READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE AND THE WEST

CHAPTER III

ATHENS UNDER THE TYRANTS

I

FROM SOLON TO PEISISTRATUS

SOLON left the Athenian state for the moment vigorous and united, able to resume the spirited foreign policy of the last decade, and an opportunity of playing a part in Greek affairs soon offered itself. Shortly before 590 bc. Thessaly, then at the height of its military power, intervened in Central Greece. At Anthela near Thermopylae was the meeting-place of the Amphictyony or Sacred League of Northern and Central Greece. This body, which was overshadowed and controlled by the power of Thessaly, now sought to gain influence farther south. The people of Delphi, the servants of the oracle of Apollo, appealed to be freed from the power of Crisa the leading town of Phocis which shut them off from the sea. It was alleged that the Crisaeans exacted tolls from the pilgrims who came to enquire of the god, and this violated the common rights of Greeks of which the Amphictyony was champion. Accordingly a sacred war was declared against Crisa and an army led by the Thessalian Eurylochus besieged the city. The Amphictyones found a powerful ally in Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon who sought to gain a sanction for his rule and possibly to crush a commercial rival. The Athenians, too, took the opportunity of flying to the help of the strong cause and sent a contingent under Alcmaeon the son of Megacles who had effected his return to Athens. It is possible that Athenian policy was influenced by the Sicyonian tyrant who may have afforded shelter to the exiled Alcmaeonidae. At least Alcmaeon’s son Megacles was destined to marry Agariste the tyrant’s daughter, winning her from suitors who came from all over Greece. Crisa was presently forced to surrender and the city was destroyed; its territory was dedicated to the Delphian god, and Delphi became the second seat of the Sacred League. Athens was rewarded for her help by gaining the monopoly of one of the two votes assigned to the Ionians in the congresses of the Amphictyony. Thus the Athenians won recognition and influ­ence in Central Greece and among their own kin.

But this energy was short-lived, for the internal peace of Athens was soon broken. In the lists of Athenian Archons twice—against the years 590/89 and 585/4 bc—stood the significant word anarchia. This must mean that in those years there was no generally recognised head of the state. The rivalries of the nobles and the divergence of interests in Athens were too strong for the constitution or the peace which Solon had hoped to establish. The natural result of such strife was the rise of a tyrant. In 582/1 bc. Damasias, a nobleman of old family, was made Archon and stayed in office for two years and two months. It became clear that he was aiming at tyranny and at the end of that time he was overthrown.

On his fall the government of Athens was entrusted to ten archons, five from the Eupatridae or nobles; three from the agroikoi or small farmers and two from the demiourgoi or craftsmen. The most natural assumption is that these ten archons were chosen to govern in turn during the ten months which remained of Damasias’ last year of office. The fact that they were drawn from different grades of society points to a coalition of all classes to overthrow the would-be tyrant. It must be assumed that, under stress, the Solonian property qualification for the archonship was set aside. At least it is hard to imagine that either ‘agroikoi’ or ‘demiourgoi’ can have normally been eligible for high office at this time. This constitutional experiment of the counter-revolution was short-lived and temporary union was succeeded by lasting division.

Ancient tradition speaks of three factions in Athenian politics in the period between Solon’s archonship and the tyranny of Peisistratus, those of the ‘Plain’, of the ‘Coast’ and of the ‘Hill-country’. But the last of these three is credibly associated with the personality of Peisistratus who can hardly have formed his party as early as the time of Damasias, so for the next decade we may assume the active existence of only the first two of these factions.

The men of the Plain were the nobles and well-to-do farmers who held the best land in Attica and looked back with regret to the days when the power of birth and land was still unimpaired by reform. This was no doubt the party which had made a temporary concession to the small farmers and craftsmen in order to overthrow Damasias. Their leader was Lycurgus the son of Aristolai'des, possibly a member of the ancient noble house of the Eteobutadae. Opposed to this party were the men of the Coast, the fishermen and sailors and craftsmen of the city. Their interest lay in the commercial development of Attica, in the recognition of other wealth than land. They were led by Megacles the son of Alcmaeon. The Alcmaeonidae were aristocrats as proud as any, but their ambition made them ill-content to take an equal place with other nobles and the taint of blood-guiltiness still rested on them. Their return to Athens and the recovery of their estates can have been no easy matter, and it is possible that they owed it to the support of men of the coast and had so adopted a policy of championing the more modern elements in the Solonian settlements. In this century as in the next the ambition of their house was to be the handmaid of Athenian democracy. These were the two parties which strove for mastery and their strife weakened the state, so that when Solon returned to Athens about 580 bc it was to find Athens far other than he had hoped.

A result and a sign of Athenian weakness was that the Megarians had regained their hold on Salamis. Solon who knew what the island meant to Attica came forward and poured scorn on the inertia of the Athenians in indignant verses, calling on his countrymen ‘to go out and fight for the lovely island and be clear of the cruel shame.’ These lines which are full of youthful fire voiced the patriotism of the younger Athenians who found a general in Peisistratus, a nobleman from Brauron in the south of the Hill-country. Megara itself was by now torn by the dissensions between nobles and commons which find an echo in the poems of Theognis, and Athens seized her opportunity. The traditional details of the war can hardly be trusted. The one fact that seems fairly certain is that Peisistratus succeeded in taking Nisaea the port of Megara. With this pledge in their hands the Athenians admitted the arbitration of the Spartans who assigned Salamis to Athens while Megara regained Nisaea. According to an ancient tradition the Athenians supported their claim to the island by quoting as Homeric a line in which Ajax the Hero of Salamis is posted with the Athenians, and the credit for this diplomatic master-stroke was given to the wise Solon or the wily Peisistratus. This time the annexation was permanent and in the course of the century the island was occupied by settlers from Attica.

II

THE RISE AND EXILES OF PEISISTRATUS

The winning of Salamis may be set shortly before the year 570 bc, and the next decade saw the rise of Peisistratus to a dominant position in the state. There had been, as has been said, two factions, the Plain and the Coast; there remained a part of Attica which waited for a leader. The Hill-country (the Diacria) could share neither in the agricultural prosperity of the Plain nor in the commercial progress of the Coast. Here, in a tangle of glens, lived shepherds and herdsmen and crofters, many, no doubt, men to whom Solon had given freedom but not land. In Peisistratus they found a leader who would urge their claims and could win their affection so that they stood firmly by him even in failure and exile. And Peisistratus, though he made the men of the Hills the instruments of his personal ambition, was to prove able and willing to fulfil the promises by which he had won their support. With this backing and with the prestige gained by his exploits in war he now took his place among the party leaders of Attica.

He might have been well content, like Megacles and Lycurgus, with a share of power, for an adroit politician might hold the balance between the other two parties. But personal ambition and the claims of his followers forbade such a course; to satisfy the men of the Diacria he must control the state. Accordingly he prepared quietly to make himself tyrant. The Athenians did not go unwarned. Solon’s shrewdness was not deceived, but his wisdom went unheeded. There are lines of Solon’s which may be referred to this time and contain more than half the truth about the Athenian people:

With fox-like gait each several one of you

Walks slily, but, collected, all your cunning

Turns folly: while you watch the subtle play

Of a man’s speech, you fail to see the deed

That is afoot the while.     

The Assembly granted to Peisistratus on the proposal of Aristion, one of his followers, a bodyguard of men armed with staves. There is a fine funeral stele set up not long after this time which bears the name Aristion. This stele was found north of Brauron and it is very possible that Aristion was a neighbour who was used by Peisistratus. The bodyguard with their staves seemed harmless compared with the mercenary spearmen who were to the Greeks the outward sign of tyranny.

But there must have been some excuse for such a guard and Herodotus describes how Peisistratus drove into the market-place with wounds on himself and his mules and told how his enemies had sought to kill him by the way. There is no reason to doubt the story, for, if it was a comedy, Peisistratus was quite clever enough to have staged it. The number of the guard might be quickly increased and in the archonship of Corneas (561/0 bc) there was a coup d’état, the Acropolis was seized and Peisistratus was master of Athens. Solon’s warning had come true, and Solon lived just long enough to see a tyrant at Athens.

But this new Damasias was soon faced by a coalition. Before his tyranny had taken root, the leaders of the Plain and Coast composed their differences and joined to drive the tyrant from the city. Whether he was forced to leave Attica or merely retired to the Hill-country is not certain. At least he clearly remained near at hand and with a following worth the consideration of his rivals: the coalition soon broke down and Megacles intrigued with Peisistratus and secured his return to Athens (560/59 bc)

Herodotus tells a charming story how Megacles brought back the tyrant in peace by dressing up as Athena a fine upstanding lady who rode to Athens in a chariot with Peisistratus at her side while the story was spread through the villages that the goddess was bringing him home. Heralds went before to the city saying “Men of Athens, welcome Peisistratus whom Athena herself, honouring above all men, brings back to her own Acropolis”. And those in the city believed the lady to be the goddess herself and worshipped the mortal woman and received Peisistratus. This incident Herodotus finds “by far the most naive of devices”, but he does not disbelieve it. The story may only reflect the fact that Peisistratus believed himself to enjoy the especial patronage of the goddess. It was he who set the head of Athena on the currency of the city together with the owl, the city badge. Before this the coins of Athens, the so-called ‘heraldic’ coins, which were didrachms, had borne either badges of the city as the owl or the amphora, or of noble houses as the trisceles or the galloping horse, which was perhaps the badge of Peisistratus’ own family. Now the tyrant, tyrant by grace of the goddess, set on the new tetradrachms of the city the head of his patroness.

The political alliance between the parties of the Coast and the Hills was confirmed by the marriage of Peisistratus and the daughter of Megacles. But the ambitions of the two leaders soon made shipwreck of both political and matrimonial alliance. Megacles had perhaps hoped that the successor of Peisistratus would be a son by this new marriage, but the tyrant had no such intentions. He had already sons of his own and had no desire to sacrifice their claims to a grandson of Megacles. Nor was the new dynasty to be tainted with the guilt which rested on the Alcmaeonidae. So it presently became clear that there would be no children by this marriage of policy. In anger at this Megacles turned once more to the party of the Plain, and Peisistratus with his family was driven from Attica (c. 556 bc).

On the northern coasts of the Aegean there was still room for a determined adventurer, and Peisistratus settled at Rhaecelus in the north-west of the Chalcidic peninsula. There he united the people of the countryside into a city and won the friendship of the king of Macedon, so that when his dynasty was finally overthrown the shelter of Macedon was offered to his son Hippias. From Rhaecelus he presently established his power in the region of Mount Pangaeus near the mouth of the Strymon. Here there were rich mines, and gradually he gathered a store of money and raised a small mercenary army. He was equally diligent in making friends among the enemies of Athens and the Athenian government and intriguing with the Thebans and with the Argives, who no doubt were hostile to Megacles the son-in-law of their old enemy Cleisthenes tyrant of Sicyon. And it may be that Peisistratus was helped at Argos by his marriage with an Argive lady, Timonassa. These states supplied him with the sinews of war, and he was further strengthened by the assistance of Lygdamis a rich adventurer like himself, who aimed at becoming tyrant of Naxos.

Meanwhile his victorious enemies at Athens had returned to their old ways and heraldic badges appear once more on the Athenian coins. All the written record of their doings which the irony of time has left us is to be found in two broken inscriptions, one for a victory which Alcmaeonides won in the pentatlon, the other the dedication of a statue of Apollo in which the same Alcmaeonides son of Alcmaeon commemorates his swift steeds and the skill of his Boeotian jockey “when Pallas’ high festival gathered at Athens”. As the statue was dedicated at the Ptoion in Boeotia, it would seem that Alcmaeonides won his victory during Peisistratus’ exile, only to celebrate it during his own.

At the end of ten years Peisistratus felt strong enough to attempt the recovery of his power at Athens. A base near Attica was needed and this he found in the city of Eretria where, for whatever reason, the oligarchic government favoured his enterprise. Here he gathered his forces, including a thousand men from Argos, and opened up communications with the Hill­country of Attica where his old followers were still looking for their leader’s return. At last about 546 bc the time was ripe and-he landed near Marathon. The government of Athens, which had underrated their enemy, were only just in time to occupy with their levies the gap between Pentelicus and Hymettus, and the two armies faced each other near the temple of Athena at Pallene. The citizen levies were careless and very likely half­hearted, and they were soon surprised and scattered to their homes where they were very ready to remain. The way to Athens was clear, and Peisistratus’ enemies fled into exile. The sons of those whom Peisistratus did no more than suspect were taken as hostages and interned in the island of Naxos where Peisistratus helped his friend Lygdamis to become tyrant.

III

THE FINAL TYRANNY OF PEISISTRATUS

Peisistratus was now lord of Athens by right of conquest. His power was maintained by troops of mercenaries, not only Greek but barbarian; and Scythian archers, who were the police of the tyrant, make their first appearance on Attic vases. His possessions on the Strymon afforded him revenues besides those which he was able to draw from Attica. By shrewd diplomacy he maintained good relations with his neighbours, and he knew how to attach to himself the goodwill of a great part of the Athenian people. His rule was mild and he avoided the proverbial faults of a tyrant, so that for the rest of his lifetime no one was found able and willing to essay the dangerous adventure of attacking his power.

The domestic policy of Peisistratus, though possibly its chief motive was to secure support for his power, was of great benefit to Attica. What was needed to complete the work of Solon was to provide with farms those to whom Solon had given freedom but nothing more. After Solon the great bulk of the best land in Attica had remained in the hands of the wealthiest nobles, while many Athenians were forced to work as labourers or make a poor living on the bad land of Attica. These it was who had been the followers of Peisistratus, and now the tyrant was able to fulfil the promises of his early days and settle a great number of Athenians on small farms. For the rich nobles who held the great part of the land were his defeated enemies; many of them were dead or in exile and Peisistratus could reward his friends by dividing the estates of his enemies. He imposed on the land of Attica a tax of one-tenth or one-twentieth of the produce, a tax which brought in a steady revenue and can have seemed no great burden at least to those who before had been landless. He used his wealth to advance money to the new smallholders, and their intensive culti­vation did much for Attic agriculture. Judges were appointed to go round Attica and judge suits in the villages to meet the convenience of the local peasantry. The security of a settled government no doubt went far to reconcile to the tyranny those who gained nothing else from the tyrant’s return. A sign and a result of this security was the spread of olive growing. For an olive plantation, so slowly grown and so speedily destroyed, was the product of peaceful times, and now at last Attica had peace at home and abroad.

A secondary though most important result of this was the in­creased production of pottery for the growing export of oil and wine. During the reigns of the tyrant and his sons, the Attic black-figure style reached its climax and was succeeded by a new style full of life—that of the red-figured vases. Before the fall of the dynasty the pottery of Corinth had forfeited its predominance to the new Attic ware and the workshops of Boeotia and Eretria had become no more than provincial offshoots of Attic decorative art. Nor was this the only sphere in which the Athenians showed a newer, more modern spirit. Attic sculpture began to have a life of its own and to free itself from the stiff almost grotesque manner of the early sixth century. The new era of peace at home and enterprise abroad, the increasing intercourse with other Greek states especially those of Ionia, and the patronage of the tyrant dynasty which attracted artists from abroad, all combined to quicken the artistic life of Athens.

New buildings arose which attested the greatness and helped to ensure the popularity of the new régime. The fountain of the Nine streams, the Enneakrounos, showed the care of the tyrant for his people. And the care of Athena for her favourite did not go unrewarded. Besides the precincts of Pandrosos and probably of Erechtheus and Athena Polias, there stood on the Acropolis a temple of the goddess. This the tyrant or his sons glorified by surrounding it with a colonnade and adorning it with marble sculptures. As if in reply, the democracy, when the dynasty fell, planned to build a temple to the same goddess where the Parthenon now stands, and its marble columns were rising when the great Persian invasion broke upon Athens. The ascent to the Acropolis was adorned, as well as fortified, with a columned gateway, the predecessor of the splendid Propylaea of Pericles. Apollo did not go short of honour, for Peisistratus laid out a precinct of the Pythian god, in which his grandson and namesake built an altar to commemorate the year of his archonship. Finally the new dynasty began a vast temple of Olympian Zeus, though it was reserved for two aliens, Antiochus Epiphanes and the Emperor Hadrian, to continue and to complete the work.

Even more significant was the establishment at Athens of a state cult of Dionysus, a god not so much of the old aristocracy as of the common folk who had worshipped him with rude rejoicings in their villages. Now the cult which had belonged to Eleutherae was transferred to Athens and the tyrant set up the great city Dionysia, the festival which made the city the patron of dramatic art. At this festival in 534 bc Thespis the reputed founder of Greek Tragedy was victor in the first of the long line of Athenian dramatic contests. The new state worship of Dionysus was no doubt a solvent of family and tribal cults and so, here as elsewhere, politically convenient to a tyrant. But Peisistratus was not merely a shrewd politician; he was ‘a lover of the city’ and believed that the greatness of his house was reflected in the dignity of Athens. He may have instituted, and certainly he raised to splendour, the Great Panathenaic Festival which was held every four years. The original motive of the festival in its simpler form was to celebrate the union of Attica; it now showed to the Greek world the greatness of the city and of the ruler whom Athena guarded. It was the climax of civic life, the moment caught and made immortal by the frieze of the Parthenon. At this festival rhapsodes from all over Greece recited the poems of Homer, the common heritage of the Greeks, and Peisistratus laid down rules for these recitations. That he did more or that there was more to do for Homer at this time cannot or should not be stated with assurance. The multitudes which flocked to Athens for the great Festival saw a city growing in prosperity and claiming to stand with Delphi and Olympia as a centre of Greek national life.

The new coinage of Athens bearing the head of Athena and the owl, the city badge, steadily won the affectionate respect of Greek traders. During his exile Peisistratus had controlled the silver mines at Mount Pangaeus and had continued there to strike his coins, though the workmanship shows a touch of barbarism. Now on his return he could add to the silver of Thrace the silver of Laurium, and his Attic currency and again that of his son Hippias shows a tendency towards a regular fullness or increase of weight which helped the commercial prestige of Athens and soon forced the Corinthians to raise slightly the standard of their coins. The tetradrachms of Athens, which no political change affected for long, were the most lasting and the most manifest memorial of Peisistratus and his house. More than a century later, when the enemies of Athens hired rowers to man their fleets against her, they reckoned their pay in good Attic currency.

The foreign policy of Peisistratus was an adroit mixture of imperialism at a distance and peaceableness near home. His own experience had shown how dangerous it was to a government to have unfriendly neighbours. His recent return had been made possible because Eretria had allowed him to use that city as his base against Attica and because the Thebans and Argives had lent him help in men or money. Triumphant and powerful as he was, his exiled enemies were not to be despised. Megacles and his son Cleisthenes had all the tenacity and resolution of their house and ceaselessly intrigued to secure their return. Thus one chief preoccupation of Peisistratus was to prevent these exiles from finding support and a refuge near Attica. This was only possible if Athens could maintain and extend the friendships which he had formed in exile, so that Attica should be sur­rounded by a protective circle of goodwill. It was no easy task. The rivalries of the Greek states made it hard for Athens to be the friend of all the world, but for nearly a generation Peisistratus and his sons were successful. With Thessaly, still the most famous military state in Greece, Peisistratus maintained a close friendship; a hint of this is the fact that one of his sons bore the name Thessalus. He avoided arousing the jealousy of the Euboean cities, maintained peace with Aegina and Corinth and the states which bordered on Attica. With Sparta his house had old ties of friendship. It is true that it was impossible for Athens the friend of Argos to be for ever not the enemy of Sparta, and it was hard to avoid friction with the growing and grasping power of Thebes. But the statecraft of Peisistratus was equal to the task.

Thus he secured for Attica peace and for himself security. Farther afield his policy was more ambitious. The enterprises in the northern Aegean which had occupied his long exile were not allowed to drop, for here in case of need was a second home and a second source of power. Accordingly he recaptured Sigeum, which the Athenians had lost to the Mityleneans, and settled there as governor his illegitimate son Hegesistratus. This was to prove in the end the last refuge of his house. The holding of Sigeum meant no doubt acknowledging the suzerainty of the Persians who were now overlords of the coast of Asia Minor. But that as yet could arouse no scruple in a Greek tyrant. Besides this dynastic consideration Peisistratus realized how vital it was to Athenian interests to control the trade route to the Pontus. The population of Attica was increasing and its production of corn very possibly declining as olive-growing proved itself more profitable. Thus the harvests of the Pontus were becoming more and more necessary to Athens. Sigeum guarded the southern side of the passage through the Dardanelles; on the north lay the Thracian Chersonese.

This was already in Athenian hands. Miltiades, son of Cypselus of the Philaid house, had made himself lord of the Chersonese during the early days of Peisistratus’ tyranny. The story how he embarked on this adventure was no doubt preserved in the traditions of his family and is related by Herodotus. The Thracian Dolonci lived in the Chersonese and were harassed by their neighbours the Apsinthii. They hoped to find protection in the settlement of a Greek colony, and so an embassy of Thracians set out to Delphi to enquire of the god. The god hade them ask the first man who invited them into his house to lead a colony of Greeks to the Chersonese. They accordingly retraced their steps along the Sacred Way and neither in Phocis nor in Boeotia did anyone invite them in. They pursued their journey into Attica and passed by the house of Miltiades son of Cypselus, and he, seeing their strange garb and spears, asked them to be his guests, whereupon they invited him to obey the god and lead a colony to the Chersonese. And he, finding the rule of Peisistratus irksome and wishing to leave Attica, did as they requested. He led a body of Athenians to the Chersonese and the Dolonci made him tyrant. That there was collusion between the Dolonci, Apollo and Miltiades is more than likely. Peisistratus, too, may have been willing enough to see the departure of a possible rival and the extension of Athenian influence in the north-east Aegean. Miltiades protected the peninsula by building a wall across the isthmus which joins it to the mainland. This Athenian intervention brought on a war with Lampsacus, probably during the long exile of Peisistratus when he could not help Miltiades. Miltiades was taken prisoner but released on the interven­tion of Croesus the king of Lydia. After this he maintained himself against his Greek and barbarian neighbours until the death of Peisistratus.

In the central Aegean the tyrant extended the influence if not the dominion of Athens. He had rewarded Lygdamis for his support by setting him up by force of arms as tyrant in Naxos. Lygdamis in turn helped the notorious Polycrates to make himself tyrant of Samos, no doubt with the countenance of Peisistratus. There was an old religious bond between Attica, especially Marathon and Oenoe in the Hill-country, and the Ionian sanctuary at Delos. This was now strengthened and Peisistratus carried out a purification of Delos to win the favour of Apollo. The Athenians became more ready to assert their kinship with the lonians. A hint of this may be seen in the fact that the figure of Theseus, the symbol of Athenian race-consciousness, appears more and more often on Attic vases. Thus was laid the foundation of sentiment on which in the next century the Confederacy of Delos was to be built.

At Athens itself the tyrant found that the Solonian constitution could be made a good servant. Archons were elected as before, except that they happened always to be those whom the tyrant could trust. The Council of the Areopagus still met; indeed it became more and more a convenient instrument. For it had been purged of Peisistratus’ chief opponents and it was recruited from those trusty men who had held the archonship, and so, as time went on, was bound to become pro-Peisistratean. The tyrant himself even appeared before it to answer a charge of murder, an act which enabled the tyrant to show his respect for the law and might have enabled the Areopagus to show its respect for the tyrant had not the accuser failed to appear. The code of Solon remained in force—not even the law against tyranny was repealed—and justice was made more accessible by the creation of the local judges for the country districts, though their appointment may have been inconsistent with the idea of the Solonian popular courts. The remaining organs of the Solonian government continued to exist and to be active so far as they did not inconvenience the tyrant. Peisistratus was no constitu­tional reformer; he was content to be the first man in an obedient state.

Some scholars, it is true, have attributed to him the institution of the ten tribes with their subdivisions which Herodotus and Aristotle, following the Athenian tradition, describe as the work of Cleisthenes. It is possible to interpret the grouping of the tribal divisions as they appeared in the fifth century as a kind of ‘electoral geometry’ which was to increase the importance of the Hill-country from which Peisistratus had drawn his supporters. But there are two things which we do not know for certain: the exact boundaries of the Hill­country and whether that area remained the home of a political faction during the established rule of the tyrant. What is more certain is that, when the tyranny fell, its victorious opponents would not have allowed to survive any arrangement of Athenian tribes which might give a political advantage to the tyrant’s followers. And, as is shown in a later chapter, the organization of the tribes and their subdivisions can be convincingly explained by the conditions with which Cleisthenes had to deal.

At last, in the year 527 bc, after a long period of peace to which the Athenians looked back as a golden age, Peisistratus died in his bed and his power passed without challenge to his sons. It is hard to gather from the scanty records of the time what manner of man he was. The lines of Solon already quoted suggest that he had the eloquence which an Athenian politician needed. His career shows him tenacious and supple, no doubt a patient enemy and a faithful friend. Under his easy and enlightened despotism Attica recruited the strength which made possible the brilliant career of the democracy which succeeded his dynasty.

IV

THE PELOPONNESIAN LEAGUE

The reign of Peisistratus witnessed the appearance of the most permanent organization in Greek politics, what is called the Peloponnesian League. Before this time Greek states had joined in Amphictyonies with their centre at a temple, held together by a bond like that which bound together members of a clan, or they had made short-lived alliances for definite purposes. Now, by a striking innovation, there arose a lasting combination of separate states which rested on the political power of a single state. As a league it was secular, as an alliance it was permanent. The term ‘league’ is strictly a misnomer, for the members were not bound to each other but only each to Sparta. Subject to the claims of this alliance with Sparta the several states were left entirely free to manage each its own foreign policy; they might even make war on each other. The official title of the league was “The Lacedaemonians and their allies”.

The underlying assumptions of the league, as can be recon­structed from its later history, were two—the military hegemony of Sparta and the autonomy and territorial integrity of the several members of the confederation. Until the middle of the sixth century Sparta had constantly sought to acquire territory at the expense of her neighbours. She was now satisfied, or at least her need for new land was no longer commensurate with the sacrifices required to obtain it. That had been made clear by her struggle with Tegea. Sparta now offered security to her neighbours in return for security for herself. There were two quarters from which danger might come: from Argos and from the helots who were becoming over-numerous compared with their masters and cherished the unfading memory of their old freedom. The power of Argos was declining; the offensive had passed to Sparta and after a crushing victory in 546 bc. Sparta had little to fear from her enemy if her enemy was isolated. But a century before Argos had been the head of a group of states and might be so again. The alliances which bound her neighbours to Sparta were a means to forestall such a combination. The treaty, for instance, with Sicyon or Corinth was for ever, and it precluded any other engagement which might conflict with it, and bring these states into the field as allies of Argos against Sparta. Equally, a rising of the helots lost half its terrors if the helots were shut in by states which were pledged to help Sparta to defend herself and were pledged to help no one to attack Sparta. By limiting herself strictly to these principles and being careful to avoid any infringement of the domestic rights of her allies, Spartan policy, ever guided rather by fear than hope, achieved a solid if not brilliant success. She succeeded in capitalizing her military prestige. The policy was the reflection of a wider movement, for in social life Sparta had deliberately cut herself off from progress: she shut her frontiers to art and to the new phase of commerce, and so avoided the crisis which through strife and suffering issued in the larger life of Athens. While the Athenian state was growing up from youth to man­hood, the Spartans set before themselves the ideal of a well-preserved middle age.

The growth of the confederacy is not easy to trace, but it was sufficiently rapid to show that most of the Peloponnesian states welcomed the security which the new system seemed to offer. The states which lay under the shadow of Argos had not forgotten the days when that city had been dominant and were well content to lean on Sparta. Corinth, far enough removed to have no immediate fear of Spartan arms, might derive moral and, if need be, material support for the sober aristocratic government which had, a generation before, replaced the brilliant and ambitious tyranny of the house of Cypselus. The Arcadians followed the example of Tegea which made a treaty with Sparta. Elis, the second largest state in the Peloponnese, was an old ally. At some time in the closing decades of the century Megara, after establishing an oligarchy, became a member of the Spartan league and so opened the road which led to central Greece. It is significant that Sparta did not secure the adhesion of Achaea, that happy land without a history. The reason may be that Achaea, hemmed in by allies of Sparta, could neither help Argos nor the helots and so might be left to herself. It was not until Athens became active in the Gulf of Corinth during the next century that it became necessary to bring Achaea into the league. By the end of the sixth century the league included the whole of the Peloponnese except Argos and Achaea, also the island of Aegina which was Dorian, oligarchic, and connected with the Peloponnese by the strongest ties of commercial interest. In the main the league was a Dorian league, but there is no sign that Lacedaemonian policy was narrowly racial. The removal of the bones of Orestes to Sparta was a claim to an ancient primacy which preceded and transcended the limits of what was Dorian. This claim pressed by an ambitious king like Cleomenes might and sometimes did break through the tradition of defensive caution which was inherited from ephorate to ephorate. But in the main, even when fear of Argos was faint, the ever-present danger of a helot-rising armed with an invincible argument the party which opposed a policy of aggression. And, besides, the ephors who were in general the prophets of tradi­tional policy were able to rely on the eternal rivalry of the two Laconian royal houses.

There is an apparent exception to the general defensive attitude of Sparta. At the very earliest stage of the league she was credited with carrying out a mission to put down tyrants. According to a papyrus fragment, “Chilon the Lacedaemonian, having become ephor and general, and Anaxandridas put down the tyrannies among the Greeks”.

They are said to have driven the Cypselids from Corinth and Ambracia, Lygdamis from Naxos, the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, Aeschines from Sicyon, Symmachus from Thasos, Aules from Phocis and Aristogenes from Miletus. The list is impressive but it does not mean that in every case Sparta herself intervened in arms. Nor is it probable that when the Spartans saw a tyrant their native egotistical caution was lost in righteous indignation. We may suppose that they waited as in the case of Athens until a tyranny had outlived its welcome and then gave or inspired the final blow to secure the good will of the government which succeeded it. To the several states concerned such intervention did not seem an infringement of their autonomy if autonomy meant the enjoyment of rights which the tyranny had set in abeyance. Spartan policy which aimed at a permanent distribution of power, no doubt, preferred to deal with a more settled government than a tyranny. As the Spartans desired to be surrounded by powers with which they could make firm and lasting arrangements, they viewed tyrants with the same uncomfortable dislike with which the Holy Alliance after Waterloo would view a usurper or a republic. Besides, some tyrants had liberated serfs.

In the settlements which followed the age of the tyrants in Greece proper the influence of Sparta was on the side of oligarchy or aristocracy, which seemed to her not without reason most permanent and most orderly. Here may be found the chief bond between Lacedaemon and the governments of Megara and Aegina which had to fear a democratic opposition.

When the allies of Sparta or a majority of them agreed that a casus foederis had arisen, Sparta could place herself at the head of a very formidable league army comprising two-thirds of the active fighting strength of her allies, and had no rival in Greece except Thessaly. Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles an unflattering comparison of the Peloponnesian League with the centralized energetic empire of Athens. But the league had the qualities of its defects and, despite a clumsy and often disloyal leadership, it showed great vitality even after the Peace of Nicias.

Lacedaemonian prestige, already recognized as far afield as Lydia and Egypt, grew with the growth of the league and soon the Spartans found themselves involved in the affairs of the Aegean seafaring states. Polycrates tyrant of Samos, a buccaneer with a taste for art and letters, had made himself intolerable. He had been the ally of Egypt but had evaded the hostility of Cambyses the Great King by an adroit volte-face at the right moment. Samians had plotted against him in vain and exiles from Samos now appealed to Sparta. Their appeal was strongly supported by the Corinthians who had plenty of grievances old and new against the island, and a Lacedaemonian force was sent to join an expedition to suppress the tyrant (c. 524 BC). After forty days the siege of Samos was abandoned and the Spartans returned. Herodotus relates a story, which he does not believe, that the Lacedaemonians were bribed by Polycrates. Where Herodotus is sceptical, we need not be credulous. The failure of the expedition was not of very great moment, for soon after Polycrates fell a victim to the treacherous cunning of the Persian satrap at Sardes and ‘was miserably put to death in a manner unworthy both of himself and of his high ambitions.’ It is, however, likely enough that the incident strengthened the Spartan dislike for adventures overseas.

V

THE SONS OF PEISISTRATUS

On the death of Peisistratus his power passed to his sons. As in mediaeval Italy, so in Greece it was not rare for a tyrant to leave his rule to be held jointly by his sons though in practice the eldest or ablest would take the lead. The eldest son of Peisistratus was Hippias, who appears to have inherited much of his father’s ability and all his father’s tenacity of purpose. The ancient authorities are not in agreement as to the other sons of Peisistratus. Aristotle says his legitimate sons were Hippias and Hipparchus and that there were two others by his Argive wife Timonassa, who in Attic law did not count as legitimate, namely Iophon and Hegesistratus who was also called Thessalus. Iophon is not known otherwise and may have died young. At least he does not come into the history of the period. Hegesistratus according to Herodotus was ruler at Sigeum and presumably took no part in Athenian affairs. It is doubtful if he should be identified with Thessalus, as Thucydides appears to count Thessalus among Peisistratus’ legitimate sons and the traditions about him imply that he lived at Athens during the rule of Hippias. Plutarch, it is true, mentions Thessalus as a son of Timonassa as does Aristotle, but he is probably using the same source and so his testimony has no independent value.

The two sons who play a part in history after the death of Peisistratus are Hippias and Hipparchus, and it must be regarded as certain that of these two Hippias was the effective head of the government. He had in later times the reputation of being a prudent and competent ruler, and for more than ten years he maintained his power unassailed. His brother Hipparchus, who lacked his solid and respectable character, was a patron of arts and letters. He delighted to gather round him poets like Anacreon and Simonides of Ceos. Anacreon, who was born to live in tyrants’ palaces, had for some years adorned the court of Polycrates, and, now that fate had overtaken that tyrant, he accepted the honorific invitation of Hipparchus to remove to Athens. Simonides, a greater poet, was younger and it may have been Hipparchus who first recognized his talents which were at the disposal of tyranny and liberty alike. Lasus of Hermione, an innovator in music, who founded the Athenian school of Dithyrambic poets, was as welcome as Pratinas of Phlius the champion of the older tradition, who did much to advance the dramatic performances which were to be the pride of Athens. And among these poets and musicians appeared the strange personality of Onomacritus who was learned in the lore of the Orphics and dealt largely in oracles. He was doubly welcome, for while Hipparchus loved a mystic, Hippias was a great connoisseur of oracles, ‘having the most accurate knowledge’ of them. Indeed the Peisistratidae had collected on the Acropolis a great store of such which were later seized by the Spartan king Cleomenes, possibly to the satisfaction of the priests at Delphi. Onomacritus sought to increase the collection by adding sundry forgeries but was discovered in the act by Lasus and dismissed by his indignant patron.

Meanwhile in the Chersonese, that outpost of Athenian influence, the first Miltiades had died and left his realm to Stesagoras the son of his half-brother Cimon. Stesagoras fell in the intermittent wars with the neighbouring city of Lampsacus and there must have been a moment when the Athenian hold on the Chersonese was in danger. The government at Athens could not remain indifferent, and had to find someone to take over the power with all its dangers. Cimon himself, the father of Stesagoras, had been driven from Athens by Peisistratus but had returned trusting to a reconciliation with the tyrant, only to be assassinated by the agents of the tyrant’s sons as soon as he showed signs of asserting himself. There remained his son Miltiades, who was at Athens, and the Peisistratidae were glad enough to send out to the Chersonese an able young man who might, if he stayed at home, prove a formidable enemy. The young Miltiades, by treachery, mercenaries and a marriage of policy, established himself and presently conquered the island of Lemnos which was gradually settled by emigrants from Athens.

In Greece proper Hippias for a time pursued the peaceful policy of his father, with its careful neutrality, but such a policy was increasingly difficult to maintain. The relations of the Peisistratid house with Thessaly were of the closest, and this friendship Hippias continued to enjoy. But the power of Thessaly was declining. It had reached its zenith early in the century, after the Sacred War, when the Thessalians had invaded central Greece and were for a moment overlords of Phocis. They even marched through Boeotia as far as the territory of Thespiae but were there defeated near the stronghold of Ceressus. After this defeat, which may be set before 570 BC, their influence in central Greece waned before the rising power of Thebes. The Thebans had helped Peisistratus to regain his power but that may have been as much from enmity to Athens as from friendship to the tyrant, and as Athens grew in prosperity and power they became more and more jealous and hostile. A strong Athens was bound to exercise an attraction on the southern Boeotian states, which could thus hope to find support against the increasing claims of Thebes to dominate the whole of Boeotia. And the Peisistratidae had to reckon with the patient and skilful intrigues of the Alcmaeonidae who never abandoned hope of return. Argos, the remaining support of Peisistratus and his house, had been isolated in the Peloponnese by the arms and diplomacy of Sparta, and its friendship had become a liability rather than an asset.

The growth of the Peloponnesian League had not only brought Sparta into contact with Boeotia and Attica but had allied her with two mercantile states, Corinth and Aegina, which looked askance at a tyranny that did so much to encourage the growth of Athenian commerce. Megara, a new ally of Sparta, had defeats to remember and to avenge. Against the influence of these states the Peisistratidae could only set their old personal friendships at Sparta which were outweighed by their connections with Argos the enemy of Sparta, and Thessaly her possible rival in the politics of central Greece.

Thus Sparta gradually became hostile but was, as ever, slow to move. In 519 arose a dangerous crisis. Plataea, the city which lay at the Boeotian side of the western passes from Attica to Boeotia, was hard pressed by the Thebans who claimed the hegemony of Boeotia, and the Plataeans appealed to king Cleomenes and the Lacedaemonians for protection. The Spartans acted with their usual caution and even more than their usual cunning. The opportunity of spreading Spartan power north of the Isthmus was tempting and they had an army near the Isthmus. But, we may assume, the able young king Cleomenes realised that to help Plataea might drive Thebes to seek an alliance with Thessaly and Athens. For the Thebans would make any sacrifice to further their ambition to dominate Boeotia. A triple alliance of Thessaly, Athens and Thebes would be an effective answer to the Pelopon­nesian League. So Sparta chose a more excellent way and urged the Plataeans to seek help from Athens their neighbour. The Plataeans did so and Hippias accepted them as allies with the result that the Thebans marched against Plataea while the Athenian army advanced to meet them. The Corinthians offered their mediation which was for the moment accepted. Their ruling that the Thebans should not coerce states which did not wish to join the Boeotian League was naturally unacceptable to Thebes. The Boeotian army attacked but was defeated and the Athenians, pressing their advantage, annexed the northern slopes of Mt Cithaeron. Thus for the moment Athens had won a brilliant success. The annexation no doubt gratified old ambitions and the alliance with Plataea strengthened the western defences of Attica against Boeotia. But the price was the lasting hostility of the Thebans on which the enemies of Athens could always count. The immediate result was that Boeotia though forced to make peace allowed the Alcmaeonidae to use its territory as a base against Attica. The protective circle of friendly states was broken, while Spartan ill-will to Athens was not lessened by the momentary success which they had placed in the tyrant’s way.

About the same time as this the influence of the Peisistratidae in the Aegean was shaken by the overthrow of Lygdamis the tyrant of Naxos, an event which removed a good friend and meant the release of the hostages whom the tyrant was guarding. It was said that Sparta had a hand in his downfall, and this alone was sufficiently ominous. The power of Persia became more of a reality in the regions of the Hellespont and the campaigns which followed the Scythian expedition ended any Athenian ambitions in that quarter. Possibly with a shrewd foreboding Hippias sought Persian friendship; at least he chose out Aeantides, son of the tyrant of Lampsacus who stood high in favour with the Great King, as husband for his daughter Archedice. The lady thus became the daughter, wife, sister and mother of tyrants and yet, if we may trust her epitaph, “was not uplifted to presumptuousness”. But not all the Peisistratid family were so virtuous, and a lapse into the faults of a tyrant weakened the dynasty at Athens itself.

In 514 arose a conspiracy aimed at Hippias and his brother Hipparchus. Its leaders were Harmodius and Aristogeiton, two members of the Gephyrean clan which had migrated to Athens from Tanagra. The ancient tradition agrees that the conspiracy was not inspired by political principle but due entirely to a private wrong inflicted by Hipparchus or, as some said, his younger brother Thessalus. About the whole story the democratic tradition was active; the truest account is probably that of Thucydides. According to him few shared in the plot, which was directed primarily against Hipparchus but also against Hippias, as their private revenge could only be securely gained if the tyranny was overthrown. The chosen time was the Great Panathenaic Festival when the Athenians gathered in arms for the procession up to the Acropolis. Only on such an occasion could the conspirators hope for immediate support against the mercenaries of the tyrant. When the day came they armed themselves with daggers and first turned their attention to Hippias who with his guards was in the outer Ceramicus. But, as they saw one of their number talking with him, they believed that the plot was being betrayed and rushed off to the Leocoreum, where Hipparchus was ordering the procession. They struck him down, but there their success ended. Hippias acted with resolution—the conspirators were killed or taken, the Athenians did not rise in revolt, and suffered themselves to be tricked into surrendering their arms. Harmodius was killed on the spot, Aristogeiton taken soon afterwards and put to death.

The democracy glorified them as martyrs of liberty, and they were celebrated by a statue and by the singing of their praises in a famous song. There was an epigram attributed to Simonides which told how liberty dawned at Athens when Aristogeiton and Harmodius struck down Hipparchus. The same false perspective which caused these two to be seen as heroes and martyrs of freedom caused Hipparchus to be viewed as the tyrant. Popular tradition made him the tyrant in order to turn murder into tyrannicide. Thucydides is severe in correcting this popular misconception, though indeed while Hipparchus was not the head of the government he was just as much a tyrant as his elder brother Hippias.

The one result of the murder which really undermined tyranny at Athens was its effect on the character of Hippias. He became embittered and suspicious. By disarming the Athenians he deprived himself of his chief security against a foreign intervention and was reduced to rely on his mercenaries and on his Thessalian allies. His enemies the exiled Alcmaeonidae, now led by Cleis- thenes the son of Megacles, saw their opportunity. They raised a force and invaded Attica, apparently from Boeotia. As Plataea blocked the western passes, they took the longer route by Mount Parnes. But little support came from Athens and the enterprise ended in the occupation of Leipsydrium which overlooks Paeonidae. After fighting which served to show that the émigrés were worthy of their fathers, the raid ended in utter failure.

It was now clear that only foreign intervention could restore the Alcmaeonidae and overthrow the tyrant, and to secure that intervention they turned to Sparta. They had on their side the powerful influence of Delphi. In 548 bc the temple of Apollo at Delphi was burnt down. The Amphictyons decided to rebuild it with magnificence worthy of the god, and collected funds amounting to 300 talents throughout Greece and even from Lydia and Egypt. The Alcmaeonidae had received the contract for the rebuilding. According to Herodotus, who no doubt follows the tradition of that family, they carried out the work with yet greater splendour than the contract required, using Parian marble instead of tufa for the front of the temple. Their munificence was rewarded by the goodwill of the god and of his servants.

Aristotle follows a malignant and cynical tradition, which found acceptance at Athens in the fourth century, that the Alcmaeonidae, receiving the money to rebuild the temple, used part of it to bribe the Pythian priestess, and made their restoration at Athens a first charge on the remainder. The magnificence of the temple marked their gratitude for the success of their speculation with Apollo’s funds. Neither version is dictated by a pure love of truth: the second is slightly more probable, as the Alcmaeonidae must have needed money for their earlier enterprise. And it is hard to see from what other source they could get sufficient funds.

It is however doubtful if it was so necessary to bribe the Pythian priestess. Her message to all Spartans whenever they consulted the oracle was “first free Athens”. But the influence of Sparta was powerful at Delphi and the oracle pointed her along the path she was inclined to go. Hippias was the old friend of Argos and the new friend of Persia, and that was enough. Besides, an Athenian government which owed its establishment to the help of Sparta might be a useful instrument of her policy, and her policy was for the moment dominated by the able and restless king Cleomenes. The exiles would be ready enough to make any promises. The Spartans accordingly prepared to put down tyranny at Athens as they had done in other Greek states. Possibly deceived as to the resistance they would meet, they first sent by sea a small force under Anchimolius which landed in the Bay of Phalerum (511 BC). The expedition was no doubt convoyed by the fleets of Aegina or Corinth so that the small naval force of Athens could make no opposition. But Hippias was not taken unawares. Besides his mercenaries he had the help of 1000 Thessalian horse and in the country between Phalerum and Athens, which had been cleared so as to suit cavalry, this force defeated the Lacedaemonians and killed their commander.

But Hippias was not deceived by his success, and busied himself fortifying the hill of Munychia at the Piraeus as a last refuge on Attic soil. For Spartan prestige was now deeply engaged, and this reverse only made it more necessary to vindicate the valour of Spartan hoplites as against Thessalian cavalry. So in the next year (510 bc) Cleomenes himself took the field at the head of a large army which marched through the Megarian passes and thence on Athens. Hippias advanced to meet it, but the Thessalian horsemen proved ineffective and rode home after a skirmish—a poor display which was to be followed a few years later by a disastrous attempt to invade Phocis. The military prestige of Thessaly was finally eclipsed by that of Sparta, and Hippias, thus deserted, was driven into Athens and besieged on the Acropolis where the old fortifications had been strengthened and a good store of provisions had been collected. Herodotus says that the Spartans had no mind to maintain a longdrawn siege and would soon have retired but for a fortunate accident. The tyrant’s children fell into their hands as they were being smuggled out of the country, and to save them he agreed to capitulate and leave Attica within five days. So Hippias and his kinsmen retired to Sigeum and the rule of the house of Peisistratus was ended.

CHAPTER IV

THE OUTER GREEK WORLD IN THE SIXTH CENTURY