eventually nearer to the ideal of "the good life" (see p. 59) than any other State in Hellas. But we must now leave Athens for a while, and turn to see how, in other parts of Greece, this natural development of the City-State was for a while retarded, and in many cases permanently checked.
The tendency towards absolutism, or, if we like so to call it, the reaction to monarchy, which was so characteristic of this age, might, and did, show itself even more often in the shape of what the Greeks called tyranny, than in the milder form of the philosophic arbiter. What, then, precisely did a Greek understand by a tyrant, — a word probably borrowed by him from some Oriental tongue? Herodotus, writing some century and a half later than Solon, but with all the traditions of that period fresh in his mind, describes the tyrant in memorable words put dramatically into the mouth of a Persian.[1] "How can a monarchy be a convenient thing, wielding power as it does without responsibility? The best man in the world, in such a position, will find himself outside the pale of the ideas in which he has been trained. A reckless pride is bred in him of his present good fortune, while envy is natural to him as to every man. In these two
- ↑ Herod, iii. 80, Here Herodotus, as more or less throughout his work, does not exactly distinguish monarchy and tyranny, as Aristotle did later. It should in fact be noted that a legitimate Basileus might become a tyrant (e.g. Pheidon of Argos), though a tyrant of the genuine kind could never become a Basileus. See Freeman, Hist. of Sicily, ii. 53, and 431 foll. Cf. Herod, v. 92, sec. 20, where Cypselus in the oracle is styled Basileus, as being a tyrant descended from a royal family. Cf. v. 44.
