Ἐν μύρτον κλαδὶ το ξίφος φορησω, *Ανδρα τύραννον Ιππάρχον ἱκταινέτην He is not dead, our best belov'd But with Troy's conquerors remov'd Bind then the myrtle's mystic bough, Perpetual objects of our love The four last lines of this ode are quoted by Athenæus, and I also find amongst the adulatory verses made in commemoration of these illustrious tyrannicides, a distich written by Simonides of Ceos, congratulating with the Athenians on their delivery from the tyranny of Hipparchus: this poet is made famous to posterity for his memory, which was almost miraculous; it is to be lamented that it should fail to remind him of such a patron and benefactor. The lines are not worth translating; the author and the subject reflect no honour upon each other. The first statues, which the Athenian artists ever east in metal, were the brazen statues erected in honour of Harmodius and Aristogiton, in the first year of Olymp. lxviii. thirteen years after the murder of Hipparchus, when Isagoras was archon, and in the memorable æra of Rome, when Tarquinius Superbus was dethroned and expelled: they were conspicuously placed in the forum of Athens, and it was a curious event, after the revolution of five centuries, that the statue of the younger Brutus, when he had killed Cæsar, was placed between these very statues, erected in the year when his ancestor expelled the Tarquins: they were the workmanship of Antenor; and Xerxes, when he plundered Athens, removed them out of Greece, from other motives probably than of respect to their intrinsic merit: they were in succeeding time restored to the city, but whether by Alexander after his defeat of Darius, by Antiochus, or by the munificence of Seleucus, authorities are not agreed; I am inclined to think they were given back by Seleucus. There were two others of the same materials afterwards cast by Critias, and again two others, the workmanship of the celebrated Praxiteles. Pliny says these last-mentioned statues were of consummate beauty and excellence, and there is reason to think they were the first performances of that great master in metal. The honour of a statue in brass was rarely decreed by the Athenians to any of their most illustrious citizens, and few other instances occur, except one to Solon, and one to Conon for his services against the Lacedæmonians. The expedient made use of to perpetuate the heroic constancy of Leæna was ingenious, for as it was not fitting to erect a public statue to a courtezan, they devised the figure of a lioness in allusion to her name, which they cast in brass, and without a tongue, in memory of the resolute method she had taken to prevent confession: this figure was placed in the porch of the citadel, where it kept its station for many generations. Pisistratus and his sons maintained their usurpation during a period of sixty-eight years, including those of Pisistratus's secessions from Athens: had Hippias shared the fate of his brother, their annals would have been unstained by any other act of violence or injustice, except that of reviving a regal authority, which by gradual revolutions had been finally abolished. The measures of Hippias during the time he reigned alone, which scarce exceeded three years, blasted the merits of his predecessors, and embittered the minds of the Athenians against his family to the latest posterity. Clisthenes and Isagoras, two rich and leading citizens, finding themselves unsafe under his government, left Athens and took shelter amongst the Phocians. They were in fact no less ambitious than himself, turbulent partisans, and though they proved the instruments of extricating their country from his tyranny, they were no more actuated by a pure love of liberty, as a general principle, than Harmodius and his accomplice were, when they assassinated Hipparchus. The state of Lacedæmon both in point of resource and of its alliances, was at this time in condition to assume a leading share in the affairs of Greece, and it was the first object of Clisthenes and Isagoras to engage the Lacedæmonians in their party for the emancipation of Athens; to carry this point with a people so jealous of the Athenian greatness, required some engine of persuasion more powerful than philanthropy or the dictates of common justice; the Temple of Delphi opened a resource to them, and by a seasonable bribe to the Pythia, they engaged her to give such responses to her Lacedæmonian clients on all occasions, as should work upon their superstition to accord to their wishes. The plot succeeded, and an expedition was set on foot for the expulsion of Hippias, sanctified by the authority of Apollo, but it miscarried; the effort was repeated, and when things were in that doubtful posture as seemed to menace a second disappointment, chance produced the unexpected success. Hippias and his adhérents, foreseeing that the capital would be invested, sent their women and children to a place of better security, and the whole party fell into the hands of the enemy. Such hostages brought on a treaty, and the parent consented to renounce his power for the redemption of his children; Hippias upon this retired from Athens to the court of his kinsman Hegesistratus, in the city of Sigeum, in the Troade on the Asiatic coast. NUMBER CXxx. CLISTHENES and Isagoras had now effected a com. plete revolution in favour of liberty, but being men of ambitious spirit and of equal pretensions, the state was soon thrown into fresh convulsion by their factions. Clisthenes made his court to the people, Isagoras again had recourse to the Lacedæmonians. Lacedæmon, always disposed to control the growing consequence of her neighbours, and sensible of the bad policy of her late measures, had opened her eyes to the folly of expelling Hippias upon the forged responses of the Pythia, of whose corruption and false dealing she had now the proofs: she complied with the requisitions of Isagoras so far as related to her interference at large, but in the mode of that interference she by no means met his wishes, for it was immediately resolved to invite Hippias into Sparta, where he was publicly acknowledged and received, and a herald sent to Athens with a haughty message to Clisthenes and his party. The Athenians, intimidated and divided, threw them. selves upon new and desperate resources, sending an embassy, or rather petition, to the Persian satrap Artaphernes, brother of the reigning king Darius, and governor of Lydia. The Persian had not at this time ever heard the name of Athens, and peremptorily demanded homage; the ambassadors yielded to the demand, but the state revoked it at their return with indignation; for the Corinthians had in the mean time taken measures very favourable to their interests, by separating from the Lacedæmonian alliance, and protesting strongly against the proposal of restoring Hippias; their opposition seems to have been founded in principle, having lately experienced a tyranny of the same sort in their own persons, and they carried their point by compelling Hippias to return in despair to Sigeum, from whence he betook himself to Lampsacus, where he began to cabal in the court of antides the tyrant, who was in great favour with the Persian monarch. By this channel Hippias introduced himself to Darius, and with all the inveteracy of an exiled sovereign, not abated |