In fear of the people, for they were exceedingly wroth against
him, because he had followed with Topheon sea-robbers and
harried the Thesprotians, who were at peace with us.
A man ruling with violence and contrary to the laws he does not call a tyrant, for the name is of more recent date. But his nature he exhibits in his deeds (O. vxiii. 85):—
And send thee to the mainland to Echetus the king, the maimer
of all mankind, who will cut off thy nose and ears with the
pitiless steel.
And he shows Aegisthus tyrannical, who killed Agamemnon and lorded over Mycenae. And when he was killed he says he would have had no sepulchre if Menelaus had been there. For this was the custom with tyrants (O. iii. 258):—
Then even in his death would they not have heaped the piled
earth over him, but dogs and fowls of the air would have
devoured him as he lay on the plain far from the town:
so dread was the deed he contrived.
Oligarchy he seems to show in the ambition of the suitors, about whom he says (O. i. 247):—
As many as lord it in rocky Ithaca.
He describes the mob rule in the Trojan government in which all are accomplices of Alexander and all are involved in misfortunes. Priam accuses his sons of being the cause (I. xxiv. 253):—
Haste, worthless sons, my scandal and my shame!
And also another Trojan, Antimachus (I. xi. 124):—