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The Thirty Tyrants ( or ) were a pro-Sparta
Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
n oligarchy
Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small Elitism segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military influence or occult spiritual hegemony....
 installed in Athens
Classical Athens

The city of Athens during classical antiquity was a notable polis of Attica, Ancient Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League....
 after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War
Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War which lasted from 431-404BC was an Ancient Greece military conflict, fought by Athens and its Athenian empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta....
 in April 404 BC. Contemporary Athenians referred to them simply as "the oligarchy" or "the Thirty"; the expression "Thirty Tyrants" is due to later historians. Its two leading members were Critias
Critias

Critias , born in Classical Athens, son of Callaeschrus, was an uncle of Plato, and a leading member of the Thirty Tyrants, and one of the most violent....
 and Theramenes
Theramenes

Theramenes was an Classical Athens statesman, prominent in the final decade of the Peloponnesian War. He was particularly active during the two periods of Oligarchy government at Athens, as well as in the trial of the generals who had commanded at Battle of Arginusae in 406 BC....
.

The Thirty severely reduced the rights of Athenian citizens. Imposing a limit on the number of citizens allowed to vote (limiting the franchise for example to the wealthiest citizens) was a standard move on the part of wealthy people who objected to being bossed around by the votes of the "rabble" in a broad-based democracy where all free adult males could vote.






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The Thirty Tyrants ( or ) were a pro-Sparta
Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
n oligarchy
Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small Elitism segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military influence or occult spiritual hegemony....
 installed in Athens
Classical Athens

The city of Athens during classical antiquity was a notable polis of Attica, Ancient Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League....
 after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War
Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War which lasted from 431-404BC was an Ancient Greece military conflict, fought by Athens and its Athenian empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta....
 in April 404 BC. Contemporary Athenians referred to them simply as "the oligarchy" or "the Thirty"; the expression "Thirty Tyrants" is due to later historians. Its two leading members were Critias
Critias

Critias , born in Classical Athens, son of Callaeschrus, was an uncle of Plato, and a leading member of the Thirty Tyrants, and one of the most violent....
 and Theramenes
Theramenes

Theramenes was an Classical Athens statesman, prominent in the final decade of the Peloponnesian War. He was particularly active during the two periods of Oligarchy government at Athens, as well as in the trial of the generals who had commanded at Battle of Arginusae in 406 BC....
.

The Thirty severely reduced the rights of Athenian citizens. Imposing a limit on the number of citizens allowed to vote (limiting the franchise for example to the wealthiest citizens) was a standard move on the part of wealthy people who objected to being bossed around by the votes of the "rabble" in a broad-based democracy where all free adult males could vote. Participation in legal functions — which had previously been open to all Athenians — was restricted by the 30 to a select group of 500 persons. Only 3,000 Athenians were granted the right to carry weapons or receive a jury trial.

The Thirty began a purge of important leaders of the popular party during the Peloponnesian War
Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War which lasted from 431-404BC was an Ancient Greece military conflict, fought by Athens and its Athenian empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta....
. Hundreds were condemned to execution by drinking hemlock, while thousands more were exiled from Athens. One of the most famous men who escaped from Athens during this reign of terror was the wealthy Lysias
Lysias

Lysias was an Attic orators....
, the same Lysias mentioned in Plato's Republic.

In Plato's Apology
Apology (Plato)

Apology is Plato's version of the Speech given by Socrates as he defends himself against the charges of being a man "who corrupted the young, refused to worship the deity, and created new deities"....
, Socrates
Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
 recounts an incident in which the Thirty once ordered him (and four other men) to bring before them a certain man for execution. While the other four men obeyed, Socrates refused, not wanting to partake in the guilt of the executioners. By disobeying, Socrates knew he was placing his own life in jeopardy, and claimed it was only the disbanding of the oligarchy soon afterward that saved his life.

The Thirty Tyrants were overthrown by the exiled general Thrasybulus
Thrasybulus

Thrasybulus was an Athens general and democracy leader. In 411 BC, in the wake of an oligarchy coup at Athens, the pro-democracy sailors at Samos Island elected him as a general, making him a primary leader of the successful democratic resistance to that coup....
 and his allies from Thebes in 403 BC ending their reign of just over a year. After the Thirty had been overthrown in a coup that killed Critias, Lysias accused Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes (statesman)

Eratosthenes of Athens was one of the Thirty Tyrants elected to rule the city of Athens after the Peloponnesian War .Having lost the war to the Sparta, the citizens of Athens elected thirty men as oligarchs....
 of the wrongful death of Lysias' brother Polemarchus.

List of the Thirty Tyrants (a.k.a. "The Council of Thirty")

The names of the Thirty are listed by Xenophon
Xenophon

Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens and Xenophon of Thebes, was a soldier, mercenary and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates....
 in his Hellenica
Hellenica (Xenophon)

Hellenica is an important work of the Ancient Greece writer Xenophon and one of the principal sources for the final seven years of the Peloponnesian War not covered by Thucydides, and the war's aftermath....
 2.3.2.
  • Aeschines of Athens, of the Kekropis tribe (not the famous orator
    Aeschines

    Aeschines , Ancient Greece statesman and one of the ten Attic orators....
    )
  • Anaetius
  • Aresias
  • Aristoteles (also a member of the Four Hundred and mentioned in Plato
    Plato

    Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
    's Parmenides)
  • Chaereleos
  • Charicles
    Charicles

    Charicles, son of Apollodorus, was an ancient Athenian politician, notorious for his role as one of the Thirty Tyrants. His actual role within the Thirty may have been somewhat overestimated by modern scholars, due to his brief mention by Aristotle and by Xenophon and the lack of other details about the power-structure of that oligarchy....
    , son of Apollodorus
    Apollodorus

    Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greeks scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace....
  • Charmides
    Charmides

    Charmides was an Athens statesman and one of the Thirty Tyrants who ruled Athens following its defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Uncle of Plato, Charmides appears in the Platonic dialogue bearing his name, as well as in Xenophon....
  • Chremo
  • Cleomedes
    Cleomedes

    Cleomedes was a Ancient Greece astronomer who is known chiefly for his book On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies....
    , son of Lycomedes
    Lycomedes

    Lycomedes , in Greek mythology, was the King of Scyros during the Trojan War....
  • Critias
    Critias

    Critias , born in Classical Athens, son of Callaeschrus, was an uncle of Plato, and a leading member of the Thirty Tyrants, and one of the most violent....
  • Diocles
    Diocles

    Diocles may refer to:*Diocles , a person in Greek mythology*Roman emperor Diocletian, formerly named Diocles*Diocles of Carystus, Greek physician who lived 4th century BC...
  • Dracontides
  • Erasistratus of Acharnae
  • Eratosthenes
    Eratosthenes (statesman)

    Eratosthenes of Athens was one of the Thirty Tyrants elected to rule the city of Athens after the Peloponnesian War .Having lost the war to the Sparta, the citizens of Athens elected thirty men as oligarchs....
  • Eucleides
    Eucleides

    Eucleides was archon of Athens at the end of 5th century BC.During the year that Eucleides spent in office , the murderous oligarchy of the Thirty Tyrants was driven out of Athens and the Athenian democracy re-established....
  • Eumathes
  • Hiero
    Hiero

    Hiero may refer to:* Hiero : a book by Xenophon.* Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, Italy .* Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse .* Hiero Desteen, protagonist of two post-apocalypse novels by Sterling E. Lanier ....
  • Hippolochus
    Hippolochus

    Hippolochus was a Ancient Macedonians writer, a student of Theophrastus, who addressed to his fellow-student Lynceus of Samos a description of a wedding feast in Macedon in the early 3rd century BC....
  • Hippomachus
  • Melobius
  • Mnesilochus
  • Mnesitheides
  • Onomacles
  • Peison
  • Phaedrias
  • Pheido
  • Polychares
    Polychares

    Polychares was the name of several persons in ancient Greece:*Polychares , one of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens*Polychares of Messenia, victor in the stadion race of the 4th Olympic Games in 764 BC...
  • Sophocles (an Athenian orator, not the playwright)
  • Theogenes
  • Theognis
  • Theramenes
    Theramenes

    Theramenes was an Classical Athens statesman, prominent in the final decade of the Peloponnesian War. He was particularly active during the two periods of Oligarchy government at Athens, as well as in the trial of the generals who had commanded at Battle of Arginusae in 406 BC....
    , son of Hagnon
    Hagnon

    Hagnon was an Athens general and statesman. In 437/6 BC, he led the settlers who founded the city of Amphipolis in Thrace; in the Peloponnesian War, he served as an Athenian general on several occasions, and was one of the signers of the Peace of Nicias and the alliance between Athens and Sparta....
    , of the tribe Pandionis, in the deme of Steiria


See also

  • Thirty Tyrants (Roman)
    Thirty Tyrants (Roman)

    The Thirty Tyrants were a series of thirty rulers that appear in the Historia Augusta as having ostensibly been pretenders to the throne of the Roman Empire during the reign of the emperor Gallienus....