was his
lover and possessed him. Solicited without success by Hipparchus, son of
Pisistratus, Harmodius told Aristogiton, and the enraged lover, afraid
that the powerful Hipparchus might take Harmodius by force, immediately
formed a design, such as his condition in life permitted, for
overthrowing the tyranny. In the meantime Hipparchus, after a second
solicitation of Harmodius, attended with no better success, unwilling
to use violence, arranged to insult him in some covert way. Indeed,
generally their government was not grievous to the multitude, or in any
way odious in practice; and these tyrants cultivated wisdom and virtue
as much as any, and without exacting from the Athenians more than a
twentieth of their income, splendidly adorned their city, and carried on
their wars, and provided sacrifices for the temples. For the rest, the
city was left in full enjoyment of its existing laws, except that care
was always taken to have the offices in the hands of some one of the
family. Among those of them that held the yearly archonship at Athens
was Pisistratus, son of the tyrant Hippias, and named after his
grandfather, who dedicated during his term of office the altar to the
twelve gods in the market-place, and that of Apollo in the Pythian
precinct. The Athenian people afterwards built on to and lengthened the
altar in the market-place, and obliterated the inscription; but that in
the Pythian precinct can still be seen, though in faded letters, and is
to the following effect:

Pisistratus, the son of Hippias, Sent up this record of his archonship
In precinct of Apollo Pythias.

That Hippias was the eldest son and succeeded to the government, is what
I positively assert as a fact upon which I have had more exact accounts
than others, and may be also ascertained by the following circumstance.
He is the only one of the legitimate brothers that appears to have had
children; as the altar shows, and the pillar placed in the Athenian
Acropolis, commemorating the crime of the tyrants, which mentions no
child of Thessalus or of Hipparchus, but five of Hippias, which he had
by Myrrhine, daughter of Callias, son of Hyperechides; and naturally
the eldest would have married first. Again, his name comes first on the
pillar after that of his father; and this too is quite natural, as
he was the eldest after him, and the reigning tyrant. Nor can I ever
believe that Hippias would have obtained the tyranny so easily, if
Hipparchus had b