tyrannicide

In ancient Greece and Rome, the killing or killer of a tyrant. Examples include the Greeks Harmodius and Aristogiton, whose assassination in 514 BC of Hipparchus, a member of the ruling Pisistratids at Athens, was commemorated by the democracy in a statue group in the agora. This was removed during the Persian sack of Athens 480 BC, and was replaced by a famous group known from Roman sculptural copies. The term is also applied to the murderers of Julius Caesar 44 BC, notably Brutus and Cassius.