Peisistratus the Tyrant

Peisistratus the Tyrant

In our current day and age, when people think of the word tyrant, they typically think of a repressive leader of some sort. Someone who does not generally care for the well-being of the people under his rule, and is only out to better his own position in life. This, however, was not always the case. In fact, in the past, tyrants were looked at as great leaders in some sectors of the world. One place where this held to be true was Athens in sixth century B.C.E.

In a time when very few people held the majority of wealth and power, it was a breath of fresh air when the tyrant Peisistratus seized power. It was not until his third attempt that Peisistratus would actually stay in power for a prolonged period of time, as his first two times in power were overthrown by others. But when he finally did garner the power that was sought after, he started right away to better the lives of all the citizens in Athens.

Before the rule of Peisistratus, “[Athens] had no plan for a larger destiny” (Robinson 1970: 72). The first goal for Peisistratus was to establish some sort of foreign policy, to help advance Athens in the eyes of the rest of the world, while also generating income to be used to help the citizens of Athens. Most other Greek states had trade routes in the Aegean; Athens had none (Robinson 1970: 72). Peisistratus first order of business in this regard was to capture Sigeum in the Troad (which is now located in modern Turkey) as it was essential to establish trade routes for Athens (Robinson 1970: 72). With this now in place, the infrastructure for a great economy was starting to take shape. And with that in place, Peisistratus was able to start on his main goal when he came to power in Athens – restoring Athens to greatness, and making life enjoyable again for the common man (Robinson 1970: 73).

The next major thing that Peisistratus would need to restore respectability to the common peasant farmer was a ton of disposable money. A good plan, which he had and will be discussed shortly, is nothing without the financial resources that can put that plan into motion. In between his second and third eras as tyrant of Athens, Peisistratus spent a lot of his time claiming the gold mines of Mount Pangaeus which were located at the western end of Thrace (Robinson 1970: 73). Because of this, he already had a large store of available money built up by his third reign of power in Athens. Not only that, but he was still able to exploit the mines while he was ruling in Athens, so he had a continuous stream of income coming into the state (Robinson 1970: 73). In addition to working these gold mines, Peisistratus also took control of the silver mines in Laurium, which would become another huge source of public income for when Peisistratus was in control of Athens once again (Robinson 1970: 73).

So now, with a stream of income in place, and trade routes that would also generate revenue and create job opportunities, Peisistratus could finally help the common peasant farmer the way he wanted to when he became tyrant of Athens. Peisistratus had a great plan in place to restore the economy, and give peasants who had been thrown off of their land in earlier regimes a portion of land back to them. To do this, he exiled many nobles who were taking advantage of these peasants previous to Peisistratus reign, and with all of the land he procured in this manner, he would divvy up to the landless citizens who were essentially struggling to survive up to this point in time (Robinson 1970: 73).

So now, the citizens of Athens were in much greater shape than before the reign of Peisistratus, and things were only going to continue to get better for the majority of them, as Peisistratus’ good deeds were far from over. In addition to essentially giving away land to countless numbers of citizens, Peisistratus would also hand out a high number of loans for the citizens in need of a little help to jumpstart their futures (Robinson 1970: 73). With this money, peasant farmers were able to set themselves up for the remaining years of their lives, and Peisistratus made the loans very easily repayable (Robinson 1970: 73). So now Peisistratus not only gave out endless amounts of land to peasants, but he also gave them money to ensure that the peasants could actually do something with the land. It is not as if he just set them up to fail with the land and money that was given out. Peisistratus knew that helping out the common man would garner him much praise within the state. So while he may have been doing all of this out of the good of his heart to better the lives of thousands of other people, Peisistratus also knew that everything he did for these people would only help his cause of remaining in power for the rest of his days.

On top of all of this, Peisistratus also improved the community