Science Fair Project Encyclopedia A tyrant (from Greek τυραννος
tyrannos) is a usurper of rightful power, possessing absolute
power and ruling by tyranny. In the original Greek meaning
"tyrant" carried no ethical censure, a tyrant was anyone who
overturned the established government of a city-state, usually
through the use of popular support, to establish himself as
dictator, or the heir of such a person. Cypselus was the first
tyrant of Corinth in the 7th century BC, and managed to bequeath
his position to his son, Periander. Succession was seldom
untroubled among the tyrants. In Athens, the title was first
given to Pisistratus of Athens in 560 BC, followed by his sons,
and with the subsequent growth of Athenian democracy, the title
"Tyrant" took on its familiar censurious connotations. The
Thirty Tyrants installed at defeated Athens in 404 BC by the
Spartans were not tyrants in the usual sense. The heyday of the
tyrants was the early 6th century BC, when Cleisthenes ruled
Sicyon in the Peloponnesus, and Pol