ABSTRACT
In classical literature, the incompatibility of tyranny and friendship is proverbial: tyrants are depicted as fearing true friendship, and, as Aristotle observes, “in a tyranny there is little or no friendship” (Nic. Eth. trans. Thomson 278). However much individual authors differ in their definitions of friendship and depictions of tyrants, this commonplace evokes contrasting images of the body politic: one in which a tyrant possesses absolute authority over the state and its subjects, converting it into his private domain, and another—the Greek polis or Roman res publica—in which freeborn male citizens are endowed with substantial political agency within a clearly established public sphere. For Plato, this opposition exemplifies the broader cultural differences between the Persian Empire and democratic Athens. As he explains in the Symposium:
The reason why such love, together with love of intellectual and physical achievement, is condemned by the Persians is to be found in the absolute nature of their empire; it does not suit the interest of the government that a generous spirit and strong friendships and attachments should spring up among their subjects, and these are effects which love has an especial tendency to produce. The truth of this was actually experienced by our tyrants at Athens; it was the love of Aristogiton and the strong affections of Harmodius which destroyed their power. (48)
