The Tyranny of the Peisistratids (The rise of Peisistratus)

The Tyranny of the Peisistratids (The Rise of Peisistratus)

The account of tyranny at Athens is, by literary sources, covered in three stages – the rise of Peisistratus, his rule, and the downfall of the tyranny – but only Aristotle (or a pupil) in the Ath. Pol. covers all three. Herodotus concentrates on the first (1.59–64) and the third (5.55–61); and Thucydides briefly on the second (6.54.5–6) and more fully on the third (1.20.2; 6.53.3–59). The details and the nature of Peisistratus’ rule are described in Aristotle’s Ath. Pol. (16) and his Politics (1314a–1315b), but only in broad, general terms. However, although concrete facts are few in number, there is sufficient agreement among the sources that Peisistratus’ tyranny was for the most part popular: he achieved the much-desired political stability at home by conciliating the upper class through diplomacy, and by winning the goodwill of the lower class by his economic policies.

The one conspicuous failure of Solon’s reforms was his inability to bring an end to the political unrest at Athens. The main cause of this was the conflict between the competing political factions and the personal rivalry of their aristocratic leaders. According to Aristotle, there were three major factions:

Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 13.4

Herodotus, much closer in time to these historical events and therefore more reliable, especially as Aristotle is clearly using (and even mentions) Herodotus as his source (Ath. Pol. 14.4), refers to Peisistratus’ faction as the ‘Men from beyond the Hills’ (‘Hyperakrioi’). This term is likely to be more accurate since Peisistratus’ family home was at Brauron, on the east coast of Attica, and the main bulk of his supporters would have come from that region and the north-east.

Although Herodotus saw the geographical regions in Attica as the distinguishing feature of these three factions (1.59.3), Aristotle added political ideology as another. Aristotle’s employment of such political labels as ‘middle’, ‘oligarchic’ and ‘democratic’ is plainly anachronistic, and is more applicable to political conditions in the late fifth and early fourth centuries, but it is reasonable to believe that his description does reflect the basic attitudes of the three factions to Solon’s reforms. The faction of the Alcmaeonid Megacles might well be viewed as ‘middle’ in its acceptance of Solon’s legislation (or most of it), when compared to the other two factions that wished to alter it. The ‘oligarchic’ faction of Lycurgus, which represented the interests of the ‘Eupatridai’ (the Well-born) who possessed the best land in Attica and were among the richest, desired change through the abolition of Solon’s reforms and a return to the pre-594 state of affairs. They resented his political reforms, which opened up the archonships (and membership of the aristocratic council, the ‘Areopagus’) to the non-nobles and which established the legal right of the lower and middle classes to attend the ‘Ecclesia’ (Assembly) and to serve as an appeal court (‘Heliaea’) in bringing public officials to account; and his economic reforms, which cancelled all debts and released the ‘hectemoroi’ from their obligation to hand over one-sixth of their produce to themselves (Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 13.3). The ‘democratic’ faction of Peisistratus probably represented the poorer farmers, including the former debt-bondsmen and hectemoroi, whose economic suffering had been removed only temporarily by the cancellation of debts, and consequently desired more radical reforms to ensure their long-term prosperity and the avoidance of debt in the future.

Nevertheless, the conflicting aims and aspirations of the supporters of the three factions were secondary; the primary cause of the political unrest was the personal ambition and rivalry of the aristocratic faction leaders in their struggle for political domination. Therefore Aristotle was right to concentrate on the post of ‘eponymous archon’ (chief archon) as the battleground for the competing aristocrats in the period after Solon’s archonship:

Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 13.1–2

However, by the late 560s, Peisistratus had decided that he, as tyrant, offered the best hope of political stability for Athens (Herodotus 1.59.3).

The dating of Peisistratus’ three attempts and periods of rule as tyrant of Athens has proven to be a thorny problem. The dates given by Aristotle in the Ath. Pol. are clearly wrong, and there are some inconsistencies in Herodotus’ chronology; however, scholarly opinion has inclined towards the following dating. In c.561/0, Peisistratus made his first attempt to seize power by appearing in the main market-place in Athens, covered in self-inflicted wounds, and by claiming that he had been the subject of a murder attempt by his enemies. His request for a guard was granted by the Athenians on account of his distinguished war record, especially against Megara, and this enabled him to seize the Acropolis with their help:

Herodotus 1.59.6–60.1

Either 560/59 or 559/8 would seem a reasonable date, after a short period of rule, for the end of Peisistratus’ first stint as tyrant.

The political alliance between Megacles and Lycurgus soon collapsed, and the resultant pressure on Megacles led him to seek a pact with Peisistratus, offering his faction’s support in a coup to make Peisistratus tyrant on condition that he married Megacles’ daughter. After these terms were accepted, Peisistratus gained the tyranny in c.557/6 by the ruse of dressing up a stunningly beautiful six-foot woman in full armour; it was then claimed through messengers that she was Athene, the patron goddess of Athens, and that she herself in her chariot was delivering Peisistratus to her own Acropolis to take over the rule of Athens (Herodotus 1.60.2–5). In this way, Peisistratus became tyrant for the second time – much to the annoyance of Herodotus at the Athenians’ gullibility. It would seem that Megacles was prepared to acquiesce in Peisistratus’ tenure of power in the expectation that his own future grandson, the offspring of the marriage, would rule after Peisistratus’ death. However, Peisistratus was determined that his grown-up sons from his previous marriage, Hippias and Hipparchus, should succeed him, and so he avoided normal sexual intercourse with Megacles’ daughter to prevent conception. She kept silent about this at first, but later informed her mother. When she told Megacles, his anger at this insult to his daughter (and the impossibility of a future half-Alcmaeonid tyrant) persuaded him to bury his differences with Lycurgus and to renew their political alliance. Faced with the combined forces of these two factions, Peisistratus chose exile, possibly c.556/5, as Megacles’ daughter was unlikely to have kept her unusual marriage arrangements from her mother for long (Herodotus 1.61.1–2).

This second failure taught Peisistratus a valuable lesson: the impossibility of seizing and holding onto the tyranny at Athens by conventional means, namely by relying on the strength of his faction and an alliance with the ‘Men of the Shore’. His ambition would always be thwarted by the superior combined might of the two other factions which, owing to the unreliability of the Alcmaeonid-led ‘Men of the Shore’, would inevitably unite against him at some other time in the future. Therefore he realised that he needed to augment the power of his faction by acquiring troops and by forming alliances outside Attica, but that this would take time and money. During the following eleven years, Peisistratus gained considerable wealth from his involvement in the gold mines and silver mines around Mount Pangaion, near the river Strymon in Thrace (Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 15.2), and also won the support of powerful allies:

Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 15.2

The mercenaries also included Argives from the Peloponnese, and the forces of Lygdamis who proved to be particularly useful to Peisistratus’ cause (Herodotus 1.61.4). It is clear from the subsequent events in Naxos that a pact of mutual aid had been agreed between Peisistratus and Lygdamis.