Abstract

Aim of this article is the reconstruction of the interpretation that the Socratics provided of the figure of the tyrant. It highlights that, even before becoming a category of the Greek political thought, the opposition between king and tyrant is first elaborated by Antisthenes. At the same time, the figure of the tyrant is variously delineated by other Socratics and, furthermore, in the Platonic Seventh Letter. All these philosophers depict a portrayal of the tyrant that is not homogeneous: clearly harsh and negative, both morally and politically, in Antisthenes; neutral and not devoid of certain positive elements in Aristippus; complex but definitely negative in the Seventh Letter. Moreover, this latter offers the first attestation of the negation of the principle “pacta sunt servandaµ. A principle that will permeate the development of modern political thought, until Hobbes and Spinoza.