early Hellenistic Periods 221
Bibliography 237
Index 249