A Letter to Thrasybulus
A Letter to Thrasybulus
(Ed. Note: Thrasybulus was an Athenian military officer who hailed from a wealthy family. He was able to fund his own ship or trireme and he fought in the great Peloponnesian War. In 411 BCE, he lead the effort to foil an attempt by oligarchs to drive out the forces of democracy and to take control of Samos, an Athenian outpost. Thrasybulus then moved on Athens and ran out the oligarchs there known as the Four Hundred. This group was replaced by a more democratic governing body known as the Five Thousand. The Peloponnesian War continued on for several more years, but with the Athenian rout at the naval battle of Aegospotami, the war ended. Thereafter, Sparta installed a government in Athens and that government was known as the Thirty Tyrants, a brutal regime by all accounts. Thrasybulus fled into exile into Boeotia, while the Thirty Tyrants seized his property and estates. Beginning in January 403 BCE, Thrasybulus waged a campaign against the Thirty Tyrants. As time passed, his forces grew and through strategic attacks and brilliant negotiation, he was able to end the rule of the Thirty Tyrants in September and with that end the rule of the Spartans who came to the defense of the tyrants. All parties ended the struggle by pledging support to democracy followed by sacrifices to Athena on the Acropolis. Athens was once again whole.1 )
Dear Thrasybulus, we find ourselves in a situation similar to the one you encountered in Athens more than twenty four centuries ago. We wish to apprise you of it and of the principles with which we wrestle in this day and age. We seek your counsel. Please consider the following.
Who is a tyrant?
The first, and most important question, is “Who is a tyrant?” That is because it necessarily directs conduct. To answer that question, we look at the philosophers of antiquity and of the Middle Ages. Since your time, Thrasybulus, we have come to study and discuss what it means to be a tyrant, having the benefit of your experience and facilitating our own improvements.
As Robert Reilly in America on Trial explains, the ideas surrounding social governance of the great philosophers from antiquity through the School of Salamanca were transmitted by Algernon Sidney (1623-1683) to John Locke (1632-1704). John Locke’s ideas were in turn transmitted through Cato’s Letters and also through Emer de Vattel (1714-1767) who wrote Law of Nations, widely read by the Founders. These philosophers and theologians set forth a definition of tyranny that was remarkably similar among all of them. In sum, one can conclude that tyrants act unjustly and in doing so enrich themselves at the expense of the society over which they were supposed to rightly rule.
Plato (427-347 BCE) in his Republic explained “A person of great power outdoes everyone else…if you turn your thoughts to the most complete injustice, the one that makes the doer of injustice happiest and the sufferers of it, who are unwilling to do injustice, most wretched. This is tyranny, which through stealth or force appropriates the property of others, whether sacred or profane, public or private, not little by little, but all at once.”2
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) in DeRegno wrote
“If an unjust government is carried on by one man alone, who seeks his own benefit from his rule and not the good of the multitude subject to him, such a ruler is called a tyrant—a word derived from strength —because he oppresses by might instead of ruling by justice. Thus among the ancients all powerful men were called tyrants. If an unjust government is carried on, not by one but by several, and if they be few, it is called an oligarchy, that is, the rule of a few. This occurs when a few, who differ from the tyrant only by the fact that they are more than one, oppress the people by means of their wealth….”3
Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), a Jesuit theologian and scholar, was a Scholastic and a member of the influential School of Salamanca. The School of Salamanca influenced Hugo Grotius who for very long was credited as the father of international law. Grotius was of the natural law tradition and he in turn influenced a line of thinkers who wrote on the law of nations. His thoughts, his thinking, was passed down to Emer de Vattel (1714-1767) who greatly influenced the American Founders. In A Defence of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith, originally published in 1613 he set forth the definition of a tyrant, and he also explained the different types of tyrants. His treatise was a response to King James I of England who sought to have an Oath of Allegiance administered to all who served in the English government. Suarez wrote that there are tyrants who take power unjustly and there are those who take title to power properly turns his rule against the people, and the state:
“There is one kind of tyrant who has seized the throne, not by a just title but by force and unjustly. These tyrants are not kings and rulers in reality, but simply usurp the position of king and imitate the role of royalty…There is another sort of tyrant who, although he is the true ruler and holds the throne by a just title, nevertheless rules tyrannically in so far as concerns his use of governmental power. For to be specific, he either turns all things to his private advantage, neglecting the common advantage, or else unjustly oppresses his subjects by plunder, slaughter, corruption, or the unjust perpetration of other similar deeds, with public effect and on numerous occasions. Such a ruler, for example, was Nero, whom Augustine….numbers among those tyrants whose dominion God does at times permit….[Proverbs 8:15-16]…”4
Allied with this concept of tyrant is what Suarez later explained which is that the tyrant “is actually attacking the state, with the unjust intention of destroying and slaughtering the citizens, or…some similar situation…”5
Emer de Vattel started from the premise that the ruler or sovereign had responsibilities to his people. The sovereign is “charged with the duties of the nation in relation to government” and the “objects of civil society” give the ruler the “general rule an indication of his duties.” These objects are:
“The society is established with the view of procuring , to those who are its members, the necessaries, conveniences and even pleasures of life, and, in general, everything necessary to their happiness – of enabling each individual peaceably to enjoy his own property, and to obtain justice with safety and certainty…and…defending themselves in a body against all external violence.”6
The essence of tyranny was a situation in which the sovereign or prince “by violating the fundamental law, gives his subjects a legal right to resist him…tyranny, becoming insupportable, obliges the nation to rise in their own defence…”7 The sovereign is to “religiously…maintain and observe” the laws as these are “the foundation of the public tranquility” as the law does away with “arbitrary power”.8 If a sovereign exceeds “the bounds prescribed him, commands without any right and even without a just title; the nation is not obliged to obey him, but may resist his unjust attempts. As soon as a prince attacks the constitution of the state, he breaks the contract which bound the people to him; the people become free by the act of the sovereign, and can no longer view him but as a usurper who would load them with oppression.”9
James Madison in Federalist 47 explained tyranny thus: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”10
Government is supposed to benefit all the people, not the rulers. A ruler who loses sight of this basic matter acts injustice and is the foundation of tyranny. Injustice characterizes a tyrant as does the amassing of great power all of which serves personal gain. The driving force of all of this lies in the breakdown, or absence, of a simple but important principle – friendship. And allied with friendship is good faith and good will. The former refers to honesty or sincerity. The latter refers to cooperation. A tyrant cannot be sincere and seek the truth nor can a tyrant cooperate with anyone to achieve the truth or resolve a matter. All things must bend towards the tyrant for him to keep control, and so he no longer acts for the common good of the people, the nation, but he acts for his own power and glory.
And at this juncture we do respectfully pause.
1 See, Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, (Penguin Books, New York, 1972), pp. 580-585;Robert J. Buck, Thrasybulus and the Athenian Democracy: The Life of an Athenian Statesman (Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart 1998), 23-31, 60-66, 71-83; Cornelius Nepos, Lives of Eminent Commanders (First Rate Publishers Cleveland, Ohio, 2026), Part VIII.
2 Plato, Republic, 343e through 344a.
3 Thomas Aquinas, De Regno, Chapter 2, paragraphs 11 and 12, https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/DeRegno.htm#2.
4 Francisco Suarez, A Defence of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith, (from Selections from Three Works: A Treatise on Laws and God the Lawgiver, A Defence of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith, A Work on the Three Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity Francisco Suarez Edited and with an Introduction by Thomas Pink, Liberty Fund, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, 2015), 804
5 Ibid., 809.
6 Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations; or, Principles of the Law of Nature, applied to the Conduct and aFfiars of Nations and Sovereigns (T & J W Johnson, Law Booksellers, Philadelphia, PA 1854) (republished by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., Clark, New Jersey 2020), Section 72 of Book I, Chapter VI, p. 32.
7 Ibid., Section 56 of Book II, Chapter IV, p. 155
8 Ibid., Section 48 of Book I, Chapter VI, p. 15
9 Ibid., Section 51 of Book I, Chapter VI, p. 17
10 James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, The Federalist Papers, (Penguin Books, London, 1987), 303.