T Y R 



The Germans, in High Dutch, call this day Erkht-tag, 

 From the word heris or harec, a -warrior, which comes to the 

 fame thing. 



Tyr muft be diftinguifhed from another deity called Thor 

 Mallet's North. Ant. vol. i. p. 99. 



TYRA, in Ancient Geography, a town of European Sar- 

 matia, upon the banks of the river Thyras ; fometimes 

 called Ophiufa. 



Tyra, in Geography, a river of Germany, which runs 

 into the Kelra, one mile W. of Kelbra, in the county of 

 Schwartzburg. 



TYRAMBE, in Ancient Geography, a town of Afiatic 

 Sarmatia, 600 ftadia from the river Rhombites, according 

 to Strabo ; but Ptolemy places it between Azabites Mitra 

 and the mouth of the river Atticirus. 



TYRAN, or TvRiBN, in Geography, a fmall ifland in the 

 Red fea. N. lat. 27^ 40'. E. long. 34° 28'. 



TYRANNICIDE, formed of tyrannus and cxdo, I kill, 

 denotes the aft of killing a tyrant. 



TYRANNIC, in Biography, a Greek gran«iarian, was 

 a native of Amifa, in Pontus, and a difciple of Dionyiius of 

 Thrace at Rhodes. Upon the conqueft of the kingdom of 

 Mithridates by LucuUus in the year B. C. 70, Tyrannio 

 became a captive, but was liberated by Mursena, and taken 

 to Rome, where he opened a fchool, in which he gave in- 

 ftruftion to the fon and nephew of Cicero, and alfo to 

 Strabo. In this fituation he acquired confiderable wealth, 

 and accumulated a library of more than 30,000 volumes. 

 Among other valuable works which he pofTeffed, he pre- 

 ferred the writings of Ariftotle and Theophraftus, which 

 he obtained from the librarian of Sylla, and which he after- 

 wards imparted to Andronicus of Rhodes. Tyrannio lived 

 to an advanced age ; but none of his works are extant. 

 Bayle. 



TYRANNUS, in Ornithology, a name given by fome to 

 the lanius, or butcher-bird, a fpecies of hawk not larger than 

 a tlirulh, but a very fierce and fatal enemy to the fmall 

 birds. See Lanius. 



TYRANNY, in Political Government, is the exercife of 

 power beyond right, to which nobody can have a right ; 

 and thus it is diftinguifhed from Ufurpation, (which fee,) 

 or the oxercife of power which another hath a right to : and 

 it is the ufe of power which any one poffefles, not for the 

 good of thofe who are fubjedl to it, but for his own private 

 feparate advantage ; when the governor, however, intitled, 

 makes not the law, but his will the rule ; and his command 

 and aAions are not direfted to the prefervation of the pro- 

 perty of his people, but the fatisfaftion of his own ambition, 

 revenge, covetoufnefs, or any other irregular paffion. 



It is a miftake to think this fault peculiar to monarchies ; 

 other forms of government are liable to it as well as that. 

 For wherever the power that is put in any hands for the 

 government of the people, and the prefervation of their pro- 

 perty, is applied to other ends, and made ufe of to im- 

 poverifh, harafs, or feduce them to the arbitrary irregular 

 commands of thofe that have it, there it becomes tyranny, 

 whether thofe who thus ufe it are one or many. 



Accordingly we read of the thirty tyrants at Athens, as 

 well as one at Syracufe ; and the intolerable dominion of 

 the decemviri at Rome was nothing better. Every wan- 

 ton and caufelefs reftraint of the will of the fubjeft, whether 

 praaifed by a monarch, a nobility, or popular affembly, is 

 a degree of tyranny. 



Whenever the conftitution of a ftate vefts in any man, 

 or body of men, a power of deftroying at pleafure, without 

 the direftion of laws, the lives or members of the fubjeift, or 

 of alienating their property, or of depriving them of theu- 



T Y R 



liberty at pleafure, fuch conltitutfon is tyrannical. In a 

 word, wherever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be 

 tranfgreffed to another's harm. And whofoever in a«Iw- 



ufe'or.tl' \^r'' g^^nl'im by the law, and makes 

 ule of the force he has under h.s command, to compafs that 

 upon the fubjea wh.ch the law allows not, ceafes in that to 

 be a magiftrate, and, afting without authority, may be 

 oppofed as any other man, who by force invades the right 

 of another. The end of government, whatever be its name 

 or nature, is the good of mankind : and upon this principle, 

 whofoever ufes force without right, as every one does in 

 lociety who does it without law, puts lumfelf into a ftate of 

 war with thofe againil whom he ufes it ; and in that ftate 

 aU former ties arc cancelled, aU other rights ceafe, and every 

 one has a right to defend himfelf, and to refift the aggreffor. 

 If it be aflced who fhaU be judge ; whether the prince or 

 legiflative aft contrary to their truft >. The anfwer is obvious, 

 the people ftiall be judge ; for who (hall be judge whether 

 the truftee or deputy ads well, and according to the truft 

 repofed in him, but he who deputes him, and muft, by 

 having deputed him, have ftill a power to difcard him when 

 he fails in his truft I If this be reafonable in particular 

 cafes of private men, why fhould it be otherwife in that of 

 the greateft moment, where the welfare of millions is con- 

 cerned ; and alfo where the evil, if not prevented, is greater, 

 and the redrefs very difficult, dear, and dangerous ? Locke, 

 of Civil Government, ch. xviii. and xix. in his Works, 

 vol. ii. p. 214, &c. 



TYRANT, Tyrannus, among the Ancients, denoted 

 limply a king or monarch. 



But the illufe feveral perfons inverted with that charafter 

 made of it, has altered the import of the word, and tyrant 

 now carries with it the idea of an unjuft and cruel prince, 

 who invades the people's liberty, and rules in a more def- 

 potic manner than the laws of nature, or the country, do 

 allow. 



The term tyrant, we are told, became odious among the 

 Greeks, thofe zealous lovers of liberty, almoft as foon as 

 introduced ; but Donatus afl'ures us, it was never taken fo 

 among the Romans till the latter ages of that empire. 



The motto of a tyrant is, Oderint dum metuant. Rowland 

 contends, that this word, as well as the correfpondent Greek 

 and Latin, is derived from tir, Welfti and Erfe, land, and 

 rhanner, Welfh, tojhare ; q. d. tirhanner, a fharer or divider 

 of land among his vafTals. Johnfon. 



TYRANTS, Thirty, an appellation under which the 

 thirty perfons, eftablilhed by the Lacedaemonians in Athens, 

 in order to enflave and keep it in ilavery, are denominated. 

 Thrafybulus formed the generous defign of driving them from 

 Athens, and fucceeded ; upon which event Cornelius Nepos 

 has remarked, that many have defired, and few had the hap- 

 pinefs to refcue their country from a iingle tyrant ! but 

 Thrafybulus delivered his from thirty. 



One of the means which thefe tyrants ufed for carrying 

 on their fchemeof enflaving the Athenians, was the ordering 

 of the fuffrages of the Areopagites to be public, that they 

 might manage them as they pleafed. See Montefquieu's 

 Spirit of Laws, vol. i. p. 17. 



TYRAS, in Ancient Geography. See Dniestr. 



TYRAWLEY's Point, in Geography, the fouth-weft 

 extremity of Trevanion's ifland, in the South Pacific ocean. 

 S.lat. 10° 48'. E. long. 1 63° 41'. 



TYRBE, Tu^ffn, in Antiquity, a feftival celebrated by the 

 ancients in honour of Bacchus. 



TYRE, in Ancient Geography, a city of Phoenicia, diftant 



23 miles from Sidon, its rival, according to the Itinerary of 



Antoninus. ( See Sidon. ) This city was anciently deno- 



3 S 3 niinated 



