Lygdamis was the tyrant

Tyrant

A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...

 of Naxos, an island in the Cyclades

Cyclades

The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...

, during the third quarter of the 6th Century BCE.

He was initially a member of the oligarchy

Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...

 which ruled Naxos. In 546 BCE, Lygdamis supported the former Athenian tyrant Peisistratos in his landing at Marathon

Marathon, Greece

Marathon is a town in Greece, the site of the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, in which the heavily outnumbered Athenian army defeated the Persians. The tumulus or burial mound for the 192 Athenian dead that was erected near the battlefield remains a feature of the coastal plain...

 which led to the restoration of Peisistratos to power in Athens.

The following year Lygdamis, taking advantage of discontent arising from the concentration of wealth in the hands of the oligarchs, turned against the oligarchy and seized power as tyrant with the aid of his ally Peisistratos. He secured his position by exiling potential rivals and extended his dominance over neighbouring islands such as Paros

Paros

Paros is an island of Greece in the central Aegean Sea. One of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of Piraeus. The Municipality of Paros includes numerous uninhabited offshore islets...

.

Lygdamis contributed a force of mercenaries to aid his ally Polycrates

Polycrates

Polycrates , son of Aeaces, was the tyrant of Samos from c. 538 BC to 522 BC.He took power during a festival of Hera with his brothers Pantagnotus and Syloson, but soon had Pantagnotus killed and exiled Syloson to take full control for himself. He then allied with Amasis II, pharaoh of Egypt, as...

, the powerful tyrant of Samos

Samoš

Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...

, in his campaigns against Miletus

Miletus

Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...

 and Mytilene

Mytilene

Mytilene is a town and a former municipality on the island of Lesbos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Lesbos, of which it is a municipal unit. It is the capital of the island of Lesbos. Mytilene, whose name is pre-Greek, is built on the...

. Lygdamis had an ambitious building program and in 530 BCE he began work on a huge Temple of Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 which was never completed. The Portara, the lintel of the temple, stands today as one of the chief landmarks of Naxos.

In 524 BCE Lygdamis' rule over Naxos was ended when he was overthrown by the intervention of a Sparta

Sparta

Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

n army. Naxos continued to prosper in the years immediately after Lygdamis' rule under a new oligarchy.