Tyrant

As today's 3rd Greek bailout proves, democracy is meaningless when creditors are in charge. If unelected rulers bend a society to their will, who is to say they are wrong, if that society benefits? Lee Kwan Yew did Singaporeans a favour, didn't he? But can you say the same about Putin's Russia? This debate about democracy versus autocracy will never be resolved. Informed elites are better governors than lynch mob democracies, aren't they? But these very elites entrench social division, by rewarding themselves rather than distributing resources more favourably amongst commoners, and denying the talented poor access to power. This antagonism defines post-Periclean Greece and you will not find this story better told than by Steven Pressfield in his Tides of War, which will acquaint you with Alcibiades and the 431-404 (thrice nine years) period of the Peloponnesian War between an Athens obsessed with Alcibiades and a Sparta obsessed with Lysander. (It is hard to praise a book too highly.) To get a full understanding you have to read Robin Waterfield's Why Socrates Died at the same time. (Google Socrates and Alcibiades and wonder at the number of Renaissance paintings depicting the former's attempts to pull the latter away a from his hedonism, so that his powerful political talent can benefit his society.) And so you end up in 399 BC, wondering how to pursue the subsequent history, of life after Socrates.Mary Renault provides a natural sequel, in The Mask of Apollo, which takes you to the Syracuse of Dion (Aristomache's brother and Dionysius's brother in law), who hoped to enlighten the despotism of Dionysius's son, Dionysius II, with advice from Plato, Socrates's most famous student. But you've got to have some idea about how we get from Athens in 399 to Syracuse thirty years later.For me, this is the real value of Manfredi's Tyrant, which explains how a Syracuse established by Corinth moves the theatre of Greek history away from Sparta and Athens towards Sicily and it's North African enemy, Carthage (itself a satellite established by Phoenicians - the greatest sailors of the ancient world - from Tyre.) You can not get from Greek to Roman history without understanding Carthage in Sicily and Manfredi's Tryant gives you a rich understanding in a very accessibly told story. I agree with other reviews highlighting shallow characterisation, so this is not in the same league as Pressfield, but this absence is a small price to pay for those who, like me, want their history fed to them easily through historical fiction. It is well worth reading.

I really enjoyed the first three quarters of this book and was eager to return to it after I'd put it down. Unfortunately the concluding chapters covered far too much so it felt like too many of the events were skirted over. I'll probably read another Valerio novel before I come to a final conclusion about his books.

rated author

a very good read

I like every Manfredi I have had.

Simply a marvellous historical novel, makes you feel that you are in Syracuse, living the rise of Dionysius. Hard to put down and I would recommend it to you all!

This is an interesting look at a little-known period of history /location a few centuries before the Christian era. It is also a look at a man who had a vision and was very determined to make it a reality. I had not even realised that the Greeks had a colony in Sicily (Syracuse) The Greeks there were interested, naturally, in a pan-hellenic world and they were keen to prove themselves to the arrogant mainland Greeks who looked down on the colony (this comes across very clearly and believably) Enter Dionysius, the tyrant of the title. The word has negative connotations now associated with abuse of power, but originally meant simply someone who took power illegally. Dionysius takes power and leads the war against the Carthaginians (who ironically will be polished off by the Romans a few centuries later) amid fluctuating alliances with the various Greek city-states and some barbarians. The life of Dionysius is portrayed in a quite rounded way; I agree with some reviewers that the author seems to want to reinstate his image but I disagree that he -and other characters- are presented in a one-dimensional way. The interaction between Dionysius, his wives, his brother and the friends such as Philistus, is very engaging. The descriptions of warfare can b e abit tedious but after all, that is what the life of Dionysius was about; I just read them quickly. It is interesting to think that Athens is credited with being 'the cradle of democracy', an inclusive form of government that we perhaps take for granted now. I thought the most telling sentence in the book was given to Philistus: "The best of tyrants cannot be preferable to the worst of democracies."

This is one of the best books ive ever read valerio massimo manfredi at his absolute best a must read have i done twenty words now.