“C’est une controverse qui doit finir, que celle des franchises municipales obtenues par l’insurrection et des franchises municipales accordées. Quelque face du problême qu’on envisage, il reste bien entendu que les constitutions urbaines du xii et du xiii siècle, comme toute espèce d’institutions politiques dans tous les temps, ont pu s’établir à force ouverte, s’octroyer de guerre lasse ou de plein gré, être arrachées ou sollicitées, vendues ou données gratuitement: les grandes révolutions sociales s’accomplissent par tous ces moyens à la fois.”—(Aug. Thierry, Récits des Temps Mérovingiens, Préface, p. 19, 2de édit.)
[19] Aristot. Polit. iii, 10, 7. Ἐπεὶ δὲ (i. e. after the early kings had had their day) συνέβαινε γίγνεσθαι πολλοὺς ὁμοίους πρὸς ἀρετὴν, οὔκετι ὑπέμενον (τὴν Βασίλειαν), ἀλλ’ ἐζήτουν κοινόν τι, καὶ πολίτειαν καθίστασαν.
Κοινόν τι, a commune, the great object for which the European towns in the Middle Ages, in the twelfth century, struggled with so much energy, and ultimately obtained: a charter of incorporation, and a qualified privilege of internal self-government.
[20] The definition of a despot is given in Cornelius Nepos, Vit. Miltiadis, c. 8: “Omnes habentur et dicuntur tyranni, qui potestate sunt perpetuâ in eâ civitate, quæ libertate usa est:” compare Cicero de Republicâ, ii, 26, 27; iii, 14.
The word τύραννος was said by Hippias the sophist to have first found its way into the Greek language about the time of Archilochus (B. C. 660): Boeckh thinks that it came from the Lydians or Phyrgians (Comment. ad Corp. Inscrip. No. 3439).
[21] Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 2, 3, 4. Τύραννος—ἐκ προστατικῆς ῥίζης καὶ οὐκ ἄλλοθεν ἐκβλαστάνει (Plato, Repub. viii, c. 17, p. 565). Οὐδενὶ γὰρ δὴ ἄδηλον, ὅτι πᾶς τύραννος ἐκ δημοκόλακος φύεται (Dionys. Halic. vi, 60): a proposition decidedly too general.
[22] Aristot. iii, 9, 5; iii, 10, 1-10; iv, 8, 2. Αἰσυμνῆται—αὐτοκράτορες μόναρχοι ἐν τοῖς ἀρχαίοις Ἕλλησι—αἱρετὴ τυραννίς: compare Theophrastus, fragment. περὶ Βασιλείας, and Dionys. Hal. A. R. v, 73-74; Strabo, xiii, p. 617; and Aristot. Fragment. Rerum Publicarum, ed. Neumann, p. 122, Κυμαίων Πολιτεία.
[23] Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 2, 3, 4; v, 4, 5. Aristotle refers to one of the songs of Alkæus as his evidence respecting the elevation of Pittakus: a very sufficient proof doubtless,—but we may see that he had no other informants, except the poets, about these early times.
[24] Dionys. Hal. A. R. vii, 2, 12. The reign of Aristodemus falls about 510 B. C.
[25] Thucyd. i, 17. Τύραννοι δὲ ὅσοι ἦσαν ἐν ταῖς Ἑλληνικαῖς πόλεσι, τὸ ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν μόνον προορώμενοι ἔς τε τὸ σῶμα καὶ ἐς τὸ τὸν ἴδιον οἶκον αὔξειν δι᾽ ἀσφαλείας ὅσον ἐδύναντο μάλιστα, τὰς πόλεις ᾤκουν.