Hiero, or “the Tyrant”: A Discourse On Despotic Rule

Hiero is a minor work by Xenophon, set as a dialogue between Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, and the lyric poet Simonides about 474 BCE. In it Xenophon argues that a tyrant does not have any more access to happiness than a private person. It was the nominal subject of Leo Strauss' analysis On Tyranny, which initiated his famous dialogue with Alexandre Kojève on the role of philosophy in politics.