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DEATH TO TYRANTS! ANCIENT GREEK DEMOCRACY AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY. BY DAVID A. TEEGARDEN. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton Uni- versity Press. 2014. Pp. xiv, 261.
In this study, David Teegarden examines the ancient Greek legislation on tyrannicide. Beginning with the observation that the number of democracies increased during the classical and early hellenistic periods, he concludes that pro-democratic agents had developed effective methods to sustain local democratic regimes over time and identifies tyrant-killing legislation as one of their core measures. By encouraging bold individuals to kill (potential) tyrants and by convincing others that such actions were acceptable, the laws and decrees against tyrants facilitated mobilization in the face of anti-democratic threats. To verify these assumptions, Teegarden analyzes six cases: tyrant-killing laws from Athens, Eretria, and Ilion, the Anti-Tyranny Dossier from Eresos and the Philites Stele from Erythrai.
Unquestionably, an up-to-date study of tyrant-killing legislation was necessary. The last contribution to this subject by Hans Friedel was published in 1937* and two relevant inscriptions have been discovered since then. Moreover, while Friedel locates the tyrantkilling laws within the broader context of anti-tyranny discourses in ancient Greece, Teegarden recreates the historical and social conditions at the time of their installation in order to explain how the promulgation of such laws served to prevent anti-democratic coups in practice. He thus chooses an innovative approach in handling the mostly epigraphic evidence: drawing on a theory of revolution postulated by social scientist Timor Kuran1 2 and Josiah Ober's recent works on social knowledge in Athens,3 Teegarden in his first chapter uses the example of the Decree of Demophantos to develop a model of the mode of operation of tyrant-killing legislation.
Based on Thucydides' account on the Peloponnesian War, the author thus identifies a "revolutionary coordination problem" (21) in Athens during the events of 411. Only the opportune assassination of Phrynichos ignited the "revolutionary bandwagon" (28), which finally overthrew the regime of the Four Hundred. According...