Actually the term "Tyrant" is a bit misleading here, because it didn’t mean at the time what it means today. All "tyrant" really meant was that Dionysius (405 B.C. —367 B.C. ) had seized the government by force, rather than coming to power legitimately. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Dionysius was an evil thug. After all, it’s results that count, and sometimes one has to bend the rules a bit, just to get things started.