The Athenian Constitution
cannot be true, since at that time they did not bear arms in the
processions, this being a custom instituted at a later period by the
democracy. According to the story of the popular party, Aristogeiton
accused the friends of the tyrants with the deliberate intention that
the latter might commit an impious act, and at the same time weaken
themselves, by putting to death innocent men who were their own
friends; others say that he told no falsehood, but was betraying the
actual accomplices. At last, when for all his efforts he could not
obtain release by death, he promised to give further information
against a number of other persons; and, having induced Hippias to give
him his hand to confirm his word, as soon as he had hold of it he
reviled him for giving his hand to the murderer of his brother, till
Hippias, in a frenzy of rage, lost control of himself and snatched out
his dagger and dispatched him.
Part 19
After this event the tyranny became much harsher. In consequence of his
vengeance for his brother, and of the execution and banishment of a
large number of persons, Hippias became a distrusted and an embittered
man. About three years after the death of Hipparchus, finding his
position in the city insecure, he set about fortifying Munichia, with
the intention of establishing himself there. While he was still
engaged on this work, however, he was expelled by Cleomenes, king of
Lacedaemon, in consequence of the Spartans being continually incited by
oracles to overthrow the tyranny. These oracles were obtained in the
following way. The Athenian exiles, headed by the Alcmeonidae, could
not by their own power effect their return, but failed continually in
their attempts. Among their other failures, they fortified a post in
Attica, Lipsydrium, above Mt. Parnes, and were there joined by some
partisans from the city; but they were besieged by the tyrants and
reduced to surrender. After this disaster the following became a
popular drinking song:
Ah! Lipsydrium, faithless friend!
Lo, what heroes to death didst send,
Nobly born and great in deed!
Well did they prove themselves at need
Of noble sires a noble seed.
Having failed, then, in every other method, they took the contract for
rebuilding the temple at Delphi, thereby obtaining ample funds, which
they employed to secure the help of the Lacedaemonians. All this time
the Pythia kept continually enjoining on the Lacedaemonians who came to
consult the oracle, that they must free Athens; till finally she
succeeded in impelling the Spartans to that step, although the house of
Pisistratus was connected with them by ties of hospitality. The
resolution of the Lacedaemonians was, however, at least equally due to
the friendship which had been formed between the house of Pisistratus
and Argos. Accordingly they first sent Anchimolus by sea at the head of
an army; but he was defeated and killed, through the arrival of Cineas
of Thessaly to support the sons of Pisistratus with a force of a
thousand horsemen. Then, being roused to anger by this disaster, they
sent their king, Cleomenes, by land at the head of a larger force; and
he, after defeating the Thessalian cavalry when they attempted to
intercept his march into Attica, shut up Hippias within what was known
as the Pelargic wall and blockaded him there with the assistance of the
Athenians. While he was sitting down before the place, it so happened
that the sons of the Pisistratidae were captured in an attempt to slip
out; upon which the tyrants capitulated on condition of the safety of
their children, and surrendered the Acropolis to the Athenians, five
days being first allowed them to remove their effects. This took place
in the archonship of Harpactides, after they had held the tyranny for
about seventeen years since their father's death, or in all, including
the period of their father's rule, for nine-and-forty years.
Part 20
After the overthrow of the tyranny, the rival leaders in the state were
Isagoras son of Tisander, a partisan of the tyrants, and Cleisthenes,
who belonged to the family of the Alcmeonidae. Cleisthenes, being
beaten in the political clubs, called in the people by giving the
franchise to the masses. Thereupon Isagoras, finding himself left
inferior in power, invited Cleomenes, who was united to him by ties of
hospitality, to return to Athens, and persuaded him to 'drive out the
pollution', a plea derived from the fact that the Alcmeonidae were
suppposed to be under the curse of pollution. On this Cleisthenes
retired from the country, and Cleomenes, entering Attica with a small
force, expelled, as polluted, seven hundred Athenian families. Having
effected this, he next attempted to dissolve the Council, and to set up
Isagoras and three hundred of his partisans as the supreme power in the
state. The Council, however, resisted, the populace flocked together,
and Cleomenes and Isagoras, with their adherents, took refuge in the
Acropolis. Here the people sat down and besieged them for two days; and
on the third they agreed to let Cleomenes and all his followers depart,
while they summoned Cleisthenes and the other exiles back to Athens.
When the people had thus obtained the command of affairs, Cleisthenes
was their chief and popular leader. And this was natural; for the
Alcmeonidae were perhaps the chief cause of the expulsion of the
tyrants, and for the greater part of their rule were at perpetual war
with them. But even earlier than the attempts of the Alcmeonidae, one
Cedon made an attack on the tyrants; when there came another popular
drinking song, addressed to him:
Pour a health yet again, boy, to Cedon; forget not this duty to do,
If a health is an honour befitting the name of a good man and true.
Part 21
The people, therefore, had good reason to place confidence in
Cleisthenes. Accordingly, now that he was the popular leader, three
years after the expulsion of the tyrants, in the archonship of
Isagoras, his first step was to distribute the whole population into
ten tribes in place of the existing four, with the object of
intermixing the members of the different tribes, and so securing that
more persons might have a share in the franchise. From this arose the
saying 'Do not look at the tribes', addressed to those who wished to
scrutinize the lists of the old families. Next he made the Council to
consist of five hundred members instead of four hundred, each tribe now
contributing fifty, whereas formerly each had sent a hundred. The
reason why he did not organize the people into twelve tribes was that
he might not have to use the existing division into trittyes; for the
four tribes had twelve trittyes, so that he would not have achieved his
object of redistributing the population in fresh combinations. Further,
he divided the country into thirty groups of demes, ten from the
districts about the city, ten from the coast, and ten from the
interior. These he called trittyes; and he assigned three of them by
lot to each tribe, in such a way that each should have one portion in
each of these three localities. All who lived in any given deme he
declared fellow-demesmen, to the end that the new citizens might not be
exposed by the habitual use of family names, but that men might be
officially described by the names of their demes; and accordingly it is
by the names of their demes that the Athenians speak of one another. He
also instituted Demarchs, who had the same duties as the previously
existing Naucrari,--the demes being made to take the place of the
naucraries. He gave names to the demes, some from the localities to
which they belonged, some from the persons who founded them, since some
of the areas no longer corresponded to localities possessing names. On
the other hand he allowed every one to retain his family and clan and
religious rites according to ancestral custom. The names given to the
tribes were the ten which the Pythia appointed out of the hundred
selected national heroes.
Part 22
By these reforms the constitution became much more democratic than that
of Solon. The laws of Solon had been obliterated by disuse during the
period of the tyranny, while Cleisthenes substituted new ones with the
object of securing the goodwill of the masses. Among these was the law
concerning ostracism. Four years after the establishment of this system,
in the archonship of Hermocreon, they first imposed upon the Council of
Five Hundred the oath which they take to the present day. Next they
began to elect the generals by tribes, one from each tribe, while the
Polemarch was the commander of the whole army. Then, eleven years
later, in the archonship of Phaenippus they won the battle of Marathon;
and two years after this victory, when the people had now gained
self-confidence, they for the first time made use of the law of
ostracism. This had originally been passed as a precaution against men
in high office, because Pisistratus took advantage of his position as a
popular leader and general to make himself tyrant; and the first person
ostracized was one of his relatives, Hipparchus son of Charmus, of the
deme of Collytus, the very person on whose account especially
Cleisthenes had enacted the law, as he wished to get rid of him.
Hitherto, however, he had escaped; for the Athenians, with the usual
leniency of the democracy, allowed all the partisans of the tyrants,
who had not joined in their evil deeds in the time of the troubles to
remain in the city; and the chief and leader of these was Hipparchus.
Then in the very next year, in the archonship of Telesinus, they for
the first time since the tyranny elected, tribe by tribe, the nine
Archons by lot out of the five hundred candidates selected by the
demes, all the earlier ones having been elected by vote; and in the
same year Megacles son of Hippocrates, of the deme of Alopece, was
ostracized. Thus for three years they continued to ostracize the
friends of the tyrants, on whose account the law had been passed; but
in the following year they began to remove others as well, including
any one who seemed to be more powerful than was expedient. The first
person unconnected with the tyrants who was ostracized was Xanthippus
son of Ariphron. Two years later, in the archonship of Nicodemus, the
mines of Maroneia were discovered, and the state made a profit of a
hundred talents from the working of them. Some persons advised the
people to make a distribution of the money among themselves, but this
was prevented by Themistocles. He refused to say on what he proposed to
spend the money, but he bade them lend it to the hundred richest men in
Athens, one talent to each, and then, if the manner in which it was
employed pleased the people, the expenditure should be charged to the
state, but otherwise the state should receive the sum back from those
to whom it was lent. On these terms he received the money and with it
he had a hundred triremes built, each of the hundred individuals
building one; and it was with these ships that they fought the battle
of Salamis against the barbarians. About this time Aristides the son of
Lysimachus was ostracized. Three years later, however, in the
archonship of Hypsichides, all the ostracized persons were recalled, on
account of the advance of the army of Xerxes; and it was laid down for
the future that persons under sentence of ostracism must live between
Geraestus and Scyllaeum, on pain of losing their civic rights
irrevocably.
Part 23
So far, then, had the city progressed by this time, growing gradually
with the growth of the democracy; but after the Persian wars the
Council of Areopagus once more developed strength and assumed the
control of the state. It did not acquire this supremacy by virtue of