2015 Reprint of 1948 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. On Tyranny is Leo Strauss's classic reading of Xenophon's dialogue Hiero, or Tyrannicus, in which the tyrant Hiero and the poet Simonides discuss the advantages and disadvantages of exercising tyranny. Strauss taught that liberalism in its modern form contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards extreme relativism, which in turn led to two types of nihilism. The first was a brutal nihilism, expressed in Nazi and Marxist regimes. In On Tyranny, he wrote that these ideologies, both descendants of Enlightenment thought, tried to destroy all traditions, history, ethics, and moral standards and replace them by force under which nature and mankind are subjugated and conquered. The second type-the gentle nihilism expressed in Western liberal democracies-was a kind of value-free aimlessness and a hedonistic permissive egalitarianism, which he saw as permeating the fabric