DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.800#0094
TYRANNY OF HIPPIAS.
79
put her to the torture, to extort from her a confession of Aristogeiton's
accomplices, but rather than do so she bit off her tongue.1 In com-
memoration of the act, and by a play upon her name, a statue of a
lioness without a tongue was erected on the Acropolis. From one of
his regulations it would appear that the upper storeys of some of the
Athenian houses overhung the streets, that they had steps, or 2>er,rons,
before them, as we have already remarked concerning the so-called
Cranaan city, with railings, and that the doors opened outwards. For,
according to the treatise on domestic economy ascribed to Aristotle,
Hippias ordered all such things to be sold, and the owners were com-
pelled to buy them in.2 He is also said to have instituted a tribute
payable to the priestess of Athena on the occasion of deaths and
marriages; a measure of wheat, another of barley, and an obol.3
Hippias was ejected by the Alcmaeonids, a powerful Athenian
family, which had been banished for a previous attempt to upset the
Pisistratids. As we have already said, Megacles, one of their members,
had played a conspicuous part in the affair of Cylon. Cleisthenes was
now at their head. He is said to have bribed the priestess at Delphi
by building a temple with a marble facade, while he had only con-
tracted to erect one of tufa (irmpivos \ldos); * and the oracle persuaded
the Lacedaemonians to liberate Athens from the tyrant. The first
attempt, under Anchimolius, failed. The Lacedaemonians landed at
Phalerum, but Hippias had obtained 1000 cavalry from Thessaly, and
having cleared all the country about Phalerum to facilitate their evo-
lutions, the invaders were completely defeated. On the next invasion,
which was undertaken by land, Cleomenes and the Spartans were
successful, captured Athens, and shut up Hippias in the Pelasgicum,
where he would have been able to defy them. But his children and
nephews, who had been sent out of the country, were seized, and in
order to recover them he agreed to evacuate Athens in five days.5 This
event took place in 01. 67.3 (b.c. 510).
1 Polysen. viii. 45. Cf. Lactant. De Falsa * Herod, v. G2. ] lutarch, however,
Rel. i. 20 ; who, however, tells the story ascribes this story to the malignity of
differently. Herodotus (t. ix. p. 415, Retake).
2 De cura rei fam. ii. 2, 4. • Herod, v. G5. Cf. Ariatoph. Lyafetr.
3 Ibid. It was probably a registration fee. lloOsqq.
79
put her to the torture, to extort from her a confession of Aristogeiton's
accomplices, but rather than do so she bit off her tongue.1 In com-
memoration of the act, and by a play upon her name, a statue of a
lioness without a tongue was erected on the Acropolis. From one of
his regulations it would appear that the upper storeys of some of the
Athenian houses overhung the streets, that they had steps, or 2>er,rons,
before them, as we have already remarked concerning the so-called
Cranaan city, with railings, and that the doors opened outwards. For,
according to the treatise on domestic economy ascribed to Aristotle,
Hippias ordered all such things to be sold, and the owners were com-
pelled to buy them in.2 He is also said to have instituted a tribute
payable to the priestess of Athena on the occasion of deaths and
marriages; a measure of wheat, another of barley, and an obol.3
Hippias was ejected by the Alcmaeonids, a powerful Athenian
family, which had been banished for a previous attempt to upset the
Pisistratids. As we have already said, Megacles, one of their members,
had played a conspicuous part in the affair of Cylon. Cleisthenes was
now at their head. He is said to have bribed the priestess at Delphi
by building a temple with a marble facade, while he had only con-
tracted to erect one of tufa (irmpivos \ldos); * and the oracle persuaded
the Lacedaemonians to liberate Athens from the tyrant. The first
attempt, under Anchimolius, failed. The Lacedaemonians landed at
Phalerum, but Hippias had obtained 1000 cavalry from Thessaly, and
having cleared all the country about Phalerum to facilitate their evo-
lutions, the invaders were completely defeated. On the next invasion,
which was undertaken by land, Cleomenes and the Spartans were
successful, captured Athens, and shut up Hippias in the Pelasgicum,
where he would have been able to defy them. But his children and
nephews, who had been sent out of the country, were seized, and in
order to recover them he agreed to evacuate Athens in five days.5 This
event took place in 01. 67.3 (b.c. 510).
1 Polysen. viii. 45. Cf. Lactant. De Falsa * Herod, v. G2. ] lutarch, however,
Rel. i. 20 ; who, however, tells the story ascribes this story to the malignity of
differently. Herodotus (t. ix. p. 415, Retake).
2 De cura rei fam. ii. 2, 4. • Herod, v. G5. Cf. Ariatoph. Lyafetr.
3 Ibid. It was probably a registration fee. lloOsqq.