Post Number #4

In the seventh and sixth centuries, BCE, aristocrats were the dominate political power. Aristocrats were wealthy landowners, who had political power and control of the people of a city state simply due to the fact that they were wealthy and influential.

Aristocrats attended meetings in the symposium, a kind of fancy meeting room within a palace, where the elite men would enjoy wine and poetry and performances by dances and acrobats. These men also had the company of prostitutes, in the modern terminology.

In Aristocratic society, the women held no power and were not welcomed in the Symposium, unless they were entertainers. No people from the middle class, even men, were allowed to have power. There were certainly no slaves even with little power or voice. Sometimes, even other Aristocrats were cast out, due to there opinions regarding certain issues, or even if they starting running low on wealth and falling out of favor with other Aristocrats. These excludes Aristocrats would sometimes team up with Hoplite, elite soldiers, to overthrow the others and set up a form of government known as a tyranny.

A leader of a tyranny was known as a tyrant, but not in the modern sense. A tyrant was simply someone who assumed power in the way mentioned before.