Thrasybulus of Miletus

Tyrants of Miletus
Late 8th or 7th c.BCE Amphitres 7th century BCE Thrasybulus 6th century BCE Thoas 6th century BCE Damasanor c. 518-514 BCE Histiaeus c. 513-499 BCE Aristagoras 3rd century BCE Timarchus
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Thrasybulus (Greek: Θρασύβουλος ὁ Μιλήσιος) was the tyrant of Miletus in the 7th century BC. Under his rule, Miletus fought a lengthy war against Lydia. This war ended without a decisive victor (a result that Herodotus credits to Thrasybulus's tricking Alyattes into making peace.^[1]). Following the war, Miletus and Lydia concluded an alliance.

Thrasybulus was an ally of Periander, the tyrant of Corinth. He features in a famous anecdote from Herodotus's Histories,^[2] in which a messenger from Periander asks Thrasybulus for advice on ruling.^[3] Thrasybulus, instead of responding, takes the messenger for a walk in a field of wheat, where he proceeds to cut off all of the best and tallest ears of wheat. The message, correctly interpreted by Periander, was that a wise ruler would preempt challenges to his rule by "removing" those prominent men who might be powerful enough to challenge him; this story gave the name to tall poppy syndrome.