The book's premise is the observation of close analogies between the biographies of historical tyrants and the endeavours of mythical heroes; the recurrence and significance of these analogies demand an explanation of their historical origins, the causes and motives, and their transmission in culture and sources. C.'s aim, though, is not to provide an anthology of case studies, but rather to identify the cultural models underlying the behaviour of historical Greek rulers, the historical narratives on tyrants, the traditions on heroes of myth, and the representation of oriental despots: tracing an archetypal figure of tyrant and hero in Greek culture, as based on a shared set of features and concepts.
C. is professor of Greek literature and language with an authoritative publishing record, allowing the book to be grounded in – albeit being limited to – an extensive array of written sources. The subjects examined belong to the canonical archaic Greek and early-fifth century b.c. Western tyrannies; also discussed are Greek, Macedonian and mostly Oriental kings or statesmen; Hellenistic monarchies are left out.
The ample introduction, ‘Elective Deformities’, begins with a history of the shifting connotations of tyrannos and tyranny in Greek history and sources: from ambiguous, enviable power in earlier sources, to hubristic degeneration of monarchy in the fifth–fourth centuries b.c. C. also clearly states the book's objectives, assumptions and methodological positions, and its major outcomes are anticipated.
Chapter 1, ‘Premonitory Signs’, discusses the oracles and portents accompanying the early life stages of the tyrant and hero: birth and youth particularly, and accession to power – or failure. C. competently contextualises most of the occurrences as positive signs of supernatural sanction: the birth of a god-favoured predestined king, his unharmed passage through removal or peril, and the return to the homeland as conqueror and justice-bringer. These stories share motifs and myths of kingship of oriental origin, and C. discusses their reception or rejection in Greek culture. The historical reconstruction points to the tyrant's familiarity with, and adaptation to, the authority of sanctuaries. The traditions on oracles are discussed in the light of opposing tendencies to instrumentalisation and conservatism.
In Chapter 2 C. identifies common themes in the characterisation of the tyrant–hero's parents. The father's low-born social status is, historically, a de-legitimising allegation by the tyrant's opposers; C. examines narratological and anthropological causes of this motif and explains it within the paradigm of the ‘fascination for the outsider’, by which a foreigner seduces the queen and together with her earns the kingdom. The mother often belongs to the ruling class or royal family: this secures the tyrant's legitimacy to power. Here lies a profound identification between mother and motherland, and hence psychological and narrative bonds between tyrant-king, power and matrilineal ascendancy.
The motif of maternal incest is carried over to Chapter 3, ‘Eros’, on the unrestrained sexual behaviour of heroes, tyrants and oriental despots. The tyrant–hero's sexual irregularity is rather neutrally connoted in earlier sources, as an aspect of ostentation and of his abnormal social–political standing. C. provides an interpretation of the tyrants' external marriage alliances as a deliberately anachronistic and exotic social practice, employed to liken their status to myth-historical royalty.
The tyrant–hero's family bonds are further explored in Chapter 4, ‘Sons and Daughters’: these are read as tragic figures never developing an independent adulthood, in the overbearing shadow of their fathers.
The fifth and longest chapter, ‘Wisdom and Fortune’, provides an anthology of the actions, traits and concepts that distinguish the tyrant–hero's outrageous life. C.'s skilful survey of the sources shows that tyranny's public image is in all cases marked by success, grandeur and power, yet is also inherently ambiguous, ranging from the highest achievements to the lowest degenerations. The tyrant possesses great intellectual acumen: employed in preserving his power, it is deployed in bright political actions as much as in treachery and mischief. The tyrant enjoys utmost wealth and power: the archetype of the Greek man's aspiration to happiness, as much as the worst degeneration of social order. Victory – social, athletic or most evidently military – is a fundamental trait of the tyrant–hero: here C. identifies one of the key images of his discourse in the concept of the ‘charismatic leader’. Tyrant and hero particularly share aspects of uncontrollable violence, vengeance, war-making, ravaging and killing. The recurrent animal metaphors of the wolf and lion are interestingly explained as archetypes of cunning and kingship, as well as of bloodlust and ravaging violence. Of course political opposition to tyranny contributed to the formation of this violent profile, but C. frames the drive of the underlying figure of the all-powerful ‘conquering hero’. The tyrant–hero is also recurrently characterised as a ‘founder’ – of cities, cults or social practices – able to impose his civilising mark on nature.
The unavoidable destiny of the tyrant–hero's success and hybris is his violent demise, discussed in Chapter 6: ‘Death’. Among various strong symbolisms, C. interestingly identifies an analogy of tyranny to a social miasma that finds its pharmakos in the despot's public execution. Of course the tyrant–hero as a leader dies in battle, or as a despot by covert conspiracy. Even the tyrant's mortal remains are not inconspicuous: granted heroic remembrance as a founder, or shrouded in mystery, similarly to heroic apotheosis. Two pages of conclusions fleetingly remark on the key features of the tyrant–hero's double nature.
This book stands at a disciplinary intersection incorporating the history of tyrannies, the study of the tyrants' political language, and the philology of the source tradition and narratives on tyrants and heroes. These fields of enquiry already benefit from robust scholarly traditions that C. duly acknowledges and masters; his contribution is welcome because it bridges the gap between the disciplines. The tyrant–hero analogy has already received treatments, but none are – to my knowledge – as comprehensive as C.'s vast array of cases, sources and issues; moreover C. masters diverse analytical methodologies, not at all exclusively historical or philological, lucidly and honestly discerning the value of the results. This work is an exercise of new cultural history: a history of the tyrant–hero as an item in the semantic structure of ancient Greek culture.
The argumentation is clear and accessible. Source passages are provided both in Greek and in translation. Footnotes are comprehensive, citing sources and scholarship. The apparatus comprises eight tables: one chronology and seven genealogical charts for major tyrannical dynasties; there is an error in table 2, p. 114, ‘Prode’ should be ‘Prokles’. The bibliography is extensive, varied and up to date. Indexes are provided for ancient names and notable words.
I found the six-item biographical framework unyielding and losing cogency at times: some chapters seem overcrowded and their issues in need of neater categorisation, some topics might have benefited from an independent discussion. Notwithstanding these issues, C. competently and successfully achieves the reconstruction of the cultural history of the ‘phenomenology of the tyrant–hero’.
On enquiring into the ‘relation between the mythical tales and the traditional stories on the historical tyrant’ we are faced not with a univocal answer: far from being disappointed, we can be fascinated at how historical facts, ideology, myth, popular tales and literary traditions recombine and influence each other in shaping the shifting image of individual power.
