Note 181 — Chapter III · THE CONSTITUTION OF ENGLAND IN THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES.[82] (continued 2)

The word Tyrant in those times bore a sense which may be called a monarchical antitype of its old Greek sense. The Greek tyrant was a man who obtained kingly power in a commonwealth; the tyrants of the third and fourth centuries were men who revolted against a lawful Emperor. “Licet apud nos incubator imperii tyrannus dicatur,” says Servius (ad Virg. Æn. vii. 266). In both cases, the word in strictness expresses only the origin of power, and not the mode of its exercise. Many of the so-called tyrants were excellent rulers. But the Imperial tyrant had this great advantage over the Greek tyrant, that success might turn him into a lawful Emperor, while the Greek tyrant remained a tyrant always. In mediæval writers the word is constantly used in this later Imperial sense, as equivalent to “usurper” or “pretender.”