against the aristocracy, to whom the sole authority was given
when the victory had been achieved. Though there were
tyrants in various parts of Greece, and the colonies, during
the period (Ol. 26 27) which may be named the Time of
the Tyrants, they were chiefly to be found in the Dorian
states ; for here the rule of the nobles, being founded on
conquest, was most galling and oppressive.
The first tyrant of whom we hear was Orthagoras of
Sicyon, f (01. 26,) whose family held the tyranny for a cen-
* It is perhaps derived from rrgaoc, a castle, or it may be the same
with Koiqavoq, xvQiog, from xuqcc, head. Saran is " a lord " in Hebrew.
t Arist. Pol. v. 9. Goettling. We are told that Sicyon was the
oldest monarchy in Greece a thing of which we have no proof, and
which, perhaps, owes ite origin to the fact stated in the text.
TIME OF THE TYRANTS. 67
tury, because they respected the laws and governed with
mildness and equity. Orthagoras, whom the Dorian aristo-
crats called a cook, belonged to the ^Egialians, an Achaean
tribe, which enjoyed an equality of rights with the three
Dorian tribes in Sicyon. His son or grandson Myron was
victor in the chariot-race at Olympia, (Ol. 33,) where he
built a treasury, lined with Tartessian brass, and having
Doric and Ionic columns. Cleisthenes, the last of the family,
was distinguished in war ; he commanded, in conjunction
with Eurylochus, the Thessalian Aleuad, the army of the
Amphictyons in the Crissaean war ; and he was at constant
enmity with the Argives, his Dorian neighbors. Out of
spite to them, he suppressed the worship of the Argive hero-
king Adrastus at Sicyon, and forbade the rhapsodists to
recite the Homeric poems, because they contained the
praises of Argos, or rather of the aristocratic principle. *
He attempted to destroy the Dorian principle completely, by
forcing the Dorian tribes to cultivate the land like the rest
of the people. Cleisthenes was, like Myron, a victor in the
public games, and he lived in great magnificence.
This prince had an only daughter, named Agariste, whom
he wished to see married to the best of the Greeks : for this
purpose, when he won the prize at Olympia, (Ol. 49, l,)iie
caused proclamation to be made, inviting those who deemed
themselves worthy to be his son-in-law to repair to Sicyon
within sixty days. The noblest youths of Greece and the
Italian colonies appeared at his residence ; and after having
detained them a year, making every trial of them, he be-
stowed the hand of Agariste on Megacles, the son of Alc-
mceon, the Athenian. t Cleisthenes appears to have had no
son, and the tyranny expired with him.
At Corinth, the Haracleid family of the Bacchiads had
converted the government into an oligarchy, by confining
all public offices to themselves. They were therefore hated ;
and Cypselus, a man not of Doric origin, but related to them
* Herod, v. 67. t Id. vi. 126-130.
68 HISTORY OF GREECE.
on the mother's side, contrived, by placing himself at the head
of the lower orders, to eject them from Corinth.* He now
(Ol. 30) became tyrant : his rule was, like that of the
tyrants of Sicyon, mild and just; he had no guards; he
treated the people with great consideration, adorned the
city with stately buildings, and founded colonies abroad.
After a peaceful reign of thirty years, he left his power to his
son Periander.
Periander ruled at first with still greater mildness than his
father. His sway, however, gradually became more rigor-
ous; he surrounded himself with guards; he forbade the use
of the public meals, and in every thing sought to root out the
Dorian principle. He was a rigid guardian of the public
morals, was brave in war and wise in council, and had a
taste for elegance and splendor. He maintained an inti-
macy with the monarchs of Lydia and Egypt, and, like his
father, planted colonies along the coast of Illyria. Periander
was succeeded by his son Psammitichus, with whom the tyr-
anny ended, (Ol. 49, 3,) after a duration of about seventy-
four years.t
Procles, tyrant of Epidaurus and ^Egina, was father-in-law
to Periander ; and Megara was ruled at this time by The-
agenes, whose daughter was married to the Athenian Cylon.
Theagenes had attained to power, like the others, by head-
ing the people against the aristocracy, and like them he grat-
ified the people by raising works of utility and ornament.
After the failure of Cylon at Athens, Theagenes was driven
from Megara, and a wild democracy established. J
We thus see that Argos and Sparta alone, of the Dorian
states, did not fall under the rule of tyrants. The tyranny
in Greece was in fact a struggle against the rigid Dorian
principle : the time during which the Tyrants ruled was one
of rapid advance in the career of improvement : they were
all friends of the arts, and maintained relations with distant
* Herod v. 92.
t Herod, ut supra. Arist., ut supra.
t Arist. Pol. v. 4; Rhet. i. 2; Plut. Q. G. 18.
PEISISTRATUS AND HIS SONS. 69
and more cultivated regions; and hence luxury and a taste
for elegance were diffused throughout Hellas. When we
consider that most of the Grecian colonies in Asia and Italy
were at this time ruled by tyrants, and that they kept up a
close connection and intercourse with each other, and see,
as we presently shall, the relations of the Ionians with the
East, we may discern the progress of refinement, and mark
its influence in Greece.
The aristocratic Spartans were the declared foes of the
tyrants, and they are said to have overthrown several of
them. The people, in most places oppressed by the nobles,
and taught by poetry the mildness of the regal rule in old
times, looked forward with hope to the establishment of a
tyranny in their cities.
We are now to witness the establishment of this form of
dominion in Attica.*
The parties into which the people of Attica were divided,
when Solon undertook the regulation of the state, were
named, the Pediaeans, (IlediaToi,) the Paralians, (IT&galoi,)
and the Hyperacrians ( c YneQuxgioi.) Of these, the first, the
people of the interior or plain-country, favored the old aris-
tocratic system; the Paralians, or people of the coast round
by Cape Sunion,f were for a medium ; the Hyperacrians, or
people of Parnes and the hills to the north, were for a
democracy. $
The Pediaeans were headed by a nobleman named Ly-
curgus; the Paralians by Megacles, the son-in-law of Cleis-
thenes of Sicyon : Peisistratus, a man descended from the
Codrids, and related to Solon, placed himself at the head of
the Hyperacrians, who were mostly Thetes. He trod the
usual path by which the demagogue rises to power, exagger-
* Herod, i. 5964. t Thuc. ii. 55.
t Plut. Solon, 13. As the chief scene of contest between the parties
was the city of Athens, and the strength of the Hyperacrian party, as
will appear, lay there, these are probably to be taken as mere party
denominations derived from places, like Ghibellines, Girondists, and
such like.
70 HISTORY OF GREECE.
ating the evils to which the people are subject, and repre-
senting himself as the only person anxious to alleviate them.
Noble birth is always of weight with the people : Peisistra-
tus had, moreover, distinguished himself in the war against
the Megarians, and taken their port of Nisaea. Not content
with these advantages, he had, it is said, recourse to a very
disgraceful stratagem : one day he gave himself and his
mules several wounds, and in that condition drove into the
market, and told the people that he had barely escaped with
life from his and their enemies, who had fallen on him as he
was going into the country. The people, to protect their
benefactor, assigned him a guard of clubmen, to attend him
wherever he went. He soon then made himself master of
the Acropolis, and absolute ruler of the city ; but he gov-
erned with justice, and did not disturb the existing laws.
The rival factions soon combined, and drove him from the
city ; but ere long, Megacles, being worsted in a contest with
his rival, sent to Peisistratus, offering to reinstate him in
the tyranny, if he would engage to espouse his daughter.
This offer was readily accepted, and Peisistratus returned to
Athens. On this occasion, it is said, his entrance into the
city was preceded by a woman of lofty stature, habited like
the goddess Pallas Athena, in full armor, and standing in a
chariot ; and heralds going before cried to the Athenians to
receive Peisistratus, whom the goddess herself was conduct-
ing to her Acropolis.*
Megacles, finding that Perisistratus did not act as he
should to his daughter, drove him away again. He retired
to Eretria in Eubcea, where he remained ten years, collect-
ing the means of recovering the tyranny. The Thebans
and others sent him money ; Lygdamis, who aspired to the
* Herodotus wonders at the folly of this : he supposes the people
took her for the goddess herself; but it was probably intended and un-
derstood to be nothing more than a symbolical action : it may, how-
ever, have been expected that fame would, as usual, magnify it in the
ears of the country-people. Perhaps, as the name of the woman was
Phye, (Size,) the whole may be only a fiction.
PEISISTRATUS AND HIS SONS. 71
tyranny in his native isle of Naxos, brought men and money;
hired troops came from Argos, and in the eleventh year he
passed over and encamped at Marathon. His friends from
the city and country flocked to him. His enemies advanced
to engage him ; but, falling on them by surprise, he gave them
a defeat, and entered Athens for the third time. The Alc-
maeonids and some other families left the country: he
obliged such as remained to give their children as hostages,
whom he placed in Naxos, which he had reduced under the
dominion of his friend Lygdamis. The wealth which he
derived from his estates in Eubcea, and from his mines on
the Strymon in Thrace, enabled him to gratify the people
with gifts, and to adorn the city. During the ten years he
now ruled Athens, his sway was mild, and he left his do-
minion to his sons Hippias, Hipparchus, and Thessalus.
(Ol. 63, 1.)
These princes ruled with still greater lenity than their
father had done. They reduced the land-tax, which he had
imposed, from a tenth to a twentieth ; they were easy of ac-
cess to all, and they sought to diffuse knowledge among the
people. But an act of private revenge altered the entire
face of things in Athens.*
There was an Athenian of moderate fortune, named Aris-
togeiton, who, according to the custom in Greece, had se-
lected as the object of his affection a beautiful youth, named
Harmodius, of the same rank in life as himself. Hippar-
chus was taken with the beauty of Harmodius ; but the youth
rejected his advances. Aristogeiton, however, resolved to
be avenged ; and as Hipparchus took an opportunity of in-
sulting Harmodius, by preventing his sister from bearing a
part in a religious procession, he readily entered into the
project of his friend. Others, actuated by various causes,
engaged in their plans ; and it was agreed to fall on and
murder the tyrants at the festival of the Panathenaea, when,
the persons who formed the pomp or procession being clad
* Thucyd. vi. 5459.
72
HISTORY OF GREECE.
in armor, they might accomplish their design the more
easily.
On the day of the feast, Hippias marshalled the procession
in the Cerameicus, outside of the city. Harmodius and his
friend were ready with their daggers ; but seeing one of the
conspirators talking familiarly with him, they feared they
were betrayed, and, being resolved that Hipparchus should
not escape, they went back into the city, and meeting him
at the place named the Leocorion, they fell on and slew
him. His guards despatched Harmodius on the spot : Aris-
togeiton escaped for the moment, but he was slain after a
stout resistance. When Hippias heard what had happened,
he ordered those who were to form the pomp to retire to a
certain spot without arms. He then had them searched,
and as they were to go in procession bearing only spear and
shield, he knew that all who had daggers were in the con-
spiracy, and dealt with them accordingly. (01. 66, 3.)
The conduct of Hippias now changed ; he became sus-
picious and cruel ; he put several citizens to death ; and, to
strengthen himself by foreign connections, he gave his
daughter in marriage to the son of the tyrant of Lampsacus,
who was in great favor at the court of Persia.
Meantime, the rigorous measures which Hippias pursued
augmented the number of the discontented ; and the foes of his
family, the AlcmaBonids, were steadily on the watch to over-
turn his power. This family was one of the most wealthy
in Greece, and they had fixed themselves in a strong posi-
tion at a place named Leipsydrion, on the southern declivity
of Mount Parnes ; but they did not feel themselves suffi-
ciently strong to attack the tyrant. Just at this time, the
Amphictyons proposed to rebuild the temple at Delphi : the
Alcmseonids got the contract, and though they were only
bound to build it of common sandstone, they, at their own
expense, fronted it with Parian marble. They, moreover, it
is said, gained the Pythia by presents ; and whenever the
Spartans came to consult the oracle, she enjoined them to
give liberty to Athens. Moved by these repeated injunc-
LEGISLATION OF CLEISTHENES. 73
tions of the god, the Spartans collected an army, chiefly of
mercenaries, and putting it under the command of a Spar-
tan named Anchimolius, sent it by sea to Attica, where it
landed at Phaleron, close by Athens. Hippias had applied
to his allies in Thessaly for aid, and a body of one thousand
Thessalian horse was now arrived : these fell on and routed
the invaders, and the Spartan leader himself was among the
slain.*
The Spartans collected another larger army, and sent it,
under the command of Cleomenes, one of their kings, over-
land to Attica. The Thessalian horse who came to oppose
them were defeated and went home. Cleomenes marched
to Athens, and being joined by those who were ill affected
to the Peisistratids, besieged them in the Pelasgian wall,
which surrounded the Acropolis. As they had abundance
of provisions, and the Spartans knew little of sieges, Cle-
omenes was about to lead home his army, when a lucky
chance put him in possession of their children, whom they
were sending out of the country. Hippias, to recover his
children, agreed to evacuate Attica within five days. He
retired to Sigeion (Sigeum) in the Troas, and the tyranny
thus ended, after a duration of thirty-six years.t (Ol. 67, 3.)
The Alcmaeonids and Cleomenes, we may thus see, were
in reality those who freed Athens ; and never was fame more
undeserved than that which has been bestowed on Har-
modius and Aristogeiton. But time is sure to do jus-
tice to all.
The tyranny was now ended; but a struggle still remained
between the aristocratic and the democratic principles.
The advocates of the former were headed by a man of noble
birth, named Isagoras, the friend of Cleomenes. Cleisthenes
the Alcmseonid, his rival for power, either from revenge, \
* Herod, v. 62, 63. I Id. v. 64, 65.
t This was his motive, in Niebuhr's opinion. u Cleisthenes, one of
the nobles," says he, " from a grudge against his own order, by trans-
forming the tribes, levelled the distinctions of ranks, and introduced an
equality, which led to a frantic democracy ; Athens being unaccounta-
7 f
74 HISTORY OF GREECE.
love of justice, or family principle, for he was grandson
of the tyrant of Sicyon, took the popular side, and when
archon, made a great change in the constitution. Isagoras
applied to Cleomenes, and a herald came from Sparta re-
quiring the expulsion of the piacular, (frayfoF,) that is, those
on whom the guilt of the murder of the Cylonians lay.
Cleisthenes, as an Alcmoeonid, was forced to retire; and
Cleomenes, coming to Athens, expelled seven hundred per-
sons, whom Isagoras pointed out as favorable to the new
constitution, dissolved the senate, and put the government
into the hands of three hundred of the partisans of Isagoras.
The people, however, rose ; Cleomenes, Isagoras, and their
friends, sought refuge on the Acropolis, whence, after a siege
of two days, Isagoras and the Lacedaemonians were allowed
to depart : the remainder were put to death. Cleisthenes
and the seven hundred were immediately recalled, and, a
war with Sparta being apprehended, envoys were sent to the
Persian governor of Lydia to ask aid : assistance was offered
on condition of the Athenians giving earth and water, that
is, becoming vassals to the Persian king. The envoys as-
sented ; but they were severely reprimanded for it when they
returned home.* (Ol. 68, 1.)
Cleomenes, meantime, bent on revenge, resolved to estab-
lish a tyranny in the person of Isagoras, and having assem-
bled an army of the Peloponnesian confederates, he led them
into Attica ; the Thebans and the Chalcidians of Euboea
invaded, in concert with him, the parts of Attica nearest to
them. The Athenians advanced to oppose the Peloponne-
sians, who were now in the plain of Eleusis ; but discord had
arisen among the latter : the Corinthians, perceiving Cleom-
bly preserved by fortune from falling under the dominion of tyrants/'
(Hist, of Rome, i. 477.) It is the fate, we believe, of every free state,
in its transition to democracy, to have its Cleisthenes, members of the
aristocracy, who, to gratify their spleen, pride, vanity, avarice, or other
mean passions, become ready and active instruments in destroying the
influence and power of their order in the state.
* Herod, v. 6C, 7073.
LEGISLATION OF CLEISTHENES. 75
enes' real object, retired : his colleague Demaratus opposed
his design ; the rest of the confederates broke up and went
home. The Athenians, thus freed from the Peloponnesians,
turned their arms against the Chalcidians. They defeated
at the Euripus the Thebans, who were coming to their aid,
passed the same day over to Euboea, and overcame the Chal-
cidians, and took from their wealthy men (Innofioicu') four
thousand lots of land for colonists. The Thebans now, in
obedience to the oracle, looked for aid to the ^ginetes,
who, having an old ground of quarrel with the Athenians,
made descents on and ravaged the sea-coast of Attica.*
iEgina, we must observe, was at this time a state of great,
importance in Greece. Its favorable situation in the Sa-
ronic Gulf made its people, like the Phoenicians of old times,
and the Hydraotes of the present day, turn their thoughts to
trade and navigation. We are told that even in the second
century before the Olympiads began, the merchants of JEgi-
na, being excluded by the jealousy of their neighbors from
access to the parts of Arcadia nearest to them, used to sail
round to Cyllene in Elis, and putting their goods on wagons,
convey them into the heart of Arcadia.f The population,
crowded on their little isle of only two hundred stadia in
circuit, is said to have been enormous; the slaves alone
being reckoned at forty-seven myriads ! J Its trade at this
time extended to the Euxine, and to all points of the Med-
iterranean. But its power, like that of all states without
agriculture, was but transient.
The Spartans, seeing the successes of the Athenians,
began to fear that their power might increase too rapidly,
and that they might in time become their rivals ; and they
felt that they had erred in expelling Hippias. They there-
fore sent for him, with the design of restoring him. Having
assembled the deputies of the confederates, they declared
that, deceived by false oracles, they had been led to act
* Herod, v. 7480. t Paus. viii. 5, 8.
t Athenaeus vi. 20, from Aristotle's Polity of the Mgin&tes. A myriad
is 10,000 : the exaggeration is palpable.
76 HISTORY OF GREECE.
wrong and expel their friends, but that now they wished to
amend their error. Then Sosicles, the Corinthian deputy,
rose, and drawing a highly-colored picture of the evil deeds
of the Cypselids in his native city, declared that the Corinth-
ians would have no hand in the setting-up of a tyranny.
The other deputies cried out to the same effect, and the
Spartans were obliged to give up their project and dismiss
Hippias, who returned to Asia, placing all his hopes now in
the Persian power.*
Before we quit Athens, we will take a slight view of the
changes made in the constitution by Cleisthenes
The Solonian constitution was, as we have seen, in its
substance aristocratic; the new one tended much more to
democracy. To effect the change, it was necessary to break
up the existing societies and relations in the state. Accord-
ingly, Cleisthenes divided the people into ten instead of four
tribes: the phratries and houses were allowed to remain, but
their connection with the phyles ceased. The phyles were
divided into denies, (<%mh;) over each phyle was its Phylarch;
over each deme its Demarch. The senate was augmented
to five hundred members, fifty from each phyle. The
number of public officers was in general augmented ; ten,
that of the phyles, becoming the prevailing number. The
archontate was still confined to the Pentecosiomedimnians ;
but the archons were now, like the rest, appointed by lot.
The ostracism t is ascribed to Cleisthenes. It was designed
as a safeguard against tyranny; but it became the mere in-
strument of popular envy and party spirit. Any citizen,
whose continuance in Attica a majority of six thousand
votes pronounced to be dangerous to the state, was ostra-
cised, and obliged to quit the country for ten years.
We are now to leave Greece for a time ; but ere we depart,
we must attend to the progress of hostilities between Sparta
and Argos.
* Herod, v. 9094.
t So called from oorqaxov, a potsherd, with which the votes were
given.
WAR OF SPARTA AND ARGOS. 77
The Spartans had gradually deprived the Argives of the
whole coast of the Myrtoan Sea. The district of Thyrea,
on the confines of Laconia, being ravaged by the Spartans,
(01. 59, 3,) the Argives came in arms to repel them. As
the right to the possession of Thyrea was a subject of dis-
pute between the two nations, it was now agreed to select
three hundred men on each side to fight on the part of their
respective countries ; and the disputed district to be the
property of those whose champions were victorious. The
armies retired, and the six hundred champions fought till all
were slain but three two Argives and one Spartan. It was
now night, and the Argives ran home with the news of their
victory ; but the Spartan, whose name was Othryades,
stripped the bodies of the slain Argives, and having carried
their arms to his camp, remained there. Next morning, the
two armies returned to the spot. The Argives claimed the
victory, because a greater number of their men had sur-
vived ; the Spartans, because their champion had kept the
field. From words they proceeded to arms ; and the Lace-
daemonians were victorious. Othryades, ashamed to have
survived his companions, slew himself after the battle.*
Some years afterwards, (01. 64, 1,) Cleomenes, the Spartan
king, being told by the oracle that he should take Argos, led
an army to the banks of the Erasinus. The sacrifices, pre-
vious to crossing, not proving favorable, he returned to
Thyrea, and passed over by sea to Nauplia and Tiryns. The
Argives came and took their station opposite him at Tiryns.
As an oracle menaced them with defeat by stratagem, they
adopted the expedient of doing every thing they heard the
herald proclaiming to the Lacedaemonians. Cleomenes, dis-
covering this, directed his men, when they heard the herald
give the word for breakfast, to seize their arms and advance
against the enemy. The Argives, being thus attacked when
at their meal, were routed with great loss, and the survivors
fled to the sacred grove of the hero Argos. Cleomenes, who
* Herod, i. 82
78 HISTORY OF GREECE.
had learned their names from deserters, sent in a herald,
inviting them to come out, saying he had received the
usual ransom of two minas each. About fifty had come out,
as he summoned them by name, and had been put to death,
when one of those in the grove climbed a tree and saw their
fate. As no more would leave it, Cleomenes made the
Helots pile wood round the grove, and setting fire to the
wood, he burned the grove and all the Argives who were in
it. While it was burning, he asked one of the deserters to
what god it belonged : on being told to Argos, he cried
out that the god had deceived him, and without attacking
the town, now void of defenders, he led his army back to