A dialogue starring one of these people and the poet Simonides was the subject of a 1950s correspondence about the feasibility of “Epicurean” isolation for philosophers. A pseudo-mathematical passage calculates these people to be 729 times [emphasize] less happy than their counterparts. A Xenophon dialogue titled for one of these people is the subject of a Leo Strauss essay “on” them that kicked off his debate with Alexander Kojève (“ko-ZHEV”). One of these people flouted his tutor’s injunction against writing philosophy, according to the Seventh Letter. Plato argued that these people are slaves of their own desires in Book 9 of the Republic and attempted to educate one of them in Sicily. Aristotle listed a system named for these people as a “deviant” constitution along with oligarchy and democracy. For 10 points, ancient philosophers debated the virtue of killing what absolute rulers? ■END■
ANSWER: tyrants [or tyrannos; accept word forms like tyranny or tyrannicide; prompt on kings, despots, monarchs, dictators, autocrats, or absolute rulers; prompt on unjust, wicked, evil, or equivalents; reject other titles like “emperor”] (Strauss’s On Tyranny analyzes Xenophon’s dialogue Hiero.)
<Philosophy>
= Average correct buzz position