Evil Lords uses the prism of bad rule or tyranny to enhance our undestranding of political discourse from the ancient world to the renaissance, offering insights into pre-modern conceptions of sovereignty, as well as into the relation between ethics and politics, the individual and society, and power and propaganda. The volume brings together case studies from 12 top scholars, each examining various aspects of Hebrew, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, medieval, and Renaissance conceptions and representations of tyrannical government. The book's chapters also examine notions of bad rule within the ideological frameworks and societal patterns of the respective periods, thus painting a picture of historical and intellectual change. This chronological and geographical span creates a narrative of the Western tradition on tyranny from its ancient roots up to its radical revision at the brink of modernity. Tracing this current, the book also shows how tributary developments indigenous to Republican Rome, the Germanic North, and Byzantium fed, and altered, the course of tyranny.