Note 15 — Chapter IX · CORINTH, SIKYON, AND MEGARA. — AGE OF THE GRECIAN DESPOTS.
Reading edition
Euripides (Supplices, 429) states plainly the idea of a τύραννος, as received in Greece the antithesis to laws:—
Οὐδὲν τυράννου δυσμενέστερον πόλει· Ὅπου, τὸ μὲν πρώτιστον, οὔκ εἰσιν νόμοι Κοινοὶ, κρατεῖ δ᾽ εἷς, τὸν νόμον κεκτημένος Αὐτὸς παρ᾽ αὑτῷ.
Compare Soph. Antigon. 737. See, also, the discussion in Aristot. Polit. iii, sect. 10 and 11, in which the rule of the king is discussed in comparison with the government of laws; compare also iv, 8, 2-3. The person called “a king according to law” is, in his judgment, no king at all: Ὁ μὲν γὰρ κατὰ νόμον λεγόμενος βασιλεὺς οὔκ ἐστιν εἶδος καθάπερ εἴπομεν βασιλείας (iii, 11, 1).
Respecting ἰσονομίη, ἰσηγορίη, παῤῥησία,—equal laws and equal speech,—as opposed to monarchy, see Herodot. iii, 142, v. 78-92; Thucyd. iii, 62; Demosthen. ad Leptin. c. 6, p. 461; Eurip. Ion. 671.
Of Timoleon it was stated, as a part of the grateful vote passed after his death by the Syracusan assembly,—ὅτι τοὺς τυράννους καταλύσας,—ἀπέδωκε τοὺς νόμους τοῖς Σικελιώταις (Plutarch. Timoleon. c. 39).
See Karl Fried. Hermann, Griech. Staatsalterthümer, sect. 61-65.