Ceos, one of the Cyclades, in the Ægean sea, to whom he gave a large pension, and made very rich presents. The design of these princes in inviting men of letters to Athens was, says Plato, to soften and cultivate the minds of the citizens, and to infuse into them a relish and love for virtue, by giving them a taste for learning and the sciences. Their care extended even to the instructing of the peasants and country people, by erecting, not only in the streets of the city, but in all the roads and highways, statues of stone, called Mercuries, with grave sentences and moral maxims carved upon them; in which manner those silent monitors gave instructive lessons to all passengers. Plato seems to suppose that Hipparchus had the authority, or that the two brothers reigned together. But Thucydides shows,* that Hippias, as the eldest of the sons, succeeded his father in the government. Be this as it may, their reign in the whole, after the death of Pisistratus, was only of eighteen years' duration: it ended in the following manner. Harmodius and Aristogiton, both citizens of Athens, had contracted a very strict friendship. Hipparchus, angry with the former for a personal affront he pretended to have received from him, endeavoured to revenge himself upon his sister, by putting a public affront upon her, obliging her shamefully to retire from a solemn procession, in which she was to carry one of the sacred baskets, alleging, that she was not in a fit condition to assist at such a ceremony. Her brother, and still more his friend, being stung to the quick by so gross and outrageous an affront, took from that moment a resolution to attack the tyrants. And to do it the more effectually, they waited for the opportunity of a festival, which they judged would be very favourable for their purpose: this was the feast of the Panathenæa, in which the ceremony required that all the tradesmen and artificers should be under arms. For the greater security, they admitted only a very small number of the citizens into their secret; conceiving, that upon the first motion all the rest would join them. The day being come, they went betimes into the market-place, armed with daggers. Hippias came out of the palace, and went to the Ceramicus, which was a place without the city, where the company of guards then were, to give the necessary orders for the ceremony. The two friends having followed him thither, saw one of the conspirators talking very familiarly with him, which made them apprehend they were betrayed. They could have executed their design that moment upon Hippias; but were willing to begin their vengeance upon the author of the affront they had received. They therefore returned into the city, where, meeting with Hipparchus, they killed him; but being immediately apprehended, themselves were slain, and Hippias found means to dispel the storm. After this affair, he no longer observed any measures, and reigned †Thucyd. 1. vi. P. 446-450. VOL. II. * Lib. vi. p. 446. like a true tyrant, putting to death a vast number of citizens. To guard himself for the future against a like enterprise, and to secure a safe retreat for himself, in case of any accident, he endeavoured to strengthen himself by a foreign support, and to that end gave his daughter in marriage to the son of the tyrant of Lampsacus. In the mean time,* the Alcmeonidae, who from the beginning of the revolution had been banished from Athens by Pisistratus, and who saw their hopes frustrated by the bad success of the last conspiracy, did not however lose courage, but turned their views another way. As they were very rich and powerful, they got themselves appointed by the Amphictyons, who constituted the general council of Greece, to superintend the rebuilding of the temple of Delphi, for the sum of 300 talents, or 300,000 crowns. As they were naturally generous, and had besides their reasons for being so on this occasion, they added to this sum a great deal of their own money, and made the whole front of the temple all of Parian marble, at their particular expense; whereas by the contract made with the Amphictyons, it was only to have been made of common stone. The liberality of the Alemæonide was not altogether a free bounty; neither was their magnificence towards the god of Delphi a pure effect of religion: policy was the chief motive. They hoped by this means to acquire great influence in the temple, and it happened according to their expectation. The money, which they plentifully poured into the hands of the priestess, rendered them absolute masters of the oracle, and of the pretended god who presided over it, and who for the future becoming their echo, did no more than faithfully repeat the words they dictated to him, and gratefully lent them the assistance of his voice and authority. As often therefore as any Spartan came to consult the priestess, whether upon his own affairs or upon those of the state, no promise was ever made him of the god's assistance, but upon condition that the Lacedæmonians should deliver Athens from the yoke of tyranny. This order was so often repeated to them by the oracle, that they resolved at last to make war against the Pisistratidæ, though they were under the strongest engagements of friendship and hospitality with them herein preferring the will of God, says Herodotus, to all human con siderations.‡ The first attempt of this kind miscarried; and the troops they sent against the tyrant were repulsed with loss. Notwithstanding, a little time after they made a second, which seemed to promise nc better success than the first; because most of the Lacedæmonians, seeing the siege they had laid before Athens likely to continue a great while, retired, and left only a small number of troops to carry But the tyrant's children, who had been clandestinely conveyed out of the city, in order to be put in a safe place, being taken it on. Herod. 1. v. c. 62-96. † About 40,000l. sterling. * Τὰ γὰς τοῦ Θεοῦ πρεσβύτερα ἐποιεῦντο, ἢ τὰ τῶν ἀνδρων by the enemy, the father, to redeem them, was obliged to come to an accommodation with the Athenians, by which it was stipulated, that he should depart out of Attica in five days' time. Accordingly, he actually retired within the time limited, and setAnt. J. C. 508. tled at Signum, a town in Phrygia, seated at the mouth of the river Scamander. A. M. 3496. Pliny observes, that the tyrants were driven out of Athens the same year the kings were expelled Rome. Extraordinary honours were paid to the memory of Harmodius and Aristogiton. Their names were infinitely respected at Athens in all succeeding ages, and almost held in equal reverence with those of the gods. Statues were forthwith erected to them in the market-place, which was an honour that had never been conferred on any man before. The very sight of these statues, exposed to the view of all the citizens, kept up their hatred and detestation of tyranny, and daily renewed their sentiments of gratitude to those generous defenders of their liberty, who had not scrupled to purchase it with their lives, and to seal it with their blood. Alexander the Great,† who knew how dear the memory of these men was to the Athenians, and how far they carried their zeal in this respect, thought he did them a sensible pleasure in sending back to them the statues of those two great men, which he found in Persia after the defeat of Darius, and which Xerxes had formerly carried thither from Athens. Pausanias ascribes this action to Seleucus Nicanor, one of the successors of Alexander; and adds, that he also sent back to the Athenians their public library, which Xerxes had carried off with him into Persia. Athens, at the time of her deliverance from tyranny, did not confine her gratitude solely to the authors of her liberty, but extended it even to a woman who had signalized her courage on that occasion. This woman was a courtesan, named Leana, who by the charms of her beauty, and skill in playing on the harp, had particularly captivated Hermodius and Aristogiton. After their death, the tyrant, who knew they had concealed nothing from this woman, caused her to be put to the torture, in order to make her declare the names of the other conspirators. But she bore all the cruelty of their torments with an invincible constancy, and expired in the midst of them; showing the world that her sex is more courageous, and more capable of keeping a secret, than some men imagine. The Athenians would not suffer the memory of so heroic an action to be lost; and, to prevent the lustre of it from being sullied by the consideration of her character as a courtesan, they endeavoured to conceal that circumstance, by representing her in the statue which they erected to her honour, under the figure of a lioness without a tongue. Plutarch, in the life of Aristides, relates a circumstance which does great honour to the Athenians, and shows to what a pitch they + Id. 1. vii. c. 23. 1. xxxiv. c, 8 * Plin. l. xxxiv. c. 4. Page 335, † Plin, 1. xxxiv. c. 8. carried their gratitude to their deliverer, and their respect for his memory. They had learned that the grandaughter of Aristogiton lived at Lemnos, in very mean and poor circumstances, nobody being willing to marry her upon account of her extreme indigence and poverty. The people of Athens sent for her, and, marrying her to one of the most rich and considerable men of their city, gave her an estate in land in the town of Potamos for her portion." Athens seemed, in recovering her liberty, to have also recovered her pristine courage. During the reigns of her tyrants, she had acted with indolence and indifference, as knowing what she did was not for herself, but for them. But after her deliverance from their yoke, the vigour and activity she exerted was of a quite different kind; because then her labours were her own. Athens, however, did not immediately enjoy a perfect tranquillity. Two of her citizens, Clisthenes, one of the Alcmæonidæ, and Isagoras, who were men of the greatest power in the city, by contending with each other for superiority, created two considerable factions. The former, who had gained the people on his side, made an alteration in the form of their establishment, and instead of four tribes, whereof they consisted before, divided that body into ten tribes, to which he gave the names of the ten sons of Ion, whom the Greek historians make the father and first founder of the nation. Isagoras, seeing himself inferior in credit to his rival, had recourse to the Lacedæmonians. Cleomenes, one of the two kings of Sparta, obliged Clisthenes to depart from Athens, with 700 families of his adherents. But they soon returned with their leader, and were restored to all their estates and fortunes. The Lacedæmonians, stung with spite and jealousy against Athens, because she took upon her to act independent of their authority; and repenting also that they had delivered her from her tyrants upon the credit of an oracle, of which they had since discovered the imposture, began to think of reinstating Hippias, one of the sons of Pisistratus; and to that end sent for him from Sigæum, whither he had retired. They then communicated their designs in an assembly of the deputies of their allies, whose assistance and concurrence they were anxious to secure, in order to render their enterprise successful. The deputy of Corinth spoke first on this occasion, and expressed great astonishment that the Lacedæmonians, who were themselves avowed enemies of tyranny, and professed the greatest abhorrence for all arbitrary government, should desire to establish it elsewhere: he exposed to their view, in the fullest light, all the cruel and horrid effects of tyrannical government, which his own country, Corinth, had but very lately felt by woful experience. The rest of the deputies applauded his discourse, and were of his opinion. Thus the enterprise came to nothing; and had no other effect than to discover the base jealousy of the Lacedæmonians, and to cover them with shame and confusion, Hippias, defeated of his hopes, retired into Asia to Artaphernes, governor of Sardis for the king of Persia, whom he endeavoured by every method to engage in a war against Athens; representing to him, that the taking of so rich and powerful a city would render him master of all Greece. Artaphernes hereupon required of the Athenians that they would reinstate Hippias in the government; to which they made no other answer, than by a downright and absolute refusal. This was the original ground and occasion of the wars between the Persians and the Greeks, which will be the subject of the following volumes. ARTICLE IX. Illustrious men who distinguished themselves in the arts and sciences. I begin with the poets, as the most ancient. HOMER, the most celebrated and illustrious of all the poets, is he of whom we have the least knowledge, either with respect to the country where he was born, or the time in which he lived. Among the seven cities of Greece that contended for the honour of having given him birth, Smyrna, seems to have the best title to that glorious distinction. A. M. 3160. Herodotus tells us,* that Homer wrote 400 years Ant. J. C. 844. before his time, that is, 340 years after the taking of Troy; for Herodotus flourished 740 years after that expedition. Some authors have pretended that he was called Homer, because he was born blind. Velleius Paterculus rejects this story with contempt. If any man,† says he, believes that Homer was born blind, he must be so himself, and even have lost all his senses. Indeed, according to the observation of Cicero, Homer's works are rather pictures than poems, so perfectly does he paint to the life, and set the images of every thing he undertakes to describe before the eyes of the reader; and he seems to have been intent upon introducing all the most delightful and agreeable objects that nature affords into his writings, and making them in a manner pass in review before his readers. What is most astonishing in this poet is, that being the first, at least of those that are known, who applied himself to that kind of poetry which is the most sublime and difficult of all, he should however soar so high and with such rapidity, as to carry it at once to the utmost perfection; which seldom or never happens in other arts, but by slow degrees, and after a long series of years. * Lib. ii. c. 53. Quem si quis cæcum genitum putat, omnibus sensibus orbus est. Paterc. l. i. c. 5. Tuscul. Quæst. 1. v. n. 114. Clarissimum deinde Homeri illuxit ingenium, sine exemplo, maximum: qui magnitudine operis, et fulgore carminum, solus appellari Poëta meruit. In quo hoc maxímum est, quòd neque ante illum quem ille imitaretur; neque post illum, qui imitari eum possit, inventus eat: neque quenquam alium, cujus operis primus auctor fuerit, in eo perfectissimum, præter Homerum et Archilochum reperiemus. Voll. Paterc. 1. i. c. 5, |