The First Clash

by Jim Lacey

  In 514 BC, an attempted assassination changed the character and nature of Hippias’s regime and was to precipitate its eventual downfall. One of two homosexual lovers, Harmodius or Aristogeiton, had suffered an insult from Hippias’s brother, Hipparchus, and determined to kill the tyrants. The two lovers chose the Great Panathenaic Festival for the murders, as during this festival Athenians appeared at the Acropolis fully armed. Moreover, they hoped that the mob would rise up in support and defend them from the wrath of Hippias’s mercenaries. Only a few people were brought into the plot, but on the morning of the festival one of them was seen talking with Hippias. Believing their plan had been betrayed, the lovers ran from Hippias’s location to find his brother, whom they murdered. Alarmed, Hippias moved rapidly in the face of this crisis. Harmodius was killed on the spot, but Aristogeiton was taken prisoner and later put to death. More critically, Hippias took the opportunity to disarm the Athenians. Presumably, this was done by the many mercenaries in his employ. However, there is no indication that the Athenians resisted this move. For the time being, Athens was without a citizens’ army of hoplites.

  Embittered and increasingly paranoid after the murder of his brother, Hippias became despotic and malevolent. He ordered the execution of many citizens on the slimmest suspicion. Furthermore, he began raising taxes to exorbitant levels to pay for the mass of mercenaries he believed necessary to prop up his rule. All the time, the Alcmaeonidae clan was waiting, and it was not long before Cleisthenes judged the moment right for his clan’s return. He ordered an armed incursion from their Theban base into Attica, and they established themselves in a fortified outpost near the frontier, at Leipsydrion near Paionia.4 Presumably, they were hoping this would be enough of a catalyst to prompt a general uprising. But Cleisthenes had mistimed his adventure. The disarmed Athenians were not yet ready to risk all to depose a tyrant who was protected by a multitude of mercenaries. Moreover, Hippias, acting with his normal alacrity, sent his men against the Alcmaeonidae and inflicted a severe defeat on them. Chastised, Cleisthenes led his small army back into Thebes and began a new intrigue that was to prove more successful.5

  After his military defeat, Cleisthenes understood that he could not win through force of arms unless he could entice another city into assisting in his private war. For this purpose he chose Sparta. To accomplish this, Cleisthenes enlisted the help of the Delphi oracle. In 548 BC, the oracle’s temple was destroyed by fire. Cleisthenes committed his own remaining fortune and that of his clan to the rebuilding of the temple. This they accomplished to a degree of splendor far beyond that demanded by the specifications, thereby earning considerable goodwill from the servants of the god Apollo. Cleisthenes bought further goodwill through generous gifts to the Pythia, the priestess presiding over Delphi.

  From this point on, Herodotus reports, every time the Spartans came to seek the advice of the oracle they were told, “First free Athens.” At length, the Spartans decided it was wise to heed the words of the god and prepared a force to go to Athens and depose Hippias. It is difficult to know how much credence to give to this story. That the Alcmaeonidae would bribe the Pythia is credible, but their influence at Delphi paled in comparison with Sparta’s. The best that can be said is that Cleisthenes knew that Sparta was already wary of Athens, which had recently defeated Thebes in battle, was destroying the trade of other Peloponnesian League members, and was cozying up to its mortal enemy Argos. Seeing the direction Sparta was already heading, Cleisthenes made the decision easier by presenting it with a religious sanction for a policy toward which it was already inclined. For its part, Sparta probably expected an oligarchy to take over from Hippias, and oligarchies were notoriously friendly to Sparta, particularly those it helped put in place.

  The first Spartan force sent to Athens was a small one, and it went by sea under the command of an esteemed, but not royal, Spartan named Anchimolios. This force landed near Athens on the open shore of Phaleron. Here they found Hippias, his mercenaries, and one thousand Thessalian cavalry waiting for them. Warned of Sparta’s invasion preparations, Hippias had already prepared the battlefield for cavalry operations. The Spartans, who probably believed the propaganda of Cleisthenes that they would be welcomed by the mass of Athenians, did not expect a fight and were mauled. Anchimolios was killed in battle, and the hard-pressed Spartans were pushed back to their ships without being able to retrieve their commander’s body.

  King Cleomenes could not tolerate this insult to Spartan arms and prestige. A large expedition was assembled, probably made up of the bulk of the Spartan army, and in 510 BC, Cleomenes and the Spartans marched through the Megarian passes and descended on Athens. Hippias with his mercenaries and Thessalian horsemen marched to meet them, but they were no match for the Spartan host. He was now paying the price for disarming Athens’s hoplites. After being roughly handled, the Thessalians rode for home while Hippias retreated into Athens’s fortified Acropolis, which, with his typical forethought, he had already stocked with provisions. Herodotus tells us that the Spartans were in no mood for a protracted siege and were preparing to march home when the fates intervened. Hippias’s children were captured as they attempted to escape from the city, and to save them Hippias agreed to surrender and leave Athens within five days.

  Hippias had prepared well for this eventuality. His half brother had ruled Sigeum for probably a couple of decades or more and had become close to the Persians, who now dominated the region. Moreover, Hippias, courting further favor with the Persians, had married his daughter to the tyrant of Lampsacus, who was known to stand in high regard with the Persian king. It should be mentioned that this tilt toward Persia was not missed by the Spartans, who saw it as a counterploy to their own growing power, which it was. In fact, it may have been Hippias’s pro-Persian inclinations that settled his fate, as Sparta consistently maintained an anti-Persian policy during this period.6

  Hippias went into exile. This was the end of Pisistratidae rule in Athens, but it did not destroy the clan’s power in either Athens or the rest of Attica. When Hippias departed, so did the Spartans, who left the Athenians to handle their own affairs. The stage was now set for Cleisthenes to leave his Theban base and walk onto the Athenian stage.

  However, if Cleisthenes was expecting that as the deposer of the tyrant he would be hailed as a hero, he was to be sadly disappointed. For with the departure of Hippias, the old Solon constitution came back in force, and with it came the strife that had plagued Athens before Pisistratus’s tyranny. Again there were three parties: the Plains (the old noble families), the Coast (the Alcmaeonidae and their merchant-class supporters), and the Hills (the remaining supporters of the Pisistratidae). The nobles of the Party of the Plains had found a new dynamism under their leader, Isagoras, who was able to enlist the support of the Party of the Hills, as they were angry with Cleisthenes, whom they blamed for the removal of their man, Hippias.

  For several years, Isagoras and the nobles were able to hold the upper hand, relegating Cleisthenes to a secondary role. Moreover, the period of Isagoras’s dominance was similar enough to an oligarchy (as he had to maintain the support of other noble families) to please Sparta. But Isagoras and the other noble clans overplayed their hand. In an attempt to better control the Athenian assembly, they ordered sweeping changes to the list of citizens. These revisions cost many of the poor (the Party of the Hills) their right to vote in the assembly, which had been given them by Pisistratus. It was a move that played right into Cleisthenes’ hands, even though, in a Machiavellian move, he may have supported the revision. Now, after being continually outmaneuvered in his bids for power by Isagoras, Cleisthenes turned to the newly disenfranchised mob. As Herodotus says, “The Athenian people had been spurned by their politicians, he now brought them into his own faction.”7 This play for the support of Athens’s common people and of the countryside was a sudden volte-face for the crafty Cleisthenes, who was now making a direct bid for the supporters of the Pisistratidae (Hippias’s base), formerly his and
his clan’s mortal enemy. For over a century, the Alcmaeonidae had resisted expanding the franchise to the lower castes. After all, they had failed to support his father, Megacles, at the Battle of Pallene, when Pisistratus had marched on Athens from Marathon. Moreover, they had also failed to rise in his support when he led his own assault out of Thebes just a few years before.8

  As Cleisthenes was the only leading politician taking their side, the mob and countryside did indeed transfer their allegiance to him. With the support of the disenfranchised now firmly behind Cleisthenes, Isagoras and his noble supporters realized they were vastly outnumbered and could no longer hold on to power without assistance. Turning to a tried-and-true method, Isagoras called on Sparta to help. He may have been able to call on some friendship, as the Spartan king had once been a guest in his house, and Herodotus tells us that Cleomenes took that opportunity to sleep with Isagoras’s wife.9 Cleomenes, who was not happy with the nascent democracy being birthed in Athens, decided to come himself. He also followed Isagoras’s advice and called on the Athenians to expel Cleisthenes and all of the Alcmaeonidae, claiming they were tainted with blood guilt and still accursed owing to their slaughter of Cylon and his followers over a century before.

  Cleisthenes decided not to resist this turn of the tide and left Athens to bide yet more time. Soon after his departure, Cleomenes entered Athens with a small Spartan force, probably his personal bodyguard of three hundred or so hoplites. He promptly ordered the expulsion of seven hundred additional families known to support Cleisthenes. If Cleomenes, Isagoras, and the other Athenian nobles had stopped at this point, the situation might have stabilized in their favor. But, again, they overplayed their hand. Threatened by the move toward democracy, Cleomenes tried to rip it out at its roots and in the process overturn the constitution of Solon. With Isagoras’s support, he ordered the Athenian assembly dissolved and replaced by three hundred supporters of Isagoras. Hearing of Cleomenes’ plans, the assembly met and in a tremendous show of courage both refused to dissolve itself and called on the people to resist the invaders. The Athenian masses, who had now tasted the possibilities of real political power, heeded the call. The Spartans, along with Isagoras and his supporters, pressed by overwhelming numbers, retreated into the Acropolis and waited for the mob to disperse. But the mob did not disband, and for the next two days they maintained their order and continued to blockade several hundred elite and increasingly desperate Spartan hoplites. As the Acropolis had not been provisioned for a siege, the Spartans were soon in dire straits. On the third day, the Spartans negotiated a truce for themselves and marched out. As part of the humiliating terms of this surrender, the Spartans were forced to turn over their weapons in return for safe conduct. It was a humiliation Cleomenes would never forget. Somehow, they were able to smuggle Isagoras out with them, but his supporters were left behind. Herodotus reports that they were bound and confined to await their execution.

  With Isagoras deposed, Cleisthenes and his supporters returned. Whatever his own predisposition, he now had to deliver on the promises he had made during his political struggles with Isagoras and the other noble families. He probably was also beginning to understand that it is easier for an adroit politician to manipulate the masses than it is to manage powerful competing factions. So as his first order of business, Cleisthenes turned himself to reforming the Athenian constitution.10 His probable intentions were to break up the old political alliances, destroy the political power of the clans (families) and the four ancient tribes, and create institutions that he could control. It is doubtful that Cleisthenes foresaw that these changes, what Aristotle called “the mixing up,” would within a short period convert Athens into the world’s first true democracy.11

  Cleisthenes made three key reforms to the Athenian political process:12

  • Instituting ten tribes in place of the four original Ionic tribes.

  • Creating a new five-hundred-man council (boule), consisting of fifty men from each of the new tribes, to replace the old four-hundred-man council.

  • Creating the concept of ostracism, whereby a person could be banished from Athens for a period of ten years and then permitted to return.13

  For our purposes, the most important change was the creation of the ten tribes, in which Cleisthenes enrolled all of the free inhabitants of Attica, along with resident aliens and even freed slaves.14 It was in the organization of these tribes that Cleisthenes revealed his true genius. First, he organized all of Attica into demes (probably 174 in all). Roughly speaking, a deme was a geographic area based on the largest town and village within its borders.15 Each deme was given the equivalent of a mayor and a small administrative organization, which enrolled everyone as a citizen of their deme. The demes of each of the three major regions of Attica—the Plains (the Philaidae), the Coast (the Alcmaeonidae), and the Hills (the Pisistratidae)—were divided into ten groups called trittyes. These trittyes were artificial organizations without any corporate existence, so they possessed no governmental organization or administrators.16 This accomplished, each of the ten tribes received one trittys from each region.

  The creation of the demes and new tribal structure wrecked the old system of clan loyalty in favor of loyalty to a specific geographic region. Similarly, through the creation of the trittys concept, Cleisthenes placed demes from each of the major regions within every tribe, thereby breaking down the old factional concerns and focusing everyone’s attention on what was good for Athens and Attica as a whole. In a stroke, the power of the old parties (the Plains, the Coast, and the Hills) was shattered, as the new organization did not allow for regional or local political action.17

  This new political organization was to have a profound impact on the organization and battle doctrine of the Athenian army. Each tribe (every one of which was named for a mythical hero selected by the Delphi priestess) was required to contribute one regiment of hoplites and a cavalry squadron for the common defense. In turn, each tribal regiment had a general, or strategos, of its own. These ten generals were elected annually by each tribe, and reputedly they rotated command of the entire army on a daily basis, although the third archon remained the overall leader, or polemarch, of the entire army.18 Until this time, command of the entire army was vested in the polemarch, with no other generals involved in the command structure. Most other historians believe that the rotating command system was in effect at the Battle of Marathon. I believe that this command structure was put aside during times of crisis and that the polemarch remained the supreme military commander when Athens was at war. Any arrangement that left the supreme commander, the polemarch, without any real authority on a day-to-day basis would inevitably lead to a military calamity. As the Athenians were not unusually susceptible to institutional suicide, it is unlikely they would have long accepted military command arrangements that would cause chaos in practice.

  While Athens remade itself, Cleomenes returned to Sparta. Still burning with the humiliation of turning over his weapons as the price of safe conduct out of Athens, he immediately began preparing his revenge. He called out the levies of the entire Peloponnesian League and ordered them to assemble for a spring campaign. Cleomenes, the master strategist, also began enticing other allies into his great crusade against Athens. Thebes, still smarting from its defeat at Athens’s hands when it had marched on Plataea a dozen years before, had rebuilt its military forces, and it was eager to join in the Spartan attack. The Chalcidians, sensing an easy victory and desiring to participate in the spoils, also offered to contribute their few thousand hoplites to the common cause.

  Cleisthenes, for his part, was well aware of the fact that it was one thing to humiliate a small Spartan force of three hundred men and quite another to take on the entire Spartan host. Desperate for allies, he sent emissaries to Sardis to meet with the Persian satrap, Artaphrenes, and ask for military assistance against Sparta. A remarkable event then ensued. According to Herodotus:

  When the envoys arrived in Sardis, and spoke according to
their instructions, Artaphrenes … inquired who were these people who asked to become allies of the Persians, and where in the world did they live? When he heard the answer of the envoys, he gave them the brief answer that if the Athenians offered earth and water to King Darius, they would have their alliance, but if they did not do so, he ordered them to leave. The envoys, wanting to bring about the alliance, took the responsibility on themselves and consented to offering earth and water, for which they faced serious charges when they returned to their own land.19

  Offering earth and water to Darius was recognized as the symbolic submission to Persian rule. Although Herodotus explains away the envoys’ decision as something they decided on their own, it is virtually inconceivable that Cleisthenes thought the Persians would give him an alliance or march to Athens’s aid unless the city submitted to Darius. This is almost surely an incorrect version of events developed during the five or six decades intervening between the event and his collecting the tale; in the wake of the victorious war with Persia and the great victories at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea, the charge of Medizing (submitting to Persia) had become the worst epithet one city could lay upon another.20 After such tremendous achievements, it did not suit the legend Athens had created about its own involvement in these events for it to be known that it had been the first to invite the Persians into Greek affairs. In all likelihood, the envoys had instructions from Cleisthenes to offer earth and water if necessary. He probably assumed that by the time they arrived back in Athens, there would be a Spartan army in the field and the Athenians would welcome help from any source, regardless of the price. That the envoys were rebuked upon their return reflects the fact that the situation in Attica was very different from what anyone could have predicted when they had left for Sardis.