were both unacquainted with the history of Thucydides. (6) The error which Thucydides attributes to the Athenians of his day does not go to this extent. He describes them as merely supposing that Hipparchus was the eldest son and successor of Pisistratus, and that, after the act of the tyrannicides, he was succeeded by Hippias. The author of the Platonic Dialogue of Hipparchus (which was at least a production of the Socratic school), says that Hipparchus was the eldest son of Pisistratus, that Hippias ruled after his death for three years, and that the despotism was during this latter time harsh and oppressive, whereas it had previously been distinguished by its mildness. (62) The belief that the despotism of the Pisistratidæ fell with Hipparchus implies not only an anachronism of four years, but also an ignorance of the series of transactions connected with the expulsion of Hippias by the Lacedæmonians, and the subsequent congress at Sparta, when the Lacedæmonians had repented of their act, and wished to bring about his restoration.(6) The error, however, of supposing that Hipparchus was the eldest son of Pisistratus, and that the rule of Hippias did not begin until his death (which is all that Thucydides seems to attribute to the Athenians), (6) is not very serious, when we consider that their knowledge of the events was not derived from books; and moreover, when we bear in mind that neither Pisistratus nor his sons assumed any official title or

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(61) Aristotle mentions Herodotus in the Rhetoric and Poetic, and rectifies one of his physiological errors, in Hist. An. iii. 22; Gen. An. ii. 2. (Ηρόδωρος ὁ μυθολόγος is restored for 'Ηρόδοτος ὁ μυθολόγος, in Gen. An. iii. 5, by C. Müller, Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. ii. p. 32); but he never alludes to Thucydides.

(62) Hipparch. § 4. Socrates says: Távτwv öv Tŵv nadaιív ňкovTAÇ ÖTL ταῦτα μόνον τὰ ἔτη τυραννὶς ἐγένετο ἐν ̓Αθήναις, τὸν δ ̓ ἄλλον χρόνον ἐγγύς τι ἔζων 'Αθηναῖοι ὥσπερ ἐπὶ Κρόνου βασιλεύοντος.

(63) See Herod. v. 91-3; Thuc. i. 18, vi. 59. In the Lysistrata of Aristophanes (acted 411 B.C.), the Lacedæmonians boast that they liberated the Athenians from the yoke of Hippias; v. 1150-6.

(64) See i. 20, vi. 54. In vi. 53, he distinctly says that the Athenian people were aware that the despotism of the Pisistratida was overthrown by the Lacedæmonians and not by Harmodius. Thucydides does not state what Dio Chrysostom attributes to him, that the Athenians gave the highest honours to Harmodius and Aristogiton, for having liberated the city and killed the despot; Orat. xi. § 146, ed. Emper.

insignia, and that Hipparchus probably exercised a considerable power, notwithstanding his brother's seniority.(65)

An authentic reminiscence of the deed of Harmodins and Aristogiton was preserved in their statues which were erected in the Agora at Athens, after the expulsion of Hippias. These statues were carried off to Susa by Xerxes, thirty years afterwards, and were ultimately recovered and restored to the Athenians by Alexander the Great.(66)

The burning of the temple of Delphi, in 548 B.C., is an event which undoubtedly rests on good testimony. It appears to have been the result of accident, though it was also attributed to the Pisistratida; the Delphians collected funds for rebuilding the temple from all Greece, and Amasis, king of Egypt, even gave a contribution; but the Alemæonidæ furnished important assistance by the sumptuous manner in which they executed the contract for its reconstruction.(67)

§ 8 If we cast our eyes over the corresponding period of Lacedæmonian history, we find that Anaxandrides and Ariston are the joint kings about 560 B.C., and that a war with Tegea is said to be brought in their time to a successful termination, owing to the transportation of the bones of Orestes to Sparta, in fulfilment of an oracle, of which a strange story is told by Herodotus. (68) This war had been begun in the time of the

(65) Thuc. vi. 54, states that they did not disturb the existing laws, but they took care that one of their family held one of the principal offices. Herod. v. 62-3, speaks of the Pisistratida as a body, after the death of Hipparchus. The Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 502, says: Koivuç de máνtes oi Пεotorparidai rýpavvo Xeyovro. Diod. x. 39, says that Thessalus, the son of Pisistratus, declined all share in the despotism, and lived on terms of equality with the citizens: οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι, Ιππαρχος καὶ Ἱππίας, βίαιοι καὶ χαλεποὶ καθεστῶτες ἐτυράννουν τῆς πόλεως. Herod. vii. 6, describes Hipparchus as expelling Onomacritus from Athens, for forging a prophecy of Musæus, as if he did it by his own authority. The story of Harmodius and Aristogiton is transferred to Phalaris, in Sicily, and its circumstances are completely altered, in Hygin. Fab. 257.

(66) See above, P. 319.

(67) Paus. x. 5, 13; Herod. i. 50, ii. 180, v. 62; Philochor. fragm. 70, ed. Müller. Compare Grote, vol. iv. P: 160.

(68) i. 67-8. When Cimon took the island of Scyros, he removed the bones of Theseus to Athens, in obedience to the Delphic oracle; Plut. Thes. 36; Cimon, 8; Paus. iii. 3, § 7. This war, according to Mr. Clinton, had been concluded in 554 B.C.

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previous kings, Leon and Hegesicles; the Lacedæmonians, misled by an ambiguous oracle, marched against the Tegeates with chains destined for their prisoners. They were however defeated, and it became their lot to work as slaves on the plain of Tegea in the chains which they had themselves brought. Herodotus believed that he saw these identical chains, hung round a temple of Minerva at Tegea.(69)

The celebrated combat of the Lacedæmonian and Argive champions, three hundred on each side, for the possession of the territory of Thyrea, is the next remarkable event in Spartan history. According to Herodotus, they fought until only Alcenor and Chromius remained alive on the Argive side, and only Othryades on the Lacedæmonian. Instead, however, of the combat being concluded by a final contest between the surviving champions (as in the Roman battle of the Horatii and Curiatii, where the remaining Roman kills the two remaining Albans), the two Argives leave the field, as if they had conquered; while Othryades remains upon it, and strips the dead bodies of the enemy. The combat of the three hundred therefore decides nothing; but by a subsequent battle with the Argives the Lacedæmonians acquire the territory.

Othryades is related to have killed himself out of shame at being the sole survivor ;(70) but if he had slain all the Argives who were opposed to him, without the loss of his own life, and if he alone remained to claim the victory, it seems as if he, like the surviving Horatius, ought to have returned in triumph to

(69) αἱ δὲ πέδαι αὗται, ἐν τῇσι ἐδεδέατο, ἔτι καὶ ἐς ἐμὲ ἔσαν σῶαι ἐν Τεγέη, περὶ τὸν νηὸν τῆς ̓Αλέης ̓Αθηναίης κρεμάμεναι, Herod. i. 66. This temple is mentioned by Paus. viii. 9, § 6. Some chains, which had been used for confining Chalcidean prisoners, were suspended by the Athenians in the acropolis, about 506 B.C., and are described by Herodotus, v. 77.

(70) Herod. i. 82. A similar account is given by Paus. ii. 38, § 5. The epigram on this combat in Anth. Pol. vii. 431, appears to be not by Simonides, but of later date; see Simonid. fragm. ed. Schneidewin, p 223; and compare ib. vii. 244, 430, 432, 720. Strabo, viii. 6, § 17, speaks of Othryades as the commander of the Spartan band. The statement of Herodotus that both sides claimed the victory is confirmed by Thucyd. ν. 41: ὥσπερ καὶ πρότερόν ποτε, ὅτε αὐτοὶ ἑκάτεροι ἠξίωσαν νικᾷν. Isocrat. Archid. § 115, speaks of the 300 Spartans at Thyreæ gaining the victory over the Argives.

Sparta.(71) The version of the story related by Herodotus seems not to have been admitted by the Argives; for Pausanias saw at Argos a statue of Perilaus, the son of Alcenor, killing Othryades the Spartan.(2) Sosibius the Laconian, an Alexandrine grammarian, who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, stated, in his work on Lacedæmonian Sacrifices, that the leaders of the choruses in the Gymnopædia wore certain chaplets in memory of the victory at Thyrea. (73) According to Herodotus, the Lacedæmonian custom of wearing long hair had its origin in the acquisition of Thyrea; whereas the loss of it caused the Argive men not only to shave their heads, but also caused the Argive women to abandon the use of gold ornaments.(74)

The combat of the three hundred champions for Thyrea is placed by Herodotus a short time before the capture of Sardis by Cyrus, which event took place in 546 B.C. This date may probably be relied on, notwithstanding some divergent statements of later writers;(7) and hence the national recognition of this remarkable battle, by both Argos and Sparta, in the Peloponnesian war, must be considered as removing all reasonable doubt as to its historical character.

We are informed by Thucydides that, on the occasion of a treaty concluded between Sparta and Argos, in 420 B.C., the Argives proposed a stipulation that, when both countries were free from pestilence and war, either might challenge the other to a combat, similar to the former one, for the possession of the

(71) Livy says: Romani ovantes ac gratulantes Horatium accipiunt ; eo majore cum gaudio, quo prope metum res fuerat; i. 25. Compare the epigram of Nicander, Anth. Pal. vii. 526.

(72) ii. 20, § 7.

(73) These chaplets were called Ouрearikol, Athen. xv. p. 678 B. See Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. ii. p. 626.

(74) Ib. Compare the account in Herod. vii. 208, of the Spartans combing their hair before the battle of Thermopyla. The Roman matrons abstained from wearing their golden ornaments, when they were in mourning; Livy, xxxiv. 7; Dion. Hal. v. 48.

(75) Paus. iii. 7, § 5, refers this battle to the reign of Theopompus, in the eighth century B.C. Eusebius says that the Gymnopædia were instituted in the early part of the seventh century, in memory of it.

debatable land of Thyrea. The historian states that the Lacedæmonians considered this proposal an absurdity, but that they accepted it, because they were desirous at that moment of being on friendly terms with Argos.(76) The agreement led to no practical result. If this combat had been referred to the mythical ages, its public recognition by the two states concerned would not have proved its reality more than the belief of Pyrrhus that he, as an acid, ought to make war against the Romans the descendants of the Trojans,(77) proved that Achilles was the author of his lineage, and that Æneas settled in Latium; or than the privileges conferred by the Romans upon the Acarnanians for not having taken part in the Trojan war,(78) proved that the Trojan war and the Trojan origin of Rome were historical. But inasmuch as its date only preceded the treaty in question by about one hundred and twenty-seven years, we may fairly assume that a correct outline of the event had been preserved during that time. The reminiscences of the Athenians in 415 B.C., with respect to the oppressive government of Pisistratus and his sons, described by Thucydides, went back for more than a century; and the interval between the reference of the Spartans to the hereditary curse of the Alcmæonidæ in 432 B.C., and the murder of Cylon, was not less than one hundred and ninety years.(79)

(76) Thuc. v. 41.

Compare the remarks of Mr. Grote upon this transaction, vol. ii. p. 594; vol. vii. p. 38. (77) Above, vol. i. p. 341.

(78) Above, vol. i. p. 314.

(79) Above, vol. i. p. 100. Colonel Mure, Hist. of Lit. of Gr. vol. iv. p. 328, 338, considers the details of this battle as fabulous. He conceives it impossible that 597 out of 600 could have been killed on the ground. He adds however that there seems no reason to doubt the primary fact, that in a war between the Spartans and the Argives in support of their respective claims to the disputed frontier district of Thyrea, a drawn battle was fought between nearly equal armies of the two republics.' It may be observed that this reduced version of the story is inconsistent with the belief recorded by Thucydides. Niebuhr has the following remarks on this combat: 'We find, in the account of Othryades, the mere tradition without historical credibility. Othryades, who remains on the field of battle and erects trophies, is as little historical as Horatius, the conqueror of Alba. I will not on that account deny his personal existence, but the account of him lies beyond the domain of history; ib. p. 268. Niebuhr thinks that the number of three hundred on each side is merely