Forms and models of kingship in tyrannical practice: Sicily in the archaic and classical ages

The most historically significant phenomenon in the history of Greek Sicily, between the end of the sixth and the middle of the fourth century B.C., consisted in the affirmation, in the different poleis, of a conspicuous number of strong, authoritarian personalities, holders of a personal power that had been traditionally classified as tyrants and which aimed at legitimizing themselves above all through the acquisition of territory. This chapter aims to recognize, in the tyrannical practices of Sicily, models that were clearly influenced both by the expression of the values of the Hellenic aristocracies and by the typical manifestations of oriental kingships, which also became a point of reference for the basileis of the Hellenistic period.