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DOI: 10.1177/0090591707302208

2007 35: 412Political TheoryAndreas Kalyvas

DictatorThe Tyranny of Dictatorship : When the Greek Tyrant Met the Roman

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Author’s Note: I am grateful to Andrew Arato, Melvin Richter, Dmitri Nikoulin, VassilisLambropoulos, and Mary Dietz for their advice and insightful comments on earlier drafts ofthis article. I would also like to thank Nadia Urbinati, Jason Frank, Gerasimos Karavitis, AnnKornhauser, Claudio Lopez-Guerra, Jim Miller, and the two anonymous reviewers for theirhelpful and constructive suggestions and criticisms.

The Tyranny of DictatorshipWhen the Greek Tyrant Met theRoman DictatorAndreas KalyvasNew School for Social Research

The article examines the inaugural encounter of the Greek theory of tyrannyand the Roman institution of dictatorship. Although the twentieth century iscredited for fusing the tyrant and the dictator into one figure/concept, I trace theorigins of this conceptual synthesis in a much earlier historical period, that ofthe later Roman Republic and the early Principate, and in the writingsof two Greek historians of Rome, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Appian ofAlexandria. In their histories, the traditional interest in the relationshipbetween the king and the tyrant is displaced by a new curiosity about thetyrant and the dictator. The two historians placed the two figures alongsideone another and found them to be almost identical, blurring any previousempirical, analytical, or normative distinctions. In their Greco-Romansynthesis dictatorship is re-described as ‘temporary tyranny by consent’ andthe tyrant as a ‘permanent dictator.’ Dictatorship, a venerated republicanmagistracy, the ultimate guardian of the Roman constitution, is for the firsttime radically reinterpreted and explicitly questioned. It meets its first critics.

Keywords: Dionysius; Appian; tyranny; dictatorship; Athens; Rome;democracy; republicanism

For most of the twentieth century the concepts of dictatorship and tyrannywere treated as synonyms, two names for one form of autocratic politi-

cal rule. “Dictatorship,” Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw wrote in 1934, “is theform of government the Greeks have very correctly connoted with the term‘tyranny.’”1 The dictator and the tyrant were fused together in a single figure,that of illegality, violence, and arbitrariness, and perceived as a commonthreat to political freedom, constitutionalism, and the rule of law,2 a threat the


Kalyvas / The Tyranny of Dictatorship 413

ancients had formulated as political enslavement. Accordingly, throughoutthe century, this conceptual identification provided normative resources tothose who opposed the modern revival of dictatorship. Denunciations of themany forms of dictatorship, both of the Right and the Left, which emergedover the course of the last century as modern manifestations of tyrannymobilized repeatedly these resources.3

The equation of dictatorship and tyranny is not, however, unique to thetwentieth century. It appeared as well in a preceding historical period in theshifting political context of the revolutionary upheavals of Europe and itsoverseas colonies and the decline of the monarchical order.4 Claude Nicoletrightly observes that “since the eighteenth century,” the term dictatorship “hasserved to refer to despotisms or tyrannies—in other words, essentially pow-ers which are far from having been regularly conferred, and instead had beenusurped through force or deceit.”5 The conceptual marriage of the dictatorand the tyrant coincided with the radical transformation of Western societyand politics in the age of the modern democratic revolutions, legal rational-ization, the gradual inclusion of new groups into the terrain of formal politics,and the successive attempts to institutionally resuscitate Roman dictatorshipby such figures as Cromwell, the Jacobins, and Napoleon.6

Nicolet’s narrative accurately captures the modern blending of the twoterms and correctly relocates it within the broader historical movement anddiffusion of republicanism.7 But his story is incomplete. It disregards a stillearlier moment in Western political history when the dictator began to lookdangerously like a tyrant. In the turbulent transitional period between theRoman republic and the Principate, Sulla and Caesar, and their struggle forsupreme power gravely tested the institution of dictatorship.8 The ‘abuse’ ofthis emergency institution, its exercise outside the limits delineated by theestablished legal framework, its appropriation for the advancement of per-sonal ambitions, and even its use against the republic itself, prompted a pro-found reconsideration of its nature, function, and value.

Two Greek historians of the early and high Imperial periods, Dionysiusof Halicarnassus (60 BC-after 7 BC) and Appian of Alexandria (95-165AC) undertook such a radical reassessment.9 While most of the annalistsand ‘republican historians’ cherished the memory of the republic and itsinstitutions, among which dictatorship was held in the highest esteem, thewritings of the two Greek narrators followed a different path.10 Their his-tories suggest a fresh reconsideration of this emergency magistracy, whichthey carried out by utilizing concepts and methods borrowed from theclassical Greek tradition.11 In their Greco-Roman synthesis dictatorship isre-described as ‘temporary tyranny by consent’ and the tyrant as a ‘permanent


dictator.’ This historical and conceptual revisionism inaugurated a compar-ative study of the Roman institution of dictatorship and Greek theories oftyranny with some crucial implications.

Dionysius and Appian’s Greek histories of Rome include a criticalre-examination of dictatorship insofar as they interrogate its very capacityto preserve the constitutional order.12 Was the abuse of Roman dictatorshipaccidental, the effect of moral decline, or the result of its own unruly nature?As their works raise this question, it seems the two historians were not onlyengaged in the rewriting of Roman history or in a conceptual revision ofclassical concepts; they were also involved in a critical debate about theinstitution of dictatorship as such. It is likely that Marcus Antonius’ law thatofficially abolished dictatorship in 44 BC (the Lex Antonia de dictatura inperpetuum tollenda) sparked this debate.13 It was rekindled when twodecades later, the senate and the people sought to revive the institution bytwice offering Augustus the Dictatorate, which he declined.14 More impor-tantly, their histories challenged the republican regime as a whole, directlyimplicating it in its own collapse.15 Unlike Livy and Sallust who ascribedthe fall of the republic to various external causes and their corrupt effects,16

Dionysius and Appian’s diagnoses suggested the preponderance of internalreasons for the inherent instability, decline, and ultimately fall of theRoman republic. Their histories, for the first time, radically reinterpretedand explicitly questioned dictatorship. This venerated republican magis-tracy, the ultimate guardian of the Roman constitution, met its first critics.

Certainly, I am not suggesting to oppose Dionysius and Appian againstmore renowned and influential historians of their times in the name of someobjective, ‘true’ factual attributes of the Roman institution of dictatorship.Rather, I seek to revisit the incipient discursive encounter between tyrannyand dictatorship. In particular, I examine how the two concepts graduallycame to be associated with new meanings as they were increasingly fused.I consider Dionysius and Appian’s unprecedented equation by focusing onthe historical narratives, conceptual translations, and theoretical argumentsthat permitted the identification of the two terms. It is, however, the nor-mative implications of this encounter that I find intriguing and which havenot hitherto been adequately appreciated politically or illuminated inter-pretatively. By identifying the Roman dictator with the Greek tyrant,Dionysius and Appian introduced a new understanding of emergency pow-ers, directly challenging inherited political views and philosophical beliefs.As I see it, the two Greek historians inaugurated a radical conceptual trans-formation in the language of classical politics. With a different politicalhistory invested with new meanings and values and brought inside the

414 Political Theory


broader category of tyranny, dictatorship acquired a polyvalence and ambi-guity that it originally lacked and which came to characterize the tyranni-cal depiction of the modern dictator.

Part one of this essay recreates the intellectual background that precededDionysius and Appian’s synthesis in order to underscore the novelty of theirrespective approaches. To associate the dictator and the tyrant was not themost obvious thing to do at the time. Rather, the norm was to considertyranny a corrupted form of monarchy, a pathological outgrowth of royalpower perverted by unjust kings.17 Thus, the tyrant was primarily a bad king(µοχθηρο′ςβασ lλεν′ ς / regis injusti).18 In this context, Dionysius andAppian’s historical writings represent a decisive shift in the history of polit-ical concepts. Parts two and three discuss how Dionysius and Appian dis-placed the traditional interest in the relationship between the king and thetyrant with a new curiosity about the tyrant and the dictator. The two Greekhistorians found the tyrant and the dictator to be almost identical, therebyblurring previous empirical, analytical, and normative distinctions betweenthem.19 This blurring entailed as well a serious reworking of the classicaltheories of tyranny and a departure from more canonical definitions. Partfour explores some of the implications resulting from the equation of thetyrant and the dictator, including the possibility that the downfall of theRepublic may have been the fatal result of particular constitutional choicesand institutional flaws. Crucially, Dionysius and Appian demythologizedthe institution of dictatorship, dispelling its republican aura. From a moregeneral point of view, their approaches recast the relationship of Atheniandemocracy and the Roman republic, indicating a key difference betweenthe two regimes that could potentially contribute to current debates onexecutive emergency powers and constitutional dictatorship in liberaldemocratic states.

The King, the Dictator, and the Tyrant

Livy offers a historically influential account of the origins of dictator-ship.20 In 501 BC, a few years after the deposition and exile of the kingTarquinius Superbus and in the face of external dangers caused by theaggression of neighboring tribes, a dictator was appointed for the first timeby means of a lex dictatore creando.21 Although his appointment appearsto have been constitutional in accordance with certain established rules andprocedures, his public display generated a “great fear” among the plebeians.Their sudden dread at the sheer sight of dictatorial power, a power beyond



appeal at the time and not subject to countervailing checks, renderedthem obedient while at the same time subduing their enemies and protect-ing the nascent republic.22

Aside from the element of fear and the powerful effects of docility thatboth dictatorship and tyranny seemed to produce, Livy’s narrative does notsuggest other similarities. This absence is not surprising. From the firstmoment of encounter of the two concepts in late antiquity as Romeexpanded eastwards around the time of the Punic wars and the tyrant wasbrought into the republican language of politics and literature, we find aclear conceptual division of labor.23 The tyrant occupied a fixed, well-defined position in the Roman imaginary, plainly and unambiguously dis-tinguished from the dictator. They marked dissimilar forms of political rule,carrying contrasting, even antithetical meanings. The dictator denoted alegal and regular though extraordinary magistracy intended to protect thepublic good in moments of crisis and danger; tyranny designated an unjustand violent power, the destruction of the common interest, and the down-fall of legality and freedom.

The many differences that set them apart were, in fact, too obvious anddramatic to have been ignored. Dictatorship was a constitutional officeappointed legally through the cooperation of the higher republican author-ities and according to “what the law commanded.”24 The tyrant acquired hispower extra-constitutionally, through force, deceit, and the violent over-throw of the established regime.25 Moreover, the dictator had a concretetask, the elimination of threats during a crisis and a return to the status quoante bellum. Although the salvation and re-establishment of the constitutionwas the strict commission of the dictator, no such authorization existed forthe tyrant whose acts were arbitrary and indeterminate, directed toward thesatisfaction of his selfish desires and private interests.26 The dictator’sactions were generally considered to be inspired by a strong civic commit-ment to the public good, a real manifestation of the patriotic attachment ofthe republican citizen. He was the guardian of the republican order; thetyrant its usurper. In short, the dictator was a servant who defended whatthe tyrant aspired to acquire and destroy.

The contrasts proliferate. Most significantly perhaps, the institution ofdictatorship was temporally bound.27 The dictator’s rule could never exceeda six-month period and upon the successful completion of his assignmenthe had to abdicate.28 Tyranny, however, entailed an attempt to seize controlof a government in order to hold it indefinitely. Whereas the dictator sus-pended the constitution or parts of it for a limited period, the tyrant did sofor an unspecified period, normalizing his rule and endeavoring to habituate




the people to it.29 Dictatorship was exceptional and provisional; tyranny“unnatural” but permanent.30 Because the dictator lacked the legislativepowers that the tyrant simply usurped he could not modify, alter, or abolishthe established constitutional structure but only suspend it. Thus, while thedictator appealed to the exception to uphold the norm, the tyrant attemptedto normalize the exception. Finally, Roman dictatorship was not itself a formof government, but rather an institutional component of a broader republicanregime. Tyranny by contrast was generally treated as a regime-type of itsown, albeit a perversion and a deviation of the just forms of political rule.

The ancient Romans knew these distinctions, which might have hadsome bearing on their historical inquiries and on how they understood theirinstitutions. However, there were some telling similarities between dicta-torship and tyranny that could not have escaped notice. For example, dicta-torship and tyranny were both closely associated with regal rule and inparticular with its stronger personalistic and autocratic versions. In the writ-ings of the Polybius and Cicero this affinity is reflected in the intimate andprivileged relationship both concepts enjoyed with kingship.31

There is here, however, a slight but indicative divergence between theRoman philosopher and the Greek historian. Although Cicero, like Polybius,considered tyranny as a perverted form of monarchy, he also thought thatdictatorship, a decisive higher authority with a plenitude of power to over-come the forces of dissolution, rescued the best monarchy had to offer, “forsafety prevails over caprice.”32 Cicero commended the survival of monar-chical powers (especially those necessary for war or civil discord) in theinstitution and practice of dictatorship.33 For him, dictatorship appeared asa remnant of monarchy, a necessary but temporary retreat to royal powers,and an advantageous return to the deposed form of personalistic rule.34 Incases of emergency, the King’s regal authority was revived, so as to setaside the limitations imposed by the collegiate arrangement, the mixedcharacter of the republic, and by the special curtailments of jurisdiction. ForPolybius, however, the monarchical derivation of tyranny primarily explainedthe vicious excesses of the former. In his famous cyclical theory of regimechange, Polybius described how the absolute power of kingship necessarilydegenerates into tyranny, that is, into the ruler’s instrument for the limitlesspursuit of his lawless pleasures and passions.35 Although Cicero agreedwith Polybius’ views on the immanent threat of corruption, he alsoacknowledged the best of monarchy. The ideal of kingship is realized, but,paradoxically, only briefly and provisionally, that is, dictatorially. ForPolybius, however, tyranny represented the worst of monarchy, a naturaldeviation from the right form and a necessary slip into lawlessness.



It would be wrong to underestimate the difference between dictatorshipand tyranny as it emerges out of the contrasting figures of the dictator as thegood, temporary king and the tyrant as an unjust, corrupted monarch.However, even though Cicero’s understanding of dictatorship containspositive elements of monarchy while Polybius’ concept of tyranny embodiesits negative aspects, both conceptualizations reveal a close affinity with regalpower, or what Dio Cassius described as “a love for monarchy” (ε′ρωταµοναρχι.ας).36 This affinity between dictatorship and kingship recalls ear-lier classical Greek explorations into the nature of tyranny, suggesting cer-tain similarities between dictatorship and tyranny. One similarity is acommon claim to supreme power (κυ′ ριος πα′ντων /majus imperium) onceheld by a legitimate monarch.37 In this view, the supreme power over the lifeand death of their subjects, a power without collegiality, characterize bothdictatorship and tyranny. This autocratic form of power also suggestsanother similarity between the two concepts regarding their indeterminateand tense relation with the established legal order and their alarming prox-imity to anomie.38 After all, the Romans drew a thin line separating the kingfrom the tyrant in relation to whether a king ruled by law or according tohis desires, and it was recognized in the force of corruption to transformkings into tyrants.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the dreadful incidents of Sulla (82-79BC) and Caesar (49 BC, 48-47 BC, 46-45 BC, 45-44 BC) would finallydraw attention to these similarities, inviting a serious reexamination of dic-tatorship. Dionysius seems to have been the first to undertake such a revi-sion, and Appian the second.39 Dionysius, a contemporary of Livy, wrotehis history of Rome at the conclusion of a tumultuous, transitional periodbetween the late Republic, its fall, and the consolidation of imperial monar-chy. His Roman Antiquities, consisting of 20 books, began to appear in 7BC, approximately two decades after his permanent move to Rome, at amoment when the problem of dictatorship was again a topical issue, acquir-ing a new historical and political salience perhaps through the ambiguouslegacy of Cicero’s late writings on Caesar and Antonius.40 Unlike most ofhis fellow historians, Dionysius developed a distinct understanding of dic-tatorship, proposed a new history of its origin and evolution, and pro-foundly reassessed its involvement in the fall of the republic.

Appian closely followed and further developed Dionysius’ approach ondictatorship although he completed his Roman History one century and ahalf later, around 162 AD in a mature and relatively stable imperial order.From the vantage point of a consolidated imperial monarchy, Appianlooked back at the instability of the republic and linked dictatorship to a


series of disruptive and violent civic conflicts that brought about the col-lapse of the res publica. As an emergency magistracy, dictatorship played adecisive role in the republic’s slow and painful descent into discord and dis-order.41 Its direct interventions in the politics of social conflict enjoy aprominent place in Appian’s depiction of the gradual dissolution and ulti-mate death of republican institutions. With Appian, dictatorship remainedwhere Dionysius had relegated it, fallen from its previously lofty constitu-tional position and irremediably tainted by its association with tyranny.

Dionysius and the Elective Tyranny of Dictatorship

Dionysius’ account of the historical origins of the first dictatorship dif-fered sharply from and even at times contradicted Livy’s.42 Several exam-ples illustrate this divergence. First, Dionysius located its birth three yearslater than Livy, in 498 BC. More importantly, he underplayed the influenceof external factors in the creation of this emergency institution that werecentral in Livy’s account. Dionysius’ narrative stressed almost exclusivelythe central role of domestic politics.43 It depicted a fragile nascent republi-can order struggling for balance and stability. A highly polarized society,fractured by the problem of the debts, shaken by popular unrest, and threat-ened by civic discord between the patricians and the plebeians, challengedthis quest for survival. In this immediate volatile post-monarchical context,Dionysius firmly located the republican genesis of dictatorship at a critical,foundational junction amidst fierce debates over the political identity of therepublic, the distribution of freedoms and protections of the differentorders, and the shape of its constitutive norms and rules.

Dionysius identifies as the main reason behind the establishment of dic-tatorship a law proposed by the consul Publius Valerius (Publicola) and rat-ified by the people. This law sparked a quarrel that further inflamed theconflict between the two orders on the question of debts, endangering theincipient republic.44 Publicola’s law strengthened considerably the positionof the plebeians by granting the right to appeal (ius provocationis) to Romancitizens, proposing that no Roman should be punished without a trial. Thislaw made it illegal for a magistrate to put a citizen to death without a trialbefore a popular court, that is, before one’s peers (provocation ad popu-lum).45 The right to appeal was thus established as a protection of the ple-beians against the political and social predominance of the patricians in therepublic.46 Defendants could now appeal the judgment of the consuls to thepeople and its assemblies,47 an innovation both Livy and Cicero recognized



as “the unique defense of liberty.”48 Nevertheless, as Dionysius bluntlyreports, in order to “prevent the plebeians from creating any fresh distur-bances,” the senate proposed the creation of a new superior magistracyendowed “with authority over war and peace and every other matter, pos-sessed of absolute power and subject to no accounting for either its coun-sels or its actions.”49

Dictatorship was therefore deliberately designed to stop the politicalambitions of the multitude and “to the end that the poor might offer noopposition,” the senate “introduce[d] into the government a magistracy ofequal power with tyranny (ισοτν′ραννον αρχη′ν ), which should be supe-rior to all the laws.”50 The dictator (δικτα′ τορας) was instituted againstPublicola’s legal right to appeal. The implication of the senate’s judgmentwas, as Dionysius reports, “that while this law remained in force the poorcould not be compelled to obey the magistrates . . . whereas, when this lawhad been repealed, all would be under the greatest necessity of obeyingorders.”51 With the dictator, as Livy himself recognized, “there was neitherappeal nor help anywhere.”52 The plebs subsequently ratified the senate’splan for this temporary magistracy. But as Dionysius argued, the nobilitydeceived and misguided them to vote against their own interests, therebyapproving the abolition of the law that guarded their freedom.53 The newdecree was immediately put into effect. The senate deliberated and the firstdictator was appointed to restore order. After he “terrified the turbulent andthe seditious,” he took a census, made a yearly truce with Rome’s neigh-boring enemies, and resigned.54

Dionysius’ approach is not only more detailed than Livy’s but also moresociologically sensitive and politically alert. He associated closely the cre-ation of dictatorship with social struggles, the balance of power between thecontending classes, their strategic reasoning and sense of self-interest, andin particular, with the political, legal, and social advancements of the poorafter the expulsion of the kings.55 Thus, in Dionysius’ narrative dictatorshipappears from its very beginning as an aristocratic political instrument aim-ing at quelling domestic turmoil and preserving the interests and authorityof the patricians.56

Dionysius redefined this new powerful magistracy of dictatorship “elec-tive tyranny” (αι′ρετη′ τνραννι.ς ), thus radically transforming its meaningwithin the context of Roman political thought.57 The critical thrust ofDionysius’ drastic historical revisionism becomes more palpable in lightof his undeniably pejorative views on tyranny. In his critical discussion ofThucydides, for instance, he portrayed tyranny as a bad form of politicalpower that excludes the many from common life by depriving them of those



things that are universally advantageous and useful.58 This synoptic disap-proval resonates throughout Dionysius’ Roman history. Based on thedescription of its genesis, dictatorship was more of a political weapon inRome’s ongoing civic struggles than a military magistracy aimed at exter-nal foes.59 The senate deliberately designed dictatorship as an instrumentfor domestic emergencies. Its purpose was to spread fear and insecurityamong the disobedient masses, abolish legal protections and rights ifneeded, suppress popular dissent, and protect the interest and privileges ofthe patricians. This may explain why, as Theodor Mommsen observed,“since the fall of monarchy, the suppression of dictatorship became inRome the objective of the party of liberty.”60

As a supreme device of repression, the result of “an aristocratic plot,”institutionally engineered for situations of class warfare, dictatorship neces-sarily militarized political contestation.61 The fact that the first archaic namefor the dictator was magister populi underscores the primary function of amilitary commander.62 Dictatorship not only criminalized political conflictand militarized the city but also transformed the political adversary into ahostis, a public enemy, against whom the dictator could legally apply in fullforce the law of war.63 As Clinton Rossiter observes, “the resort to the dicta-torship converted the Roman Republic and its complex constitution into thesimplest and most absolute of all governments—an armed camp governedby an independent and irresponsible general.”64 All this would have soundedfamiliar to Greek ears. Tyrants “know well that all who are subject to theirtyranny are their enemies (ε′χθροι.),” Xenophon’s “Hieron” laments, as theylive “in a perpetual state of war.”65 Tyranny was a friendless power, and themilitarization of the political was considered a defining attribute of tyranni-cal rule.66 Aristotle, in his historical and comparative investigations on thenature of this form of boundless power, concurred: the tyrant is a war-maker,a “πολεµοποιο′ς.”67 The tyrannical city was always under siege; and so itwas with Rome under the rule of a dictator.68

These similarities may have informed Dionysius’ sweeping redefinitionof dictatorship as “elective tyranny.” On the one hand, dictatorship wastyrannical because it was absolute and unaccountable, entailed the discre-tionary use of the means of violence, the ability to breach the laws at will,and threatened the life, liberties, and property of its subjects while seekingto protect and advance partial class interests against the common good. Onthe other hand, it was also elective. The people explicitly consented tosacrifice temporarily their freedom when they ratified the senate’s proposal.That they were fooled and manipulated, as Dionysius maintained, does notalter the fact that in the end they sanctioned the new law, thus surrendering



to a “voluntary tyranny” (αν′θαι.ρετον τνραννι.δα).69 With the Romans,the tyrant became a constitutional choice in moments of crisis and tyrannytook the new form of arbitrary personal rule by consent.

Dionysius’ radical reappraisal not only challenged established views ondictatorship, it also questioned classical definitions of tyranny. For instance,from the well-known Greek designations of tyranny as a particular form ofrule over unwilling subjects, against the law, and in the service of theprivate interests of the ruler, Dionysius retained the two last attributes,illegality and partial interests, and reduced the significance of the first,involuntary rule.70 As a consequence, the non-consensual foundations oftyranny and its association with usurpation became less important in his useof the term, given that he thought it possible to have a tyranny consented toby the many as long as the ruler remained unaccountable and outside thelaw, enjoying full powers over his subjects while seeking to advanceparticular social interests. In this way, Dionysius distanced himself fromthe classical meanings traceable at least to Herodotus’ story of the firsttyrant Gyges, according to which tyranny was an act of usurpation in vio-lation of established norms and rules regulating the acquisition of power.71

Dionysius drew attention instead to the nature and quality of rule itself andnot to the method of its possession, thus departing from the view of tyrannyas a violation of the procedural law of succession. This reformulation oftyranny anticipates the medieval distinction between tyranny ex defectutituli (with respect to the illegitimate and non-consensual acquisition ofpower) and tyranny quoad exercitium (with respect to the way of exercis-ing power).72

This subtraction of the principle of consent from the attributes of tyrannywas not fully innovative considering the Aristotelian category of “electivetyranny” that was included in his typology of royalty.73 Aristotle distin-guished among several types of kingship, dissimilar but still partaking inthe same regime form, allowing for a more complex, comparative approach.Dionysius’ approach directly relies on one of Aristotle’s royal sub-types,the obscure and almost unknown to us archaic, pre-democratic Greek insti-tution of aesymne–tae, under which a military commander was elected andgranted additional powers to save the city from external dangers.74 After thecompletion of the mission, the aesymne–tes abdicated. Aristotle consideredthis ancient practice tyrannical because it was absolute in the manner of itsrule, notwithstanding its likely origin in popular support or through theestablished legal forms and procedures. Such regimes “are of the nature oftyrannies,” Aristotle writes, “because they are despotic, but of the nature ofkingships because they are elective and rule over willing subjects.”75 The



aesymne–tes is thus a hybrid of tyranny and kingship, blending absolute,personalistic power with consent in moments of exceptional danger.76

Pittacus, the ruler of Mitylene, for example, was officially an aesymne–tesbefore he became the legendary tyrant and one of the seven sages.77

Dionysius’ appropriation of the Aristotelian category of “electivetyranny” is crucial for his concluding narrative on Sulla, whose dictator-ship he assessed as having one positive, if inadvertent effect: it finallycompelled the Romans to realize the true nature of this magistracy insofaras it exposed the real face of dictatorship in terms of the tyrant within.78 Socruel and harsh was Sulla’s dictatorship, Dionysius wrote, “that theRomans perceived for the first time what they had all along been ignorantof, that dictatorship is a tyranny.”79 Dionysius’ comment does not indictSulla for abusing the Roman magistracy and its extraordinary powers orfor violating its constitutional limitations, as Mommsen would later do inhis famous distinction between two types of dictatorship.80 Nor doesDionysius inflect his notion of tyranny with such subjective moral charac-terizations as Sulla’s personal lust to power. Rather, Dionysius’ indictmentof Sulla is predicated on the emergency institution of dictatorship itself,devised to tyrannize the republic, even if only temporarily and by consent.In short, for Dionysius, Sulla was the tyrannical symptom of dictatorship,not its cause.

Appian and the Temporary Tyranny of Dictatorship

This incipient but compelling critical redefinition of the republicanemergency magistracy was further explored and developed almost acentury and a half later in the writings of another Greek historian, Appianof Alexandria.81 Although Appian’s approach is quite dissimilar to that ofDionysius, it nonetheless shares with the latter a common understanding ofRoman dictatorship. Thus, their writings on dictatorship complement oneanother and their shared vision of the tyranny of dictatorship sets their workapart from the other historians of their time. In fact, Appian’s narrative con-firms Dionysius’ interpretation of the tyrannical nature of dictatorship.Dionysius’ thorough examination of the first Roman dictator is matchedonly by Appian’s equally meticulous discussion of Sulla, one of the last toascend to absolute power.82

In his history of the Roman republic, Appian shows how during thecivil wars Sulla resorted to the institution of dictatorship by walking a thinline between legality and anomie. After invading Rome in 82 BC and taking



advantage of the death of the two consuls during the civil war, Sulla ‘con-vinced’ the senate to appoint an interrex. He subsequently ‘persuaded’ theinterrex not to organize and supervise the elections for the new consulsbut instead to appoint him dictator for an indefinite period and with leg-islative powers.83 The interrex followed Sulla’s ‘suggestion’ and proposed anew law which was approved by a weakened and demoralized centuriateassembly thus formally appointing Sulla dictator (βασιλεν′ων δικτα′τωρ),and establishing, in effect, a dictatorship by popular election.84 As if historywere repeating itself within just a few centuries, “the Romans welcomed thistreachery of an election as an appearance and pretence of freedom andappointed Sulla as tyrant with absolute power (τν′ραννον αντοκρα′τορα) foras long as he wished.”85 Like the closing of a circle, the republic’s beginningsmet the republic’s end: in “voluntary servitude.”86

Like Dionysius, Appian redefined Sulla’s dictatorship as a tyrannicalform of rule.87 What exemplified Sulla’s tyranny was not external, solelybecause of his skillful manipulation of his appointment procedure. Nor wasthe tyrannical character of his rule due simply to the crimes he committedand the visceral terror he unleashed. Likewise, Sulla’s dictatorship couldnot be explained by his legislative constituent powers (dictator legibusscribendis et rei publicae constituendae) which gave him unlimited powersto make laws and amend the constitution.88 Rather, the tyrannical nature ofSulla’s rule was inscribed in the very logic of his dictatorial position assuch. As Appian claimed, following on Dionysius’ steps, dictatorship is initself a form of tyranny and thus “even in the past the dictator’s power hadbeen tyrannical.”89 Dictatorship had always been a tyrannical power, irre-spective of Sulla’s procedural irregularities and innovations.

If Appian was right, however, there would be no difference betweenSulla and all the previous dictators, all of whom would look like tyrants.Obviously this cannot be the case since Appian is well aware of the histor-ically distinct character of Sulla’s dictatorship. It was the violation of thetemporary limits of dictatorship that accounts for Sulla’s historical unique-ness. By removing the time limits, Sulla unleashed the tyrant residingwithin the emergency magistracy, and its dreadful powers. While in the pastthe tyranny of dictatorship “was limited to short periods” (ο′λι.γω χρο′νωδ’ο′ριζοµε′νη), with Sulla it became “indeterminate” (α′ο′ριστος).90 Here,Appian’s approach recalls Plutarch’s, insofar as it was the latter who acentury earlier had defined Caesar’s dictatorship as tyrannical preciselybecause it was perpetual and who also identified Sulla as “nothing else thanalways a tyrant.”91 But Plutarch did not qualify his definition. It was inAppian’s histories, as Mario Turchetti correctly notes, that “dictatorship




was originally a tyrannical power, even if it was short-term limited. But forthe first time, granted without limits, it became a perfect tyranny.”92

Appian’s distinction between dictatorship and tyranny derives from thefact that the first is a limited form of the latter. The dictator is a temporarytyrant, whose tyranny is short-lived, regulated, and bounded. Thus, the dif-ference between Sulla and previous dictators was that the latter were limited.In Appian’s narrative, the dictator resembles an interim tyrant, restrained andcontained, designed to exercise “tyrannical power” (τνραννι.κη′ µα′ρχη′ν)only in brief moments of grave emergencies not exceeding the six months ofunlimited power, not subject to appeal and to countervailing checks, whenthe law undoes the temporal chains that bind him.93 As a slumbering tyrant,he lies dormant in normal times, waking up only temporarily during a crisisto wear his dictatorial mantle. By being appointed for an indefinite period,Sulla seems to have fulfilled the tyrannical logic of dictatorship. From a lim-ited tyranny, periodic and segmented,94 Sulla moved to a form of tyranny thatwas, for Appian, pure and absolute (εντελη′ς τνραννι.ς).95

Appian’s argument is subtle but decisive. The constitutional principle oftime-limits does not indicate an essential difference between these twoforms of power but rather an internal differentiation of degree between alimited and an unlimited tyranny. The temporary suspension of the lawamounts to a provisional abolition that subordinates it to the arbitrary ruleof human will. Dictatorship and tyranny partake in the same species ofpower: supreme, discretionary, arbitrary, personal, and violent. Two varia-tions on a common theme, the dictator is a temporary tyrant and the tyranta permanent dictator. Sulla’s magistracy is thus at once both typical andunique in that it realized the genuinely tyrannical nature of dictatorship byridding it of temporal limits. By redefining dictatorship as a temporarytyranny and tyranny as a permanent dictatorship, Appian registered thedeep affinities between the two concepts, thereby reaffirming Dionysius’view of dictatorship as tyrannical by nature.96

To be sure, Appian’s account is not identical to Dionysius’. Their inten-tions and preoccupations were not similar as the historical, biographical,cultural, and political contexts of their respective histories diverged sharply.Many differences separate the two Greek historians. Even on the issue ofdictatorship, there are some discrepancies in tone and orientation. Appianappears ambivalent toward the tyrannical effects of dictatorship as in oneoccasion he displayed a kind of appreciation for how in the past dictator-ship had served Rome. He thus acknowledged that this exceptional magis-tracy “had been useful in former times.”97 However, it is unclear why he


thought so and how this relates to his more systematic, informed observa-tions on dictatorship and its role in the demise of the republic, where thereis no mention of any positive advantage. Might it be that he held a prag-matic view according to which the dictator as a short-term tyrant could stillbe useful in certain occasions? Here, the interpretative difficulty relates towhether Appian, while stressing the usefulness of dictatorship, recognizedthe necessity of tyranny for moments of crisis. This puzzle pertains to theconsistency and clarity of Appian’s account and how this brief commentarycould fit into his broader narrative. But the fact remains that even in thiscase Appian upheld his description of dictatorship as an absolute power,thus concurring not only with his explicit analysis of this institution astyrannical and unlimited but also with Dionysius’ version of unaccount-ability. When it comes to their descriptive understanding of the nature ofdictatorship the similarities between the two Greek historians are morepronounced than any of the differences that may set them apart.

Dictatorship and the Legalization of Tyranny

Dionysius and Appian’s strikingly original contribution is to havenoticed a tyrannical presence in the republican institution of dictatorship.By doing so, the two Greek historians inaugurated a powerful revision ofone of ancient republicanism’s more esteemed institutions and a conceptualtransformation with some critical ramifications. The first and most signifi-cant is the heterodox redefinition of dictatorship, now understood as a ‘tem-porary tyranny by consent.’ This redefinition points at a novel theory of theRoman magistracy as ‘legalized tyranny.’ Dictatorship represents the legal-ization of tyranny wherein the tyrant is legally summoned by a higherinstance of the republican constitution in moments of danger to protect theexisting order. As Cicero himself finally came to recognize (but only in theparticular case of Sulla thus missing the general significance of his ownobservation), while “in other cities, when tyrants are established all lawsare extinguished and destroyed, in the republic it is by law that a tyrantwas established.”98 As legalized and proceduralized tyranny, dictatorshipembodies the desire to tame and control the tyrant. There is a yearning touse his supreme powers for one’s own advantage, for love of country. Tocommand the tyrant and unleash him with full discretion against enemiesand for one’s own collective survival is what makes dictatorship an attrac-tive option. ‘Legal tyranny’ promises that absolute power outside the lawcan be domesticated without losing any of its repressive effects.



A second implication is that this atypical view of dictatorship as legaltyranny challenges the historiography of Dionysius and Appian’s times,unsettles received opinions about this exceptional emergency office, andimplicates it in the fall of the Roman republic. For instance, the two Greekhistorians depart significantly from Livy’s more canonical narrative of dic-tatorship and accountability according to which a dictator could be chargedwith crimes committed after laying down his office. For the Roman histo-rian, although the right to appeal was suspended during the dictator’s actualtenure of office, it could be reactivated following his resignation, thusallowing for his impeachment as a private person. Livy mentioned only onesuch case where a dictator, Gaius Manius, and his master of horse werebrought to trial after holding office in 314 BC.99 Unfortunately, it is impos-sible to know how Dionysius and Appian described or interpreted this eventbecause the relevant books of their histories that might have mentioned ithave not survived.100 Because the historical sources are very scanty andthose that survive vary on this issue there is no conclusive evidence toresolve their differing versions between Dionysius and Appian on the onehand and Livy on the other, the problem of the accountability of dictator-ship remains undecided and controversial.101 Andrew Lintott, who is moreinclined to side with Livy on this matter, recognizes that “how absolute thepower of the dictator was, seems to have been an issue which was deter-mined not by statute or by any clear rule, but by casuistry, and it remaineddebatable at the time when the annalist tradition was being developed in thelast two centuries of the Republic. As with many uncertain constitutionalissues, the different positions that could be taken reflected either an aristo-cratic, authoritarian ideology or one that was popular and libertarian.”102

Here, however, the question is not to choose between Livy on the onehand and Dionysius and Appian on the other, in a futile search for histori-cal objectivity, but rather to underscore the originality of two less known,underestimated reinterpretations of dictatorship that stand out as the onlysurviving accounts that share a similar tyrannical depiction of this Romanextraordinary institution, and which have customarily been disregarded infavor of Livy’s single reference. Once these two dissenting interpretationsare taken seriously, not only do we witness in detail the ancient formationof what Melvin Richter has called “family concepts,” but we also gain aprivileged access to an unusually audacious revision of the classicalrepublican regime-type.103

Dionysius and Appian’s Greco-Roman synthesis altered the normativeconnotations associated with classical ideal of dictatorship. It demystifiesthe republican portrayal of dictatorship and exposes the monster lurking



behind the hero, the wolf inside the soldier, the anomie inhibiting the law.The towering reputation dictatorship enjoyed with its martial aura of nobil-ity, an ethical embodiment of civic virtue and patriotism, are now all castaside as institutional and oratory ornaments to reveal that dictatorship isanother name for tyranny. As a consequence their histories disclosed atyrannical kernel hidden inside the institutional fabric of republicangovernment.

Furthermore, an additional ramification is that both Dionysius andAppian’s views question much later attempts, such as those of Mommsenand Carl Schmitt, to distinguish between two different dictatorships: anolder, ancient dictatorship and its irregular, radical reinvention by Sulla andCaesar.104 Against this influential interpretation of two types of dictatorship,the one commissarial and the other constituent, the two Greek historianspoint to the historical continuity and institutional consistency of Romandictatorship. For instance, in their historical revisions of Roman history,Sulla’s dictatorial tyranny loses all of its exceptional or innovative charac-ter. It is neither an unfortunate anomaly nor an erratic occurrence. His dic-tatorship does not signify a break in the history of the institution. Instead,it is regarded as the repressed but permanent, endemic tyrannical possibil-ity of dictatorial powers. Tyranny, therefore, is seen as an integral part ofdictatorship. They may differ from a formal point of view but they are sim-ilar in substance. In fact, if the two Greek historians did not consider Sulla’srule accidental or ground-breaking, it is only because they situated itstyrannical deeds within the very structure and logic of this supreme emer-gency magistracy that offers itself to abuse.105

Here, one cannot help but notice the tragic irony, even poetic justice, ofDionysius and Appian’s histories. Although the Romans took pride in over-throwing the monarchy, elevating the removal of Tarquinius to a republicanfoundational myth, to an anti-tyrannical instituting act, they were ultimatelyunable to rid themselves of the (bad) king.106 And along with praising them-selves for their devotion to the law and their patriotic respect for traditionand custom, the Romans opened up a permanent gap, an internal fissure inthe legal edifice of their republic. To save the city, the constitution createdthis void, this empty space of the law, the space of a-nomia, where the dic-tator comes to encounter the tyrant in their common ambition to fill it upwith the power once owed by the kings. It is ironic that despite the Romans’renowned hatred of kings (odium regni), the expulsion of Tarquinius, andthe collegiality of the consuls, the tyrant was never really barred from thecity but rather remained harbored within the republican institution of dic-tatorship.107 By retaining the kingly powers, the Romans ‘inadvertently’



preserved as well their tyrannical potential and failed to fully break awayfrom their monarchical past.108

In fact, kingship, whose abolition was predicated on the dangers it posedto liberty, was preserved by the republic in the ‘minimal’ form of dictator-ship with the utmost task of defending the city in its most vulnerablemoments.109 In the Roman republic, the enemy of freedom was elevated asits defender. And what was meant to be used against internal and externalenemies was turned ultimately against the Roman constitution itself, whichthus fell victim to its own dangerous creation. Plotting to strengthen exec-utive power beyond law, the constitution ended up caught in its own trap,undermining the freedoms that had sustained its very existence and identity.By importing the tyrant into their republic after the expulsion of the kingsunder the guise of extraordinary emergency powers, the ancient Romansmade an ill-fated choice that eventually contributed to the loss of their lib-erty. To lose their libertas, what the citizens feared and hated the most,finally became a reality. With Sulla and Caesar the dictator is finallyexposed: he is the tyrant within a free city, a Trojan horse situated at theheart of the Roman constitution. Thus, Tarquinius might have been ban-ished but his abusive, tyrannical powers survived in the new emergencymagistracy and returned with a vengeance to play an active part in the con-flicts that brought the republic to an end.

Many centuries later, this reinterpretation of dictatorship would reverber-ate in modern political thought in a radically altered historical context. Withthe return of dictatorship and its dissemination through republican doctrinesof politics, the moderns gradually rediscovered its tyrannical nature. Fromthis rich and fascinating period, one telling example stands out. It is inThomas Jefferson’s writings that Dionysius and Appian’s analysis is fullyresuscitated and brought to its ultimate conclusion. In a section of his Noteson Virginia regarding the defects of the Virginia State constitution hedenounced two proposals made in 1776 and 1781 “to create a dictator,invested with every power legislative, executive, and judiciary, civil and mil-itary, of life and of death, over our persons and over our properties.”110

Jefferson used his disagreement with these two proposals as an occasionnot only to deplore dictatorship but, more tellingly, to attack tyranny.Commenting on the Romans, he keenly reproached their republican consti-tution because it “allowed a temporary tyrant to be erected, under the nameof a Dictator; and that temporary tyrant, after a few examples, becameperpetual.”111 Temporality is the crucial feature, the one that blends thetyrant and the dictator together. More forthright than Dionysus and Appian,Jefferson explicitly recognized the extent of the destructive potential of



tyrannical rule which he did not think could be tamed and regulated in theform of dictatorship. The temporal constraints would not last forever to per-petually bind this extraordinary device of domination and to compel it toact for the preservation of the republic. Once included in the constitutionalarrangement of dictatorship, tyranny becomes a permanent, endemic threatto that same arrangement. This threat arises because the tyrant cannot bemoderated by or accommodated within an institutional mechanism and anoverarching constitutional system of mixed powers. Instead, he will throwthe mixed constitution out of balance. The tyrant, who inhibits the dictator,will seek to permanently unbind himself from the legal restrictions and usehis exceptional power to subvert constitutional constraints.

The ancient Greeks noticed early on this unruly drive of tyranny and reg-istered it in classical political philosophy. Tyranny is excessive, “unlimited”(α′ο′ριστος τνραννι.ς), striving voraciously for absolute sovereignty (απα′ντωνκν′ριο′ς).112 It amounts, for Herodotus, to hubris, as the tyrant’s desiresoverreach, never to be satisfied.113 Plato’s description of the excess oftyranny remains telling as well. The tyrannical life, Gorgias commends, is“a life of insatiable licentiousness,” that same life which Socrates deploredas “always greedy, suffering from unfulfilled desires.”114 Tyranny is pureimmoderation caught in the vicious circle of power for the sake of power.These classical depictions of tyrannical power question directly the capac-ity of legal stipulations regulating dictatorship ever to succeed in perma-nently containing and neutralizing the tyrant within the dictator.

In addition, Jefferson did not shy away from drawing a second conclu-sion from the tyrannical character of dictatorship. The Roman constitutionwas self-defeating for the simple reason that although the dictatorship was“proved fatal” to the republic, it was also indispensable to it.115 Rome’srepublican constitution was trapped in a deadly paradox: its factional poli-tics, an “unfeeling aristocracy,” and a “ferocious” and impoverished peoplemade its survival in moments of internal dissension dependent on a tyrantwho would save the republic only to destroy it himself at a later time.116

Herein lays the Jeffersonian paradox: by its very nature the Romanrepublic could not survive emergencies without the assistance of tyranny,the very form of political rule that most endangered its very existence.Consequently, the instrument that was vital for the survival of the republicwas simultaneously the tool of its downfall. As a “remedy,” dictatorship isworse than the malady, yet it is essential.117 Hence the paradoxical situationof an institution that is both essential to the ancient republic’s survival aswell as the cause of its ultimate demise. The Jeffersonian paradox directlyquestions the ideal of the republican constitution and in particular its claim




of stability and permanence generated and sustained by an institutionalequilibrium.118 It is not a coincidence that Jefferson was particularly severein his judgment of Roman republicanism: its structural defects outdo anypossible benefits and therefore it is not a model to emulate.119

Aside the issue of historical reception, there is a much broader implica-tion. If Dionysius and Appian are right and dictatorship is indeed anothername for tyrannical rule, a significant historical and political differencebetween the Athenian democracy and the Roman republic comes to thefore. The fusion of the dictator and the tyrant in these interpretations pro-vides a unique point of entry to reconsider the broader question of the rela-tionship between the two ancient regimes and points to the likely relevanceof this account of the Roman experience with dictatorship to currentdebates on emergency powers and constitutional regimes of exception inliberal democracies.120 Here I will comment briefly only on one aspect ofthis relationship in need of further elaboration elsewhere.

Although democratic Athens and republican Rome are often identified asthe two archetypical free regimes of antiquity, they diverged on the crucialissues of the role of absolute, autocratic power within their respective polit-ical and legal frameworks. Whereas democratic Athens banned the tyranni-cal form of power in the name of freedom, the Roman republic legalized itin the name of liberty. What was excluded from the constitutional arrange-ment of Athens was fully included in the mixed regime of Rome. From thewritings of Dionysius and Appian it seems as though the Roman constitutionwelcomed unwittingly the tyrant to cross over the line separating the state ofnature (and war) and the city. Dictatorship is the result of this republicaninvitation. By contrast, ancient democracy was the only regime we know ofthat legislated explicitly against the tyrant, designating him a “publicenemy” (πολε′µιος) and calling for his assassination.121 Not only was thetyrant outlawed, but as has been correctly noted, “In Athens there was noprovision in the constitution for dealing with emergencies such as theRoman tumultus or the modern martial law.”122 Considering this differencefrom the perspective of Dionysius and Appian’s histories, it seems thatwhile in democratic Athens the tyrant was an enemy to be resisted, inrepublican Rome he was a friend to rely on. These are two very differentattitudes toward tyrannical power.

This distinction is important because it suggests that while historicallyrepublics could accommodate themselves to the tyranny of dictatorship,democracies could not. This also denotes two different attitudes towardpower, its scope and directionality, and its relationship to the law. Fromthe perspective of democratic, anti-tyrannical legislation the figure of the



temporary tyrant must have looked not only paradoxical, but deeply unrea-sonable and dangerous. How is it possible that in moments of crisis a free cityappeals to a tyrant for its survival as the only means to restore order? Can thetyrant whom Cicero described, following Plato, as “the most monstrous of thewild beasts in the cruelty of his nature . . . who desires no bond of shared law,no partnership in human life with his fellow citizens” be constitutionallybound as to safeguard the republic?123 Can a tyrant ever be trusted? Can hedefend liberty? From a democratic standpoint, the republican theory of dic-tatorship now viewed through the lens of Dionysius and Appian asks of citi-zens that they entrust provisionally their freedoms, life, and property to apower they most fear and find insufferable, “since no free man willinglyendures such a rule.”124 It demands to surrender the defense of the city to itsenemy and it undoes the civic vow of democratic citizenship.

Finally, and more crucially, Dionysius and Appian help us grapple withthe politically pressing issue of whether it is wise for citizens of constitu-tional democracies to grant extraordinary emergency powers for securityreasons (even if temporally limited and constitutionally defined) to an officewhich stands in an ambiguous relation to the rule of law.125 Especially in atime when democratic republics are willingly or tacitly opting to suspendsome of their constitutional liberties for purportedly greater security,Dionysius and Appian’s radical reinterpretation of Roman dictatorshipappears astonishingly salient. Of course, one should not expect to find intheir ancient histories precise answers and definitive solutions to today’sproblems and dilemmas regarding constitutional dictatorship and the threatof terrorism. But precisely because they recognized that Roman dictatorshipcan enjoy a semblance of democratic legitimacy and accommodate itselfwith electoral consent, their investigation into the origins and effects of thisancient exceptional institution could advance a more informed, critical, andpolitically incisive understanding of emergency regimes in liberal democra-tic states. The enduring legacy of the two Greek historians is to have refor-mulated the question of whether the citizens or their elected representativesin exceptional moments of crisis should have recourse to a dictator in termsof the more fundamental issue about the relative advantages of tyranny andits unpredictable, counter-productive consequences.

Notes

1. Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw, “Democracy or Dictatorships?” The ContemporaryReview, 286 (1934), p. 432. Also see, Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class, Hannah D. Kahn(trans.), New York: McGrawn-Hill Book Company, 1939, pp. 355, 486; Giovanni Sartori, The



Theory of Democracy Revised, Vol. I, Chatham, New Jersey: Chatham House Publishers,1987, p. 204.

2. Norberto Bobbio, Democracy and Dictatorship, Peter Kennedy (trans.), Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1989, p. 166.

3. For example, see E. E. Kettlet, The Story of Dictatorship. From the Earliest Times tillToday, London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1937; Alfred Cobban, Dictatorship: Its Historyand Theory, New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1939; Oscar Jászi and John D. Lewis,Against the Tyrant: The Tradition and Theory of Tyrannicide, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957;Maurice Latey, Patterns of Tyranny, New York: Atheneum, 1969; Maurice Latey, Tyranny: AStudy in the Abuse of Power, London: Macmillan, 1969; Raymond Aron, De la dictature,Paris: René Julliard, 1961; Raymond Aron, Machiavel et les tyrannies modernes, Paris: Édi-tions de Fallois, 1993; Brian Loveman, The Constitution of Tyranny: Regimes of Exception inLatin America, University of Pittsburgh, 1993; Alan Axelrod and Charles Phillips, Dictatorsand Tyrants: Absolute Rulers and Would-Be Rulers in World History; Facts on File, 1995; DanielChirot, Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age, New Jersey: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1996; Simon Tormey, Making Sense to Tyranny: Interpretations ofTotalitarianism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995; Roger Boesche, Theories ofTyranny From Plato to Arendt, University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, 1996; For three noticeable exceptions, see Élie Halévy, The Era ofTyrannies: Essays on Socialism and War, New York: New York University Press, 1966, p. 308;Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York: A Harvest Book, 1975, p. 6;Andrew Arato, “Good-bye to Dictatorship?” Social Research, 67:4 (2000), pp. 926, 937. FranzNeumann adopts a different view in his “Notes on the Theory of Dictatorship.” See FranzNeumann, The Democratic and the Authoritarian State: Essays in Political and Legal Theory,Herbert Marcuse (ed.), New York: The Free Press, 1957, pp. 233-256. For an illuminating dis-cussion of dictatorship and tyranny in the twentieth century, see Melvin Richter, “A Family ofPolitical Concepts: Tyranny, Despotism, Bonapartism, Caesarism, Dictatorship, 1750-1917,”European Journal of Political Theory, 4:3 (2005), pp. 242-243.

4. Chantal Millon-Delson, “Dictature et despotisme, chez les Anciens et chez lesModernes,” Revue Française D’Histoire des Idées Politiques, 6 (1997), pp. 245-251.

5. Claude Nicolet, “Dictatorship in Rome,” Peter Baehr and Melvin Richter (eds.),Dictatorship in History and Theory. Bonapartism, Caesarism, and Totalitarianism, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 263.

6. It may well be that Cromwell was the first modern to be considered by many of hiscontemporaries to be both a tyrant and a dictator. Pierre Jeannin, “Cromwell: une dictatureintrouvable?” Maurice Duverger, Dictatures et Légitimité, Paris: PUF, 1982, pp. 143-158;R. Zaller, “The Figure of the Tyrant in English Revolutionary Thought,” Journal of the Historyof Political Ideas, 54 (1993), pp. 585–610.

7. Claude Nicolet, L’idée républicaine en france (1789-1924), Paris: Gallimard, 1994,p. 101-105.

8. François Hinard, “De la dictature à la tyrannie. Réflexions sur la dictature de Sylla,”François Hinard (ed.), Dictatures, Actes de la Table ronde de Paris, 27-28 février 1984, Paris:De Boccard, 1988, pp. 87-96.

9. For the Greek historians of the Roman empire, see G. W. Bowersock, Augustus andthe Greek World, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1965; G. W. Bowersock, “Historical Problemsin Late Republican and Augustan Classicism,” T. Gelzer, F. W. Bowersock (eds.), Le classi-cisme à Rome aux I siècle avant et apres J.-C., Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1978, pp. 65-72; BettieForte, Rome and the Romans as the Greeks Saw Them, Rome: American Academy in Rome,



1972; E. L. Bowie, “The Greeks and their Past in the Second Sophistic,” Studies in AncientSociety, M. I. Finley (ed.), London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1974, pp. 166-209; Hugh J.Mason, Greek Terms for Roman Institutions, Toronto: American Studies in Papyrology, 1974;André Hurst, “Un critique grec dans la Rome d’Auguste: Denys d’Halicarnasse,” ANRW II.30.1, 1982, pp. 839-865; Claude Nicolet (ed.), Demokratia et Arisokratia. A propos de CaiusGracchus: mots grecs et réalites romaines, Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1983; EmilioGabba, “The Historians and Augustus,” Fergus Millar and Erich Segal (eds.), CaesarAugustus: Seven Aspects, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, pp. 61-88; Erich S. Gruen, TheHellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984,pp. 316-356; Robert Syme, “Greeks Invading the Roman Government,” Roman Papers, 4,Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 1-20; Claude Nicolet, “Dictateurs Romains,stratégoi autokratores et généraux carthaginois,” Dictatures, pp. 27-47; I. S. Moxon, J. D.Smart, and A. J. Woodman (eds.), Past Perspectives. Studies in Greek and Roman HistoricalWritings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986; George A. Kennedy (ed.), TheCambridge History of Literary Criticism. Vol. I: Classical Criticism, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1989; Kurt A. Raaflaub and Mark Toher (eds.), Between Republic andEmpire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1990; Michael Grant, Greek and Roman Historians: Information and Misinformation,London: Routledge, 1995; Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, Erich Gruen (eds.), HellenisticConstructs: Essays in Culture, History, and Historiography, Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1996; Simon Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, andPower in the Greek World, AD 50-250, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996; David S. Potter,Literary Texts and the Roman Historian, London: Routledge 1999; Fergus Millar, The RomanRepublic in Political Thought, Hanover and London: The University Press of New England,2002, pp. 37-49; Timothy E. Duff, The Greek and Roman Historians, London: BristolClassical Press, 2003.

10. T. J. Cornell, “The formation of the historical tradition of early Rome,” Past Perspectives.Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writings, pp. 74, 80-81; Emilio Gabba, Dionysius andthe History of Archaic Rome, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, pp. 10-11, 21-22,87-96, 152; Harvey C. Mansfield, Taming the Prince. The Ambivalence of Modern ExecutivePower, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, pp. 84-85; Gregory S. Bucher,“The Origins, Program, and Composition of Appian’s Roman History,” Transactions of theAmerican Philological Association, 130 (2000), pp. 411-458; Duff, The Greek and RomanHistorians, p. 118.

11. Nicolet, “Dictateurs Romains, stratégoi autokratores et généraux carthaginois,” pp. 35-36,38; Schultze, “Dionysius of Halicarnassus and his audience,” p. 128; Gabba, Dionysius andthe History of Archaic Rome, pp. 23-59; Matthew Fox, “History and Rhetoric in Dionysius ofHalicarnassus,” The Journal of Roman Studies, 83 (1993), p. 42; Alain M. Gowing, TheTriumviral Narratives of Appian and Cassius Dio, Ann Arbor: The University of MichiganPress, 1992, pp. 283-287; Swain, Hellenism and Empire, pp. 253, 414-421; Millar, The RomanRepublic in Political Thought, pp. 38-39; Mario Turchetti, Tyrannie et Tyrannicide del’Antiquité à nos jours, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001, pp. 162-164.

12. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1971, Book V: 70-77, pp. 211-237; Appian, Roman History: The Civil Wars, Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002, Book I: 98-115, pp. 181-215.

13. Cicero, “Philippic I,” Philippics, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001,1, p. 23; Cicero, “Philippic II,” Philippics, 36, p. 155; Appian, The Civil Wars, Book III:25,p. 565; Dio Cassius, Roman History, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.Book 54:51, p. 401, Book 54:2, pp. 283-285.



14. Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002, 5, p. 353;Theodor Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Paris: Thorin et fils, Éditeurs, Vol. IV, 1894,pp. 428-429, 436-438; Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2002, pp. 53-54; Cobban, Dictatorship. Its History and Theory, p. 331; Arthur Kaplan,Dictatorships and “Ultimate” Degrees in the Early Roman Republic 501-201 BC, New York:Revisionist Press, 1977, pp. 6, 165.

15. Clemence Schultze, “Dionysius of Halicarnassus and his audience,” Past Perspectives.Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writings, pp. 131-134; Bucher, “The Origins,Program, and Composition of Appian’s Roman History,” pp. 431, 433-437, 441.

16. For example, see Sallust, The Conspiracy of Catiline, New York and London: PenguinBooks, 1963, Book I: 10-12, p. 181-183; Livy, History of Rome, Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1998, Book I: Preface, pp. 3-9; Gabba, Dionysius and the History of ArchaicRome, pp. 211-213.

17. Polybius, The Histories, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Book VI: 7-8,pp. 283-285; Cicero, De Re Publica, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Book I: 33,42, pp. 77, 97-99; Book II: 26-29, 32, pp. 150, 167-169. Also, see Roger Dunkle, “TheRhetorical Tyrant in Roman Historiography: Sallust, Livy, Tacitus,” Classical World, 65(1971), pp. 12-20; Alain Michel, La philosophie politique a Rome d’Auguste a Marc Aurèle,Paris: Armand Colin, 1969, pp. 22-27.

18. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999,Book VIII: 10, p. 491; Cicero, De Re Publica, II: 27, p. 159; Melvin Richter, “A Family ofPolitical Concepts: Tyranny, Despotism, Bonapartism, Caesarism, Dictatorship, 1750-1917,”p. 224.

19. For the merging of the Roman king and the Greek tyrant, see Roger Dunkle, “TheGreek Tyrant and Roman Political Invective of the Late republic,” Transactions andProceedings of the American Philological Association, 98 (1967), pp. 151-171.

20. Livy, History of Rome, Book II: 18, pp. 275-277; Cicero, De Re Publica, Book II: 56,p. 69-71. More generally, see D. Cohen, “The Origin of Roman Dictatorship,” Mnemosyne,4:10 (1957), pp. 300-318.

21. Livy, History of Rome, Book II: 18, pp. 275-277. Also see, Clifton Walker Keyes, “TheConstitutional Position of the Roman Dictatorship,” Studies in Philology, 14 (1917), pp. 298-305; Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Paris: Thorin et fils, Éditeurs, Vol. III, 1893, p. 163;Andrew Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic, Oxford: Oxford University Press,1999, pp. 109-113.

22. Livy, History of Rome, Book II: 18, pp. 277. A reaction mentioned by Cicero as well.Cicero, De Re Publica, Book I: 60, p. 95; Nicolet, “Dictateurs Romains, stratégoi autokratoreset généraux carthaginois,” p. 30.

23. Dunkle, “The Greek Tyrant and Roman Political Invective of the Late Republic,”pp. 153-156; J. Béranger, “Tyrannus: Notes sur la notion de la tyrannie chez les Romainsparticulièrement a l’époque de César et de Cicéron,” Revue de études Latines, 13 (1935),pp. 89-90; Jászi and Lewis, Against the Tyrant, pp. 10-11; Mario Turchetti, Tyrannie etTyrannicide de l’Antiquité à nos jours, pp.160-164; Cicero, “Pro rege Deiotaro,” Orations,Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 501-541; Jean-Louis Ferrary, “Cicéronet la. dictature,” Dictatures, pp. 97-105; Neal Wood, Cicero’s Social and Political Thought,Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, pp. 155-158.

24. Livy, History of Rome, Book II: 18, pp. 275-276; Mommsen, Le droit public romain,Vol. III, pp. 162-163.



25. Aristotle, Politics, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990, Book V: 10,pp. 457; Plato, The Republic, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994, Book VIII:19, p. 333; Book II: 3, pp. 117-119; Diogenes Laertius, “Plato,” Lives of Eminent Philosophers,Vol. I, Cambridge: Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000, III: 83, p. 349; Heredotus’ story ofGyges, the first tyrant, exemplifies the violent, murderous beginnings of tyranny. Herodotus,Histories, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995, Book I: 8-15, pp. 11-19;Cicero, De re publica, Book I: 64, pp. 101-103. For the relationship between tyranny andviolent usurpation, see Dolores Hegyi, “Notes on the Origins of Greek Tyrannis,” Academiascientiarum Hungarica, Acta Antiqua, 13 (1965), pp. 303-318; H. W. Plecket, “The Archaictyrannis,” Talanta, 1 (1969), pp. 19-61; Jules Labarbe, “L’apparition de la notion de tyranniedans la Grèce archaique,” L’Antiquité Classique, 40 (1971), pp. 471-504.

26. Aristotle, Politics, Book IV:8, p. 327; Book VI:2, p. 507; Polybius, The Histories, BookVI:7, pp. 283-284.

27. Cicero, Laws, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994, Book III:3, p. 467.28. This contrasts with the arbitrariness and indeterminacy of tyranny that made law its

enemy. For an insightful discussion of this aspect of tyranny, tyranny as freedom, see ArleneW. Saxonhouse, “The Tyranny of Reason in the World of the Polis,” The American PoliticalScience Review, 82:4 (1988), pp. 1261-1275.

29. Aristotle, Politics, Book V:9, 10-11, p. 467.30. Aristotle, Politics, Book III:11, pp. 269-271; Book V:9, p. 459-475; Plato, The Laws,

Book VIII, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 832c, pp. 137-139; Nicolet,“Dictatorship in Rome,” p. 265; Lucien Jerphagnon, “Que le tyran est contre-nature. Surquelques clichés de l’historiography romaine,” Actes du Colloque: La Tyrannie, Centre dePublication de l’Université de Caen: Cahiers de philosophie politique et juridique, 1984,pp. 39-50.

31. Herodotus, Histories, Book III:80, p. 105; Aristotle, Politics, Book III:5, p. 207;Cicero, De Re Publica; Book II:32, pp. 169; Dio Cassius, Roman History, Book IV:13(Zonaras), p. 107; Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. III, pp. 7, 164-165, 191-197; D.Cohen, “The Origins of Dictatorship,” pp. 300-318; F. E. Adcock, Roman Political Ideas andPractice, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1967, p. 46; Mansfield, Taming thePrince. The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power, pp. 82-85. Polybius and Cicero rec-ognized in the tyrant a deviant ruler, an unjust king. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, BookVIII: 10, pp. 489-491; Cicero, De Re Publica, II:27, p. 159; Book I: 28-31, 60, 62, pp. 69-71, 93-95, 97; Book II: 25-27, 32, pp. 155-161, 169; Polybius, The Histories, Book VI:7,pp. 284-285. Tyranny was regarded as an almost inevitable, natural perversion of kingship inthat the limits separating them did not mark any real difference. See, Aristotle, Politics,Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994, Book III:5, p. 209; Aristotle,Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII:10, pp. 489-491; Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book I:8, p. 89;Polybius, The Histories, Book VI:7, p. 285; Cicero, De Re Publica, Book II:25, 157; ClaudeNicolet, “Polybe et les institutions romaines,” Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique de laFondation Hardt, XX, Genève: Vandoeuvres, 1974, p. 209-265; Neal Wood, Cicero’s Social andPolitical Thought, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, pp. 156-157.

32. Cicero, De Re Publica, Book I: 30, p. 95; Dio Cassius, Roman History, Book IV:13(Zonaras), pp. 107-109; Carl Schmitt, Die Dictatur, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1994,p. 2l; Clinton Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the ModernDemocracies, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2004, pp. 17-18.

33. Cicero, De Re Publica, Book I:40-43, pp. 93-101; Book II:26-30, 32, pp. 157-163, 169;Dio Cassius, Roman History, Book IV:13 (Zonaras), p. 107. Also, see Jean-Louis Ferrary,



“Cicéron et la dictature,” pp. 97-105; Béranger, “Tyrannus: Notes sur la notion de la tyranniechez les Romains particulièrement a l’époque de César et de Cicéron,” pp. 89-90.

34. Clinton l. Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship, p. 17.35. Polybius, The Histories, Book VI: 7, pp. 284-285; Kurt von Fritz, The Theory of the

Mixed Constitution in Antiquity. A Critical Analysis of Polybius’s Political Ideas, New York:Columbia University Press, 1954; T. Cole, “The Sources and Composition of Polybius VI,”Historia, 13 (1964), pp. 440-486; Claude Nicolet, “Polybe et les institutions romaines,” EmilioGabba (ed.), Polybe. Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique, Geneva: Vandoeuvres, 1973,pp. 209-259; S. Podes, “Polybius and his Theory of Anacyclosis—Problems of not justAncient Political Theory,” History of Political Thought, 12:4 (1991), pp. 577-587.

36. Dio Cassius, Roman History, Book IV:13 (Zonaras), p. 109.37. Aristotle, Politics, Book III:4, p. 201, Book III:9, p. 249; Polybius, The Histories; Book

III:86, 87, pp. 213, 215; Cicero, De Re Publica, Book I:32, p. 77, Book I:60, p. 95, Book II:32,p. 169. Also see, James F. McGlew, Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece, Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1993, pp. 9. Here, the term anomia refers to its original ancientGreek meaning and not to its modern appropriation by Emile Durkheim.

38. For tyranny as anomy, see Plato, Republic, Book IX: 572b, 575a-b, pp. 339, 349; Plato,Statesman, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995, 302e-303a, p. 163; Aristotle,Politics, Book IV:8, pp. 325-327; Dionysius, Roman Antiquities, Book V:70, p. 211. RaymondWeil, “De la tyrannie dans la pensée politique grecque de l’époque classique,” Dictatures etLégitimité, p. 38. For an insightful discussion of nomos, anomie, and tyranny, see Angel Sanchezde la Torre, La tyrannie dans la Grèce antique, Paris: Éditions Bière, 1999, pp. 23-124.

39. P.-M., Martin, L’idée de royauté à Rome. Vol. II. Haine de la royauté et séductionsmonarchiques (du IVe siècle av. J.-C. au principat augustéen), Clermont-Ferrand: Adosa, 1994,pp. 104-105.

40. Hinard, “De la dictature à la tyrannie. Réflexions sur la dictature de Sylla,” pp. 89-92;Ferrary, “Cicéron et la dictature,” pp. 101-105.

41. Martin, L’idée de royauté à Rome. Vol. II. Haine de la royauté et séductions monarchiques(du IVe siècle av. J.-C. au principat augustéen), pp. 104-105.

42. For a brief but clear comparative presentation of the two accounts, see Kaplan,Dictatorships and “Ultimate” Degrees in the Early Roman Republic 501-201 BC, pp. 18-20;Fox, “History and Rhetoric in Dionysius of Halicarnassus,” pp. 134-135; H. Hill, “Dionysiusof Halicarnassus and the Origins of Rome,” The Journal of Roman Studies, 51:1-2 (1961),p. 92; Emilio Gabba, “Diogini e la dittatura a Roma,” Tria Corda. Scritti in onore di Arnaldomomigliano, Como: Biblioteca di Athenaeum, 1983, pp. 215-228.

43. Emilio Gabba, Dionysius and the History of Archaic Rome, pp. 140-141; Lintott, TheConstitution of the Roman Republic, p. 110; Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. III,p. 163; Paul M. Martin, L’idée de royaté à Rome. Vol. I. De la Rome royale au consensusrépublicain, Paris: Adosa, 1982, p. 302.

44. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 70, p. 211. Cicero proposesa different account of Publius Valerius and his legislation. Cicero, De Re Publica, Book II:31,p. 165.

45. A. W. Lintott, “Provocatio: From the Struggle of the Orders to the Principate,” Aufstiegund Niedergang der römischen Welt, 1:2 (1972), pp. 226-267; A. W. Lintott, Violence inRepublican Rome, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 12-13; A. W. Lintott, TheConstitution of the Roman Republic, p. 33. Also see, A. H. J. Greenidge, “The Procedure of the‘Provocatio,’” The Classical Review, 9:1 (1895), pp. 4-8; A. H. J. Greenidge, “The ‘ProvocatioMilitiae’ and Provincial Jurisdiction,” The Classical Review, 10:5 (1896), pp. 225-233;



E. S. Staveley, “Provocatio during the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC,” Historia, III (1954-1955), p. 412-428. Cloud J. Duncan, “The Origin of Provocatio,” RPh, 72:1 (1998), p. 25-48.

46. M. Humbert, “Le tribunat de la plèbe et le tribunal du people: remarques sur l’histoire dela provocation ad populum,” Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, 100 (1988), pp. 431-503;Michèle Ducos, Les Romains et la Loi. Reserches sur les rapports de la philosophie grecque etde la tradition romaine á la fin de la République, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1984, pp. 71-79.

47. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 70, pp. 211-215; Livy,History of Rome, Book II: 7-8, pp. 239-245; Plutarch, “Publicola,” Lives, Vol. I, Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998, sections xi-xii, pp. 531-535.

48. Livy, History of Rome, Book III:55, p. 183; Cicero, De Re Publica, Book II:31, 53,p. 165; Cicero, De Oratore, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Book II:199, p. 343.Also, see Ch. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic andEarly Principate, Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1950, pp. 25-27.

49. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 70, p. 211.50. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 70, p. 213. 51. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 70, p. 213.52. Livy, History of Rome, Book II:18, 29-30, p. 277, 313-315; Mommsen, Le droit public

romain, Vol. IV, p. 461.53. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 70, p. 215.54. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 75, p. 229.55. Gabba, Dionysius and the History of Archaic Rome, p. 140.56. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 70, 71, pp. 215, 213, 217.57. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 73, p. 223. Also, see Forte,

Rome and the Romans as the Greeks Saw Them, p. 200; Nicolet, “Dictateurs Romains, stratégoiautokratores et généraux carthaginois,” pp. 30, 34-37, 42; Hinard, “De la dictature à la tyrannie.Réflexions sur la dictature de Sylla,” pp. 94-96; Ferrary, “Cicéron et la dictature,” p. 103.

58. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, “Thucydides,” Critical Essays. Vol. 1: Ancient Orators,Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973, 51, p. 617; Hurst, “Un critique grec dansla Rome d’Auguste: Denys d’Halicarnasse,” pp. 841-843; Gabba, Dionysius and the Historyof Archaic Rome, p. 147.

59. Gabba, Dionysius and the History of Archaic Rome, p. 140.60. Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. IV, p. 187.61. Gabba, Dionysius and the History of Archaic Rome, p. 140; Mansfield, Taming the

Prince. The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power, pp. 84-85; Hugh J. Mason, “The RomanGovernment in Greek Sources: The Effect of Literary Theory on the Translation of OfficialTitles,” Phoenix, 24:2 (1970), pp. 153-154.

62. Cicero, De Re Publica, Book I:63, p. 95; Cicero, De Legibus, Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, Book III:3, p. 467; Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic, p. 110;Giuseppe Valditara, Studi sul magister populi. Dagli ausiliari militari del rex ai primi magistratirepubblicani, Milano: Giuffré, 1989.

63. Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. III, pp. 187.64. Clinton Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship. Crisis Government in the Modern

Democracies, p. 25.65. Xenophon, “Hieron,” Scripta Minora, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

2000, 4, p. 35; 6, p. 29.66. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII: 12, pp. 497-499; Lucian, “The Downward

Journey, or the Tyrant,” Lucian, Vol. II, 11, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999,p. 23; Melvin Richter, “A Family of Political Concepts: Tyranny, Despotism, Bonapartism,Caesarism, Dictatorship, 1750-1917,” p. 224.



67. Aristotle, Politics, Book V:9, p. 463.68. Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. III, pp. 187; Rossiter, Constitutional

Dictatorship. Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies, p. 25.69. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 70, p. 211; Nicolet,

“Dictateurs Romains, stratégoi autokratores et généraux carthaginois,” pp. 34-35. For the con-cept of “voluntary tyranny,” see Jim MacAdam, “Voluntary Tyranny,” University of OttawaQuarterly, 56:2 (1986), pp. 153-161.

70. Aristotle, Politics, Book III: 9, p. 251, Book IV: 8, pp. 325-326; Book V: 8, p. 441;Book V: 8, p. 457; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII: 10, p. 491; Xenophon,Memorabilia, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Book: IV: 6, p. 345.

71. Herodotus, Histories, Book I: 8-15, pp. 11-19. 72. Jászi and Lewis, Against the Tyrant: The Tradition and Theory of Tyrannicide, pp. 7, 26-27.73. Aristotle, Politics, Book III: 9, p. 247.74. Aristotle, Politics, Book III: 9-10, pp. 251-253, 261-263, Book IV: 8, p. 325. Also, see

Raymond Weil, “De la tyrannie dans la penseé politique grecque de l’époque classique,”Dictatures et Légitimité, pp. 42-47; Roger Boesche, “Aristotle’s ‘Science’ of Tyranny,” Historyof Political Thought, 14 (1993), pp. 1-25.

75. Aristotle, Politics, Book III: 9, p. 251. 76. Aristotle, Politics, Book IV: 8, pp. 325-327. 77. Aristotle, Politics, Books III: 9, p. 251. For the tyranny of Pittacus, see A. Andrewes,

The Greek Tyrants, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1956, pp. 92-99; Claude Mossé, La tyran-nie dans la Gréce antique, Paris: PUF, 1969, 14-15; H. W. Pleket, “The Archaic Tyrannis,”Atalanta, 1 (1969), pp. 19-61. Dionysius supplements Aristotle’s observation about this extra-ordinary office by reporting an additional broader function, that of restoring the Republic toits foundational principles against the destructive force of corruption. Here, the dictatorassumes the form of the founder and legislator.

78. For a different, less sympathetic, interpretation of Dionysius’ appropriation of thisAristotelian term, see Mason, “The Roman Government in Greek Sources: The Effect ofLiterary Theory on the Translation of Official Titles,” pp. 153-154, 159.

79. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Books V: 77, p. 235; Gabba, Dionysiusand the History of Archaic Rome, p. 143; Nicolet, “Dictateurs Romains, stratégoi autokratoreset généraux carthaginois,” p. 30.

80. Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. IV, pp. 425-470.81. Istvan, Hahn, “Appians Darstellung der sullanischen Diktatur,” Acta classica Universitatis

Scientiarum Debreceniensis, 10-11 (1974-1975), pp. 111-120.82. For Appian’s interest in emergencies and conflicts, see Gowing, The Triumviral

Narratives of Appian and Cassius Dio, p. 280; Bucher, “The Origins, Program, andComposition of Appian’s Roman History,” p. 420.

83. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I: 99, pp. 183-185; Mommsen, Le droit public romain,Vol. IV, p. 440.

84. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I: 3, 99, pp. 7, 183-185; Kaplan, Dictatorships and“Ultimate” Degrees in the Early Roman Republic, p. 144.

85. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I: 99, 3, p. 183, 7. On Appian’s conceptual equation, seeJames Luce Jr., “Appian’s Magisterial Terminology,” Classical Philology, 56:1 (1961), pp. 25-27.

86. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book II:137, p. 481. 87. Nicolet, “Dictateurs Romains, stratégoi autokratores et généraux carthaginois,”

pp. 37-39, 42.



88. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I: 99, p. 185. Also, see Kaplan, Dictatorships and“Ultimate” Decrees in the Early Roman Republic 501-202 BC, p. 144; Frédéric Hurlet, Ladictature de Sylla: Monarchie ou magistrature Republicaine? Brussels: Institut HistoriqueBelge de Rome, 1993, pp. 93-108; Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. IV, pp. 425-470.

89. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I: 99, p. 183.90. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I: 99, p. 183. In addition, the exceptional trait of Sulla’s

tyranny also was due, according to Appian, to the unparalleled fact that “he was the first man,so far as I know,” who “desired to turn himself . . . from a tyrant into a private citizen” and“had the courage to lay down his tyrannical power voluntarily.” Appian, The Civil Wars, BookI: 3, 104, p. 7, 195.

91. Plutarch, “Caesar,” Lives VII, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994, 53:1-2,pp. 575; Plutarch, “Lysander and Sulla,” Lives IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,2000, 1:1, p. 447.

92. Turchetti, Tyrannie et Tyrannicide de l’Antiquité à nos jours, p. 163.93. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I: 3, p. 7.94. I say “almost all” because there are three recorded cases, that of Furius Camillus II (390

BC), L. Aemilius Mamercinus Privenas (316 BC), and M. Servilius Pulex Geminus (202 BC),which violated the six-month limit. Another irregular dictatorship was that of Minucius in 217BC. T. A. Dorey, “The Dictatorship of Minucius,” The Journal of Roman Studies, 45: 1-2.(1955), pp. 92-96. For these and some additional violations, see Saint-Bonnet, L’État d’excep-tion, pp. 59-60.

95. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I: 99, pp. 183-184.96. Appian’s tyrannical dictatorship reappears timidly and ambivalently in Jean-Jacques

Rousseau’s republican vision. Although Rousseau approves of the institution and the practice,he warns, echoing Appian, that “in the crises that call for its establishment the state is soondestroyed or saved, and once the pressing need has passed, the dictatorship becomes tyranni-cal or useless.” Departing clearly from his more canonical and “precise” definition of tyrannyas usurpation of royal authority, Rousseau places it in the void opened up by the absence oftemporal limits, suggesting that the tyrant is a permanent dictator. This formulation evokesAppian in that the affinity between the dictator and the tyrant unfolds in a temporal horizon.For this reason Rousseau insists that the best protection against this ominous prospect is tonever extend or prolong a dictator’s commission. However, there is an important differencebetween the two thinkers. While Appian understands the temporal factor as only one of degree,Rousseau sees it as a bridge allowing the crossing from one form of rule over to another. Inthat sense, although the Roman institution of dictatorship appears to be liable to abuse once itis abused it is not the same anymore. It has undergone a qualitative transformation into some-thing else: tyranny. Here one can sense the presence of Rousseau’s canonical definition. Thedictator who has violated the law regulating the length of his magistracy has in fact usurped atitle “without having any right to it.” In that sense, the tyrant remains a usurper, he who by vio-lating the temporal restrictions seizes illegally dictatorial power. Tyranny is again a stolen,degenerated form of a supreme executive rule and not the secret truth of dictatorship, not evenits dark side. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Du Contract Social; ou, Principes du Droit Politique,”Œuvres Complètes, Volume III, Gallimard: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1964, Book IV: 7,pp. 458, 423; Pierangelo Catalano, “Le concept de dictature de Rousseau à Bolivar: essai pourune mise au point politique sur la base du droit romain,” Dictatures, pp. 7-25; Jean Ferrari,“Rousseau, Kant et la tyrannie,” Actes du Colloque: La Tyrannie, pp. 177-189.

97. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I:16, p. 33.



98. Cicero, “The Third Speech on the Agrarian Law,” Orations, Vol. IV, Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1930, III: 5, p. 489.

99. Livy, History of Rome, Book 9:26, pp. 263-267; Kaplan, Dictatorships and “Ultimate”Decrees in the Early Roman Republic 501-202 BC, pp. 93-94; Lintott, The Constitution of theRoman Republic, p. 112.

100. It is worth noting, however, that Diodorus of Sicily (80-20 BC), another Greek historiancontemporary of Livy, does not confirm this interpretation. Although Diodorus recounts the dic-tatorship of Gaius Manius, he does not mention the story of his impeachment. Diodorus of Sicily,Library of History, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002, Book 19:76, p. 43.

101. It seems that Dionysius and Appian’s re-interpretation of tyranny is empirically con-tradicted by the lex repetundarum or recovery law, contained in a fragmented bronze tablet,and which suggests that the dictator could be brought to trial after the end of his tenure inoffice. Without knowing, however, the exact dating of the law, its duration, and most impor-tantly its author, it is difficult to ascertain with certainty the extent and character of its legalimpact on dictatorship. For example, most scholars have suggested that the law was authoredby Gaius Gracchus in his struggle to weaken the senatorial class and thus has been interpretedas an instrument in the political warfare between the orders. Two questions are relevant here:(1) How did the demise of Gracchus affect this law? (2) Is it not the case that the law itself isa telling instance of how the institution of dictatorship was turned into a site of political strug-gle and that the problem of the accountability of the dictator was a contested, open-endedissue, depending on relations of power and political interests? On this see, Emilio Badian,“Lex Acilia Repetundarum,” The American Journal of Philology, 74:4 (1954), pp. 374-384;A. N. Sherwin-White, “The Date of the Lex Repetundarun and its Consequences,” The Journalof Roman Studies, 62 (1972), pp. 83-99; A. N. Sherwin-White, “The Lex Repetundarum andthe Political Ideas of Gaius Gracchus,” The Journal of Roman Studies, 72 (1982), pp. 18-31.

102. Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic, p. 112.103. Richter, “A Family of Political Concepts: Tyranny, Despotism, Bonapartism, Caesarism,

Dictatorship, 1750-1917,” pp. 221-248.104. Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. III, pp. 193-194; Vol. IV, pp. 425-470; Carl

Schmitt, Die Diktatur, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1994, p. 3; Saint-Bonnet, L’État d’ex-ception, pp. 47-70; Nicolet, “Dictatorship in Rome,” pp. 265-276; Andrew Arato, “Good-byeto Dictatorship?” pp. 925-933.

105. Hinard, “De la dictature à la tyrannie. Réflexions sur la dictature de Sylla,” pp. 87-105.106. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book I:11, p. 185; Plutarch, “Comparison of Solon and

Publicola,” Lives, II-III, pp. 569-575; Dio Cassius, Roman History, Book IV:13 (Zonaras),p. 109; Ch. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic andEarly Principate, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968, p. 64. As Aristotle percep-tively observed regarding Greek tyrants, “a mode of securing tyranny is to make it more likekingship.” Aristotle, Politics, Book V: 9, p. 467.

107. Martin, L’idée de royauté à Rome. Vol. II. Haine de la royauté et séductions monar-chiques (du IVe siècle av. J.-C. au principat augustéen), pp. 3-11.

108. Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. III, p. 193; Dio Cassius, Roman History,Book IV: 13 (Zonaras), p. 107.

109. Dio Cassius, Roman History, Book IV: 13 (Zonaras), p. 107.110. Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball

(eds.), Jefferson. Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 332.Michael Zuckert offers an illuminating interpretation of Jefferson’s objections to Romandictatorship within the context of the neo-republican revival. See, Michael P. Zuckert, The



Natural Rights Republic. Studies in the Foundation of the American Political Tradition, NotreDame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996, pp. 212-219.

111. Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” p. 335 (emphases added).112. Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, Book I: 8, p. 89.113. Herodotus, Histories, Book III:81, p. 107,114. Plato, Gorgias, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996, 493, p. 417;

Plato, The Republic, Book IX: 578, p. 361.115. Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” p. 334.116. Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” pp. 334-335. Also, see Spinoza, A

Political Treatise, New York: Dover Publications, 1951, chapter X:1, pp. 378-379.117. Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” p. 335. For dictatorship as a “remedy,” see

Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. III, p. 169.118. Polybius, The Histories, Book VI: 10, p. 291; Cicero, De Re Publica, Book II: 57, p. 167.119. Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” pp. 334-335.120. For the concept of constitutional dictatorship, see Schmitt, Die Dictatur; Frederick M.

Watkins, “The Problem of Constitutional Dictatorship,” Friedrich and Mason (eds.), PublicPolicy, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940, pp. 324-378; Carl J. Friedrich,Constitutional Government and Democracy, New York: Ginn and Company, 1950, pp. 572-588;Clinton Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies,pp. 3-32, 288-314; Bruce Ackerman, “The Emergency Constitution,” The Yale LawJournal, Vol. 113:5 (2004), pp. 1029-1091. For a recent opposite approach that opposes thehistorical and conceptual continuity of constitutional dictatorship, see Giorgio Agamben, Stateof Exception, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005, p. 6-11. Clinton Rossiter,Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies, pp. 5, 8, 288.

121. Antocides, “On the Mysteries,” Minor Attic Orators: Antiphon, Andocides, Vol. I,Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982, Book I: 96-98, p. 413; Benjamin D.Meritt, “Greek Inscriptions: Anti-tyrannical Inscription,” Hesperia, 21 (1952), pp. 355-359;Lysias, Against Eratosthenes; Lucian, “Tyrannicide,” Lucian. Vol I, Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1996; Martin Ostwald, “Athenian Legislation against Tyranny andSubversion,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, 86 (1955), 110-128;Jaszy and Lewis, Against the Tyrant: the Tradition and Theory of Tyrannicide; Antony J.Podlecki, “The Political Significance of Athenian ‘Tyrannicide’ Cult,” Historia, 15:2 (1966),pp. 129-141; F. L. Ford, Political Murder: From Tyrannicide to Political Terrorism, Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985; Michael W. Taylor, The Tyrant Slayers. The HeroicImage in the Fifth Century BC: Athenian Art and Politics, Salem: Ayer, 1992.

122. Robert J. Bonner, “Emergency Government in Rome and Athens,” The ClassicalJournal, 18:3 (1922), p. 144; Saint-Bonnet, L’État d’exception, pp. 45-46.

123. Cicero, De Re Publica, Book II: 26, p. 157; Plato, Republic, Book VIII, 566b, p. 321.124. Aristotle, Politics, Book IV:8, p. 327.125. For the continuity between Roman dictatorship and modern theories and practices of

the state of emergency, see Mommsen, Le droit public romain, Vol. IV, p. 187.

Andreas Kalyvas is an assistant professor of political science at The New School for SocialResearch in New York City. He is the author of Democracy and the Politics of the Extraordinary:Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). He iscurrently completing a coauthored book manuscript on liberalism and republicanism whileworking as a monograph on tyranny and dictatorship in Western political thought.


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