In early July 514, Pisistratus’ son Hipparchus was struck down and killed while marshaling the sacrificial procession that initiated the festival of the Great Panathenaea. The assassins, Harmodius and Aristogiton, were members of a distinguished aristocratic clan named the Gephyraioi. Thucydides (6.54-57) attributes their motives to sexual jealousy and wounded pride: Hipparchus had attempted to seduce the young Harmodius, inflaming the resentment of the latter’s lover, Aristogiton, and had also insulted a sister of Harmodius, thus provoking the couple to seek revenge. But elsewhere (1.20.2), he implies that the pair had originally intended to assassinate Hipparchus’ older brother, Hippias, and had only changed their plans at the last minute following suspicions that their plot had been betrayed. This more mundane explanation appears more convincing and underscores the inherent instability of tyrannical regimes (see p. 147). Although, according to later traditions, Pisistratus had initially established his dominion by taking the sons of his political rivals hostage and forcing others into exile (Herodotus 1.64), he had evidently eventually reached a position of understanding with his aristocratic peers (Aristotle, AC 16.9). That seems to have been a delicate balance that his sons were less capable of maintaining.
Harmodius was killed on the spot, Aristogiton shortly afterwards. At some point before 480, the sculptor Antenor was commissioned to make bronze statues of the pair which were set up in the agora, the first time the likeness of
A History of the Archaic Greek World: ca. 1200-479 BCE, Second Edition. Jonathan M. Hall. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An historical individual had been placed in so august a location; by the fourth century, if not much earlier, cultic honors were offered annually at the grave of the couple and their descendants were entitled to free meals in the prytaneion and relief from taxes (AC 58.1; IG I3 131; Andocides 1.98; Isaeus 5.47). A series of skolia, or drinking songs, possibly composed soon after the assassination, lauded the fame of Harmodius and Aristogiton for having “killed the tyrant” and for “restoring equality to the Athenians” (PMG 474-5, 893-6). The first claim could - despite the protestations of Thucydides (1.20.2; 6.54-55) - be true if, as is likely, Hipparchus shared some authority with Hippias. The latter is not entirely accurate since Hippias continued to rule Athens for a further four years. Nevertheless, the action of Harmodius and Aristogiton was the opening salvo in a campaign of aristocratic resistance to the tyranny that was fueled further by the fact that Hippias’ fears and suspicions drove him to pursue a harsher, more despotic style of leadership (Herodotus 5.62.2, 6.123.2; Thucydides 6.59.2). It is in this context that we should view the ultimately unsuccessful attempt of dissidents, led by the Alcmaeonidae, to capture the city from their base at Leipsydrion on Mount Parnes (Herodotus 5.62.2).
In the end, the tyranny was put down by the Spartan king Cleomenes. After an earlier, abortive expedition by sea under the command of Ankhimolios, Cleomenes invaded Attica by land, routed a Thessalian cavalry unit that had come to the support of Hippias, and besieged him and his family on the acropolis. Famed even in the mid-fifth century for their incapacity to conduct siege operations, the Spartans would probably have been unsuccessful had they not had the good fortune to capture members of Hippias’ family whom the tyrant was trying to smuggle out of Athens to safety. In return for the restoration of these hostages, Hippias undertook to leave Attica within five days and departed for Sigeum, near the mouth of the Hellespont (Herodotus 5.63-65).
Herodotus (5.62-63) recounts an Athenian story that indirectly credits the Alcmaeonidae with the eventual expulsion of Hippias. The Alcmaeonidae had supposedly won great influence at Delphi, firstly by agreeing to contribute private funds to replace the temple of Apollo that had burned down in 548 (Pausanias 10.5.13), and then by furnishing the temple with a facade of marble rather than limestone as originally contracted. With this influence, continues Herodotus, they bribed the Pythian priestess to order any passing Spartan dignitary to liberate Athens from the Pisistratid tyrants. The story has little to recommend it - not least, because its assertion that the Alcmaeonidae were in exile throughout the Pisistratid tyranny (Herodotus 5.62.2; 6.123.1) cannot be true if the []leisthenes, listed as eponymous archon for 525/4 on the Athenian Archon List (ML 6 = Fornara 23) is, as seems likely, the Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes. It is not even clear that the story was initially invented by the Alcmaeonids. Bribery of Apollo’s oracle would surely have been viewed as an act of utmost impiety, though it is easy to understand how such a charge might have become attached to the family. In the last third of the seventh century, Cleisthenes’ great-grandfather, Megacles, had supposedly violated the suppliant status of those who had supported Cylon’s abortive coup d’etat - a profane act that necessitated the arrival of the Cretan prophet Epimenides to purify the city (Herodotus 5.71; Thucydides 1.126; Aristotle, AC 1, fr. 8). But the Alcmaeo-nidae could have turned what was essentially a negative slur to their advantage: not only had they had no association with the Pisistratid regime, they had even been instrumental in securing its downfall. It is not at all impossible that the seemingly trivial, jealousy-based motivation ascribed to the tyrannicides was also the product of an Alcmaeonid apologist. By the fifth century, the Spartans liked to claim that it was an ideological predisposition towards stable government (eunomia) that impelled them to suppress tyrannical regimes throughout Greece (e. g. Thucydides 1.18.1), but their true motivations for expelling Hippias in 510 are best judged by their subsequent interventions over the next decade. Having forged asymmetrical alliances with many of the cities of the Pelopon-nese, the Spartans had begun to turn their attention to the states of the Saronic Gulf. Megara, for example, probably allied itself to Sparta before the end of the sixth century, and the island of Aegina seems to have come to terms with Cleomenes in the 490s (Herodotus 6.73). Under the Pisistratids, Athens had attained a strength and importance it had not known since the eighth century (see pp. 256-9) and it is highly likely that Cleomenes wanted to ensure Sparta had a docile ally north of the isthmus. There were grounds for encouragement since the Pisistratids had, up to then, enjoyed good relations with the Spartans (Herodotus 5.63.2). If, however, Hippias had baulked at actually accepting orders from Sparta, Cleomenes would certainly have had good reasons to replace him with somebody more compliant.
Cleomenes’ ideal candidate was an aristocrat named Isagoras, son of Teisan-dros, whom Cleomenes befriended during the siege of the acropolis in 510 and whose wife, according to scurrilous rumors, enjoyed a close relationship with the Spartan king (Herodotus 5.66.1, 70.1). Isagoras seems to have enjoyed the support of other elite families in the city, since he was appointed archon for 508/7 (Aristotle, AC 21.1); in response, his chief political rival, the Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes, is said to have “set about making himself the friend (prosetairizetai) of the demos” (Herodotus 5.66.2). The author of the Athenian Constitution (20.1) says that he won over the demos by “handing the constitution over to the multitude (plethos),” though it is highly unlikely that the reforms were enacted until Cleisthenes’ position was assured. Sensing that his grip on power was loosening, Isagoras appealed to Cleomenes, who sent a herald ordering the Athenians to rid the city of the “accursed” - a reference to the Alcmaeonidae and their role in the suppression of the Cylonian conspiracy. Following Cleisthenes’ departure from Athens, Cleomenes arrived in the city with a small force and ordered the expulsion of a further 700 families. After a failed attempt to dissolve the boule, Cleomenes and Isagoras seized the acropolis, where they were immediately besieged by “the rest of the Athenians who were of one mind.” Three days later, the Spartan contingent was allowed to depart under truce while their Athenian supporters were executed; Cleisthenes and the other 700 exiled families were summoned back to Athens (Herodotus 5.70, 72-73; Aristotle, AC 20).
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