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Van Wees is, however, correct in two respects. First, the ruling elites were not a hermetically sealed group and aristocratic status was always precarious (cf. Stein-Hölkeskamp 2015: 188). Alcaeus’ claim (frr. 75, 348 Campbell) that Pittacus was κακοπατρίδαν (“of mean ancestry”) might be a disingenuous slur rather than a social fact, but when he establishes a symmetry between people of humble origins who became agathoi and esthloi who have become deiloi, there is an implication of volatile social mobility. Second, much of the violence that characterizes the Theognidea and other works of archaic Greek poetry is due primarily to deeply rooted conflict within the elite (Forsdyke 2005: 59).

This is not the ideological conflict that Kurke (1992; 1999: 23–37) and Morris (1996; 2000: 155–191) have posited among the elite class between two very different mentalities: on the one hand, an elitist ideology, represented by the Homeric epics, Sappho, Alcaeus, and Anacreon, which sought to elide distinctions between Greeks and non-Greeks, males and females, and mortals and divinities in order to highlight a basic division between elites and non-elites; and on the other, a “middling” ideology, articulated by Hesiod, Tyrtaeus, Solon, Phocylides, and Xenophanes, which excluded women, slaves, and outsiders in order to construct a community of equal male citizens.¹⁴ Rather, this was a ruthless, violent, and very real scramble for power and property in order to secure or maintain wealth and status, with catastrophic consequences for the larger community, elite and non-elite alike. At Mytilene, for example, Sappho’s references to Near Eastern luxury items (e.g., frr. 39, 92, 98 Campbell) or Alcaeus’ comment on mercenary payments from Lydia (fr. 69 Campbell), together with Herodotus’ testimony (2.178.2) that the city was involved in establishing the Hellenion at Naucratis and the archaeological evidence of ceramic exports, all suggest that Mytilenean elites were engaging in an increasingly competitive quest for investment outside the island that ultimately ended up threatening the internal social order (Spencer 2000; Forsdyke 2005: 37–47).

Solon (fr. 4.6–13 W) gives a vivid description of the destructive consequences of intra-elite competition in early sixth-century Attica:

But the citizens themselves, through their foolishness and being persuaded by material greed, want to destroy a great polis, and the mind of the leaders of the dēmos is unjust, and they are ready to suffer much pain for their great violence. They do not understand how to curb excess nor to organize peacefully the celebrations of the feast that is at hand, but they grow wealthy, yielding to unjust deeds; sparing neither sacred nor public property, they steal rapaciously, this one from here, that one from there.

A plausible reconstruction of the background to this unrest is that elite landholders were bringing previously common but marginal land into cultivation through intensified agricultural practices and that they were recruiting smallholders or landless laborers to farm the newly acquired land for a pittance—the so-called hektemoroi ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 2.2; Plut. Vit. Sol. 13).¹⁵ Plutarch adds that the poor were also in the habit of offering their own liberty as security against debts owed on loans from the wealthy, which may lie behind Solon’s own comment (fr. 4.23–25 W) that “many of the poor go to a foreign country, sold and bound in unseemly fetters.” Matters came to a head and Solon was appointed as an arbitrator. He canceled debts and prohibited enslavement for debt default ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 6; Plut. Vit. Sol. 15) though, as we have already seen, he was not minded to give the esthloi and the kakoi equal shares in the land (fr. 34.8–9 W) and felt that he had given “the dēmos as much privilege as was sufficient” (fr. 5.1 W).¹⁶

It is within the context of elite contestation of power that the phenomenon of tyranny is best viewed. Indeed, Solon makes a point (frr. 32, 33, 34 W) of claiming that he could have seized tyranny and Elizabeth Irwin (2005: 205–61) has detailed how Solon exploited contemporary political discourse to construct an autocratic position that, in many ways, was ambiguously close to tyranny.¹⁷ Our understanding of archaic tyranny has been impeded by a pervasive—though not universal—negative source tradition, coined in reaction to autocratic rule, as well as by Aristotle’s attempts to draw distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate rulers (McGlew 1993; Anderson 2005). But Aristotle also offers some insight into how tyrannies may have emerged, when he notes (Pol. 1310b) that some arose “from those elected to the highest magistracies,” offering as examples the tyrants of the Ionian cities—including, presumably, Thrasybulus of Miletus—and Phalaris of Acragas. This is also, as we have seen, supposed to be the case with Pittacus, appointed to a 10-year-term as aisymnētēs (Arist. Pol. 1285a), and with Orthagoras of Sicyon and Cypselus of Corinth, both of whom apparently held the office of polemarchos (105 FGrH 2; Nicolaus of Damascus 90 FGrH 57.5). Indeed, it is clear that tyrants typically belonged to the ruling elite (de Libero 1996): Cypselus’ mother belonged to the aristocratic clan of the Bacchiadae (Hdt. 5.92); Pittacus married into the ruling family of the Penthilidae (Alcaeus fr. 70 Campbell); Theagenes married his daughter to the Athenian aristocrat Cylon (Thuc. 1.126.3); and Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, married his daughter to the Athenian Alcmaeonid Megacles (Hdt. 6.130). The case of the Athenian archon Damasias, who remained in office for two years and two months (582–580 BC) before being forcibly removed from power ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 13.2), suggests that tyrannies often arose when aristocrats decided not to “play by the rules,” violating the principle of rotation by refusing to cede to their peers the offices to which they had been appointed.

The degree to which tyrannical regimes depended upon popular support is still debated (see Wallace 2009: 417 against Stein-Hölkeskamp 2009: 113). Certainly, the old view that tyrants were swept to power by hoplite armies of middling citizens shortly before the middle of the seventh century (e.g., Andrewes 1956) finds support in no source. Even later, when hoplite tactics were fully established, Polycrates of Samos established his rule with a force of no more than 15 hoplites (Hdt. 3.120.3); Theron seized power at Selinus with 300 slaves (Polyaenus, Strat. 1.28.2); and Pisistratus’ first attempt at tyranny over Athens was achieved with a band of 50 club-bearers (Hdt. 1.59.5–6; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 14.1; Plut. Vit. Sol. 30)—his third and successful attempt was brought about by foreign mercenaries (Hdt. 1.61.4). On the other hand, there are hints in our sources that tyrants, once established, may have appealed to the dēmos for support against potential elite rivals. According to Aristotle (Pol. 1315b), the Orthagorid dynasty of Sicyon “promoted the interests of the dēmos in most respects,” while Pisistratus is said to have administered Athens “more like a citizen than like a tyrant,” making loans to those in need ([Arist. Ath. Pol. 16.2). And it is Aristotle again who says that, in order to secure the trust of the dēmos and their pledge of hostility against the wealthy, Theagenes slaughtered the flocks of the rich as they grazed beside the river (Pol. 1305a);¹⁸ a similar motif is attributed to Telys of Sybaris, who is supposed to have persuaded his subjects to expel the 500 richest citizens and confiscate their property (Diod. Sic. 12.9.2). The historicity of such episodes is not secure but, when Cleisthenes of Athens, the grandson of the Sicyonian tyrant, “brought the dēmos into his faction” (Hdt. 5.66.2) in order to gain a political advantage over his elite rival, Isagoras, he can hardly have been the first person to have entertained the prospect of deploying popular support within intra-elite conflict.

In terminating the principle of rotation of office, the tyrants were, in a certain sense, turning the clock back and there are, in fact, various aspects in which the tyrants resemble the big men or chieftains of an earlier age. Charismatic authority for what was essentially an “achieved” office was secured by means of martial and athletic prowess: Orthagoras, Cypselus, and Pisistratus are all said to have distinguished themselves in the military sphere (105 FGrH 2; Nicolaus of Damascus 90 FGrH 57.5; Hdt. 1.59.4), while Cleisthenes of Sicyon was commemorated for victories in the four-horse chariot race at Olympia and Delphi (Hdt. 6.126.2; Paus. 10.7.6). Loyalty was bought through public munificence: Cypselus made costly dedications at Delphi and Olympia (Plut. Mor. 400d; Paus. 5.17.5); the Pisistratids began construction of the Temple of Olympian Zeus (Arist. Pol. 1313b); and Polycrates probably initiated the second dipteral temple to Hera on Samos (Kienast 2002). Like Homeric basileis, tyrants contracted marriage alliances and guest friendships with peers beyond their own states: in addition to the intermarriages mentioned already mentioned, Cypselus’ successor, Periander, married the daughter of Procles, the tyrant of Epidaurus (Hdt. 3.50), while Thrasybulus of Miletos and the Lydian king Alyattes were guest-friends (Hdt. 1.22.4), as were Polycrates and the Egyptian Pharaoh Amasis (3.39.2). But, also like Homeric basileis, the position of the tyrant was intergenerationally unstable: while the tyranny of the Orthagorids may have lasted around a century at Sicyon, the Cypselid tyranny at Corinth was suppressed in the third generation, when Periander’s nephew, Psammetichus, was removed after just three years (Arist. Pol. 1315b); at Athens, the younger of Pisistratus’ sons, Hipparchus, was assassinated after fourteen years while his brother, Hippias, survived only a further four years before being expelled by the Spartans (Hdt. 5.55–65; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 19). By the end of the sixth century, tyranny had become virtually extinct in mainland Greece and the Aegean islands, but it continued in Sicily, witnessing a new, more imperialist manifestation with the establishment of Deinomenid power over first Gela, and then Syracuse and much of eastern Sicily (Thuc. 1.18.1; see Luraghi 1994).