Le tirannidi in Grecia continentale nel III secolo a.C.

My thesis – Le tirannidi in Grecia continentale nel III secolo a.C. – is devoted to the study of the numerous tyrannies attested in Greece mainland during the third century B.C. The aim of the work is to update what Helmut Berve wrote on this topic in his book Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen, published in 1967 and still today considered the standard work on Greek tyranny. After an Introduction, in which I briefly discuss the status quaestionis and I offer a presentation of the sources, I analyse in depth all the case studies that surely belong to the III century. All of them belong to Peloponnesian poleis except Lachares, who was from Athens. To include Lachares was a choice due to the great importance of this character, quoted by lots of sources. In the analysis, specific attention is paid to some features: the rapport of the tyrants with the population of their hometown, in order to try to understand what kind of support it gave to them; their rapport with external powers, id est, almost always, the Macedonian kingdom – exceptions are Demetrius The Besieger and Ptolemy I Soter –, that wanted to control the Peloponnese also by supporting or imposing tyrannies; moreover, their rapport with Aratus of Sicyon, the leader of the Achaean koinon from 251 BC until his death (213), who instead fought for many years against these pro Macedonian tyrants in order to annex their hometowns to the koinon and “free” the Peloponnese by Macedonia; finally, the representation of the tyrants in the sources, in order to try to make a comparison to that of the tyrants of the Archaic age. In the Conclusion, I summarize what emerged from the analysis of the single case studies, to give a general picture of the tyranny in Greece mainland in the III century. Considering this analysis, I also discuss the so-called theory of the “system” of tyrannies, elaborated originally by W.W. Tarn (and recently examined by D.G.J. Shipley) to explain why Antigonos Gonatas supported several tyrants in the Peloponnese during his reign.