History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (free ebooks for android .txt) 📕

Athens was Pisistratus, son of the tyrant Hippias, and named after his

grandfather, who dedicated during his term of office the altar to

the twelve gods in the marketplace, and that of Apollo in the Pythian

precinct. The Athenian people afterwards built on to and lengthened

the altar in the marketplace, and obliterated the inscription; but

that in the Pythian precinct can still be seen, though in faded

letters, and is to the following effect:

Pisistratus, the son of Hippias,

Sent up this record of his archonship

In precinct of Apollo Pythias.

That Hippias was the eldest son and succeeded to the government,

is what I positively assert as a fact upon which I have had more exact

accounts than others, and may be also ascertained by the following

circumstance. He is the only one of the legitimate brothers that

appears to have had children; as the altar shows, and the pillar

placed in the Athenian Acropolis, commemorating the crime of the

tyrants, which mentions no child of Thessalus or of Hipparchus, but

five of Hippias, which he had by Myrrhine, daughter of Callias, son of

Hyperechides; and naturally the eldest would have married first.

Again, his name comes first on the pillar after that of his father;

and this too is quite natural, as he was the eldest after him, and the

reigning tyrant. Nor can I ever believe that Hippias would have

obtained the tyranny so easily, if Hipparchus had been in power when

he was killed, and he, Hippias, had had to establish himself upon

the same day; but he had no doubt been long accustomed to overawe

the citizens, and to be obeyed by his mercenaries, and thus not only

conquered, but conquered with ease, without experiencing any of the

embarrassment of a younger brother unused to the exercise of

authority. It was the sad fate which made Hipparchus famous that got

him also the credit with posterity of having been tyrant.

To return to Harmodius; Hipparchus having been repulsed in his

solicitations insulted him as he had resolved, by first inviting a

sister of his, a young girl, to come and bear a basket in a certain

procession, and then rejecting her, on the plea that she had never

been invited at all owing to her unworthiness. If Harmodius was

indignant at this, Aristogiton for his sake now became more

exasperated than ever; and having arranged everything with those who

were to join them in the enterprise, they only waited for the great

feast of the Panathenaea, the sole day upon which the citizens forming

part of the procession could meet together in arms without

suspicion. Aristogiton and Harmodius were to begin, but were to be

supported immediately by their accomplices against the bodyguard.

The conspirators were not many, for better security, besides which

they hoped that those not in the plot would be carried away by the

example of a few daring spirits, and use the arms in their hands to

recover their liberty.

At last the festival arrived; and Hippias with his bodyguard was

outside the city in the Ceramicus, arranging how the different parts

of the procession were to proceed. Harmodius and Aristogiton had

already their daggers and were getting ready to act, when seeing one

of their accomplices talking familiarly with Hippias, who was easy

of access to every one, they took fright, and concluded that they were

discovered and on the point of being taken; and eager if possible to

be revenged first upon the man who had wronged them and for whom

they had undertaken all this risk, they rushed, as they were, within

the gates, and meeting with Hipparchus by the Leocorium recklessly

fell upon him at once, infuriated, Aristogiton by love, and

Harmodius by insult, and smote him and slew him. Aristogiton escaped

the guards at the moment, through the crowd running up, but was

afterwards taken and dispatched in no merciful way: Harmodius was

killed on the spot.

When the news was brought to Hippias in the Ceramicus, he at once

proceeded not to the scene of action, but to the armed men in the

procession, before they, being some distance away, knew anything of

the matter, and composing his features for the occasion, so as not

to betray himself, pointed to a certain spot, and bade them repair

thither without their arms. They withdrew accordingly, fancying he had

something to say; upon which he told the mercenaries to remove the

arms, and there and then picked out the men he thought guilty and

all found with daggers, the shield and spear being the usual weapons

for a procession.

In this way offended love first led Harmodius and Aristogiton to

conspire, and the alarm of the moment to commit the rash action

recounted. After this the tyranny pressed harder on the Athenians, and

Hippias, now grown more fearful, put to death many of the citizens,

and at the same time began to turn his eyes abroad for a refuge in

case of revolution. Thus, although an Athenian, he gave his

daughter, Archedice, to a Lampsacene, Aeantides, son of the tyrant

of Lampsacus, seeing that they had great influence with Darius. And

there is her tomb in Lampsacus with this inscription:

Archedice lies buried in this earth,

Hippias her sire, and Athens gave her birth;

Unto her bosom pride was never known,

Though daughter, wife, and sister to the throne.

Hippias, after reigning three years longer over the Athenians, was

deposed in the fourth by the Lacedaemonians and the banished

Alcmaeonidae, and went with a safe conduct to Sigeum, and to Aeantides

at Lampsacus, and from thence to King Darius; from whose court he

set out twenty years after, in his old age, and came with the Medes to

Marathon.

With these events in their minds, and recalling everything they knew

by hearsay on the subject, the Athenian people grow difficult of

humour and suspicious of the persons charged in the affair of the

mysteries, and persuaded that all that had taken place was part of

an oligarchical and monarchical conspiracy. In the state of irritation

thus produced, many persons of consideration had been already thrown

into prison, and far from showing any signs of abating, public feeling

grew daily more savage, and more arrests were made; until at last

one of those in custody, thought to be the most guilty of all, was

induced by a fellow prisoner to make a revelation, whether true or not

is a matter on which there are two opinions, no one having been

able, either then or since, to say for certain who did the deed.

However this may be, the other found arguments to persuade him, that

even if he had not done it, he ought to save himself by gaining a

promise of impunity, and free the state of its present suspicions;

as he would be surer of safety if he confessed after promise of

impunity than if he denied and were brought to trial. He accordingly

made a revelation, affecting himself and others in the affair of the

Hermae; and the Athenian people, glad at last, as they supposed, to

get at the truth, and furious until then at not being able to discover

those who had conspired against the commons, at once let go the

informer and all the rest whom he had not denounced, and bringing

the accused to trial executed as many as were apprehended, and

condemned to death such as had fled and set a price upon their

heads. In this it was, after all, not clear whether the sufferers

had been punished unjustly, while in any case the rest of the city

received immediate and manifest relief.

To return to Alcibiades: public feeling was very hostile to him,

being worked on by the same enemies who had attacked him before he

went out; and now that the Athenians fancied that they had got at

the truth of the matter of the Hermae, they believed more firmly

than ever that the affair of the mysteries also, in which he was

implicated, had been contrived by him in the same intention and was

connected with the plot against the democracy. Meanwhile it so

happened that, just at the time of this agitation, a small force of

Lacedaemonians had advanced as far as the Isthmus, in pursuance of

some scheme with the Boeotians. It was now thought that this had

come by appointment, at his instigation, and not on account of the

Boeotians, and that, if the citizens had not acted on the

information received, and forestalled them by arresting the prisoners,

the city would have been betrayed. The citizens went so far as to

sleep one night armed in the temple of Theseus within the walls. The

friends also of Alcibiades at Argos were just at this time suspected

of a design to attack the commons; and the Argive hostages deposited

in the islands were given up by the Athenians to the Argive people

to be put to death upon that account: in short, everywhere something

was found to create suspicion against Alcibiades. It was therefore

decided to bring him to trial and execute him, and the Salaminia was

sent to Sicily for him and the others named in the information, with

instructions to order him to come and answer the charges against

him, but not to arrest him, because they wished to avoid causing any

agitation in the army or among the enemy in Sicily, and above all to

retain the services of the Mantineans and Argives, who, it was

thought, had been induced to join by his influence. Alcibiades, with

his own ship and his fellow accused, accordingly sailed off with the

Salaminia from Sicily, as though to return to Athens, and went with

her as far as Thurii, and there they left the ship and disappeared,

being afraid to go home for trial with such a prejudice existing

against them. The crew of the Salaminia stayed some time looking for

Alcibiades and his companions, and at length, as they were nowhere

to be found, set sail and departed. Alcibiades, now an outlaw, crossed

in a boat not long after from Thurii to Peloponnese; and the Athenians

passed sentence of death by default upon him and those in his company.