pproaching the spot where he
was standing, they were thunderstruck at beholding one of the
conspirators in close conversation with the despot. Believing that
they were betrayed, they rushed back into the city with their daggers
hid in the myrtle boughs which they were to have carried in the
procession, and killed Hipparchus. Harmodius was immediately cut down
by the guards. Aristogiton died under the tortures to which he was
subjected in order to compel him to disclose his accomplices.

Hipparchus was assassinated in B.C. 514, the fourteenth year after the
death of Pisistratus. From this time the character of the government
became entirely changed. His brother's murder converted Hippias into a
cruel and suspicious tyrant. He put to death numbers of the citizens,
and raised large sums of money by extraordinary taxes.

The Alcmaeonidae, who had lived in exile ever since the third and final
restoration of Pisistratus to Athens, now began to form schemes to
expel the tyrant. Clisthenes, the son of Megacles, who was the head of
the family, secured the Delphian oracle by pecuniary presents to the
Pythia, or priestess, henceforth, whenever the Spartans came to consult
the oracle, the answer of the priestess was always the same, "Athens
must be liberated." This order was so often repeated, that the Spartans
at last resolved to obey. Cleomenes, king of Sparta, defeated the
Thessalian allies of Hippias; and the tyrant, unable to meet his
enemies in the field, took refuge in the Acropolis. Here he might have
maintained himself in safety, had not his children been made prisoners
as they were being secretly carried out of the country. To procure
their restoration, he consented to quit Attics in the space of five
days. He sailed to Asia, and took up his residence at Sigeum in the
Troad, which his father had wrested from the Mytilenaeans in war.

Hippias was expelled in B.C. 510, four years after the assassination of
Hipparchus. These four years had been a time of suffering and
oppression for the Athenians, and had effaced from their minds all
recollection of the former mild rule of Pisistratus and his sons.
Hence the expulsion of the family was hailed with delight. The memory
of Harmodius and Aristogiton was cherished with the fondest reverence;
and the Athenians of a later age, overlooking the four years which had
elapsed from their death to the overthrow of the despotism, represented
them as the liberators of their c