The Thirty Tyrants (οἱ τριάκοντα τύραννοι) is a term first used by Polycrates in a speech praising Thrasybulus (Arist. Rhet. 1401a) to describe the brief 8-month oligarchy which governed Athens after the Peloponnesian War – roughly late-summer 404 BCE to early-summer 403 BCE – also called simply “the Thirty.” The Thirty's rule became marked with such brutal and repressive actions that “oligarchy” emerged from it so discredited Athenians refused to consider “rule by the few” a respectable alternative to democracy for three generations.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original definition at https://www.worldhistory.org/The_Thirty_Tyrants/.
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