Gentle Dictators?

[Longshanks]

Julius Caesar did some fairly brutal things while fighting the Gauls and the Germans, but they were enemies of Rome. He would definately qualify as a benevolent dictator, at least as far as the Romans are concerned.

"...a man who had become strongly committed to the popular cause and highly experienced in the exercise of power, was murdered in the senate-house by Brutus and Cassius out of jealousy of his immense power and out of longing for the traditional constitution. The people in fact missed him more than they had anyone else; they went round hunting for his killers, gave him a funeral in the middle of the forum, built a temple on the site of the pyre, and still sacrifice to him as a god."

Appian, I, 4.