The eastern Mediterranean, and the Syrian realm in particular, had suffered from a long period of controlled chaos and Roman intervention, first in the war with the Pontic king Mithridates, then under Lucullus, Pompey, Crassus, Bibulus, and then Labienus. Whole regions had been reorganized, divided up, united, and generally disrupted. Pompey had imposed gigantic fines (assessments of tribute, essentially) on many of the cities, and when the tyrannicide Cassius came calling to the East after the assassination of Caesar, he had more financial demands for them. Tyranny is often the natural result of political and social crisis in ancient city-states, for better or worse, and that was the case here. Cassius apparently supported many of these city tyrants (for whatever self-serving reasons), and after Phillipi they stuck around. Part of Antony's program of reorganizing the East (again) was getting rid of these tyrants, many of whom, according to Appian, seemed to be dangerously sympathetic to the Parthian Empire. Unfortunately, Appian doesn't mention specific cities by name, but says they were mostly in Syria, and that some of these tyrants fled to Parthia when they were driven out. Marion, tyrant of Tyre, was also probably among this group.