While these cities would often club together to form alliances
in times of conflict, they were essentially independent. Most of
the city states had initially been ruled by kings. But by about
750 BC the wealthier sections of society had seized power. How
democracy was born in Athens more than 2,000 years ago (Paradise
Films) The Greeks called this form of government oligarchy, or
the rule of the few. In some cities, rivalries among the ruling
nobles led to bloodshed. Sometimes one aristocrat would appeal
directly to the mass of the poorer citizens for support,
promising to end the unrest if they helped him seize sole power.
These aristocrats were called tyrants (in ancient Greece the
word was not used as a term of loathing, but simply to describe
a system of government.) In 560 BC a tyrant called Pisistratus
seized power amid an economic crisis in Athens. He passed laws
which reduced the power of the nobility at the same time as
increasing the role of the ordinary citizen in the running of
the city. Pisistrat