Harmodius and Aristogeiton
Encyclopedia
Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Ἀριστογείτων / Aristogeítôn; both died 514 BC) were two men from ancient Athens. They became known as the Tyrannicide
s (τυραννοκτόνοι) after they killed the Peisistratid tyrant
Hipparchus, and were the preeminent symbol of democracy to ancient Athenians.
in his History of the Peloponnesian War
(VI, 56-59) and The Constitution of the Athenians
(XVIII) attributed to Aristotle
or his school, but their story is documented by a great many other ancient writers, such as Herodotus
and Plutarch
. Herodotus claimed that Harmodius and Aristogeiton presumably were "Gephyraeans" i.e. Boeotia
ns of Syrian or Phoenician origin. Plutarch in his book On the malice of Herodotus
criticized Herodotus for prejudice and misrepresentation and he argued that Harmodius and Aristogeiton were Euboea
ns or Eretria
ns.
Peisistratus
seized power in 561 BC and established a dictatorial regime. Peisistratus is usually called a tyrant
, but in archaic Greek the word tyrannos does not mean a cruel and despotic ruler, merely one who took power by force. Peisistratus was in fact a very popular ruler, who made Athens wealthy and powerful, although the old aristocratic families he had driven from power hated him. When Peisistratus died in 528/527 BC, his son Hippias
, with the help of his younger brother Hipparchus
, retained power. The two continued their father's policies, but their popularity declined after Hipparchus began to abuse the power of his position.
Hipparchus invited Harmodius' young sister to be the kanephoros
(to carry the ceremonial offering basket) at the Panathenaea festival, and then publicly chased her away on the pretext she was not a virgin, as required. This was an offense of such magnitude to Harmodius' family that he, together with Aristogeiton who was already fired by feelings of jealousy due to Hipparchus having made unrequited sexual advances toward Harmodius (possibly the motivation for Hipparchus's humiliation of Harmodius's sister), resolved to assassinate both Hippias and Hipparchus and thus to overthrow the tyranny.
According to Aristotle, it was Thessalos, the hot-headed son of Peisistratus´ Argive
concubine and thus half-brother to Hipparchus, who was the one to court Harmodius and drive off his sister.
Seeing one of these greet Hippias in a friendly manner on the assigned day, the two thought themselves betrayed and rushed into action, ruining the carefully laid plans. They managed to kill Hipparchus, stabbing him to death as he was organizing the Panathenaean processions at the foot of the Acropolis
. Herodotus expresses surprise at this event, asserting that Hipparchus had received a clear warning concerning his fate in a dream. Harmodius was killed on the spot by spearmen of Hipparchus´ guards, while Aristogeiton was arrested shortly thereafter. Upon being told of the event, Hippias, feigning calm, ordered the marching Greeks to lay down their ceremonial weapons and to gather at an indicated spot. All those with concealed weapons or under suspicion were arrested, gaining Hippias a respite from the uprising.
Thucydides' identification of Hippias as the two's purported main target, rather than Hipparchus who was Aristogiton's rival erastes, has been suggested as a possible indication of bias on his part.
in the Constitution of Athens preserves a tradition that Aristogeiton died only after being tortured in the hope that he would reveal the names of the other conspirators. During his ordeal, personally overseen by Hippias, he feigned willingness to betray his co-conspirators, claiming only Hippias' handshake as guarantee of safety. Upon receiving the tyrant's hand he is reputed to have berated him for shaking the hand of his own brother's murderer, upon which the tyrant wheeled and struck him down on the spot.
was in love with a courtesan (see hetaera
) by the name of Leæna (Λέαινα - meaning lion
ess) who also was kept by Hippias under torture – in a vain attempt to force her to divulge the names of the other conspirators – until she died. One version holds that previous to being tortured she had bitten off her tongue, afraid that her resolve would break from the pain of the torture. Another is that the Athenians, unwilling to honour a courtesan, placed a statue of a lioness without a tongue in the vestibule of the Acropolis
simply to honor her fortitude in maintaining silence. The statue was made by the sculptor Amphicrates. It was also in her honor that Athenian statues of Aphrodite were from then on accompanied by stone lionesses [after Pausanias
].
, in 508. This was followed by the reforms of Cleisthenes
, who established a democracy
in Athens.
A number of years after the event, it had become a received tradition among the Athenians to believe that Hipparchus was the elder of the brothers, and to fashion him as the tyrant.
to produce a bronze statue group of Harmodius and Aristogeiton
. It was the first commission of its kind, and the very first statue to be paid for out of public funds, as the two were the first Greeks considered by their countrymen worthy of having statues raised to them.
According to Pliny the Elder
, it was erected in the Kerameikos in 509, as part of a cenotaph
of the heroes. Annual offerings (enagismata) were presented there by the polemarch
, the Athenian minister of war. There it stood alone as special laws prohibited the erection of any other statues in their vicinity. Upon its base was inscribed a verse by the poet Simonides
: "A marvelous great light shone upon Athens when Aristogeiton and Harmodios slew Hipparchus".
The statue was taken as war booty in 480 BC by Xerxes I during the early Greco-Persian Wars
and installed by him at Susa
. As soon as the Greeks vanquished the Persians at Salamis
, a new statue was commissioned. It was sculpted this time by Kritios
and Nesiotes, and set up in 477/476 BC. It is the one which served as template for the group we possess today, which was found in the ruins of Hadrian's villa
and is now in Naples
. According to Arrian
, when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire, in 330, he discovered the statue at Susa and had it shipped back to Athens. When the statue, on its journey back, arrived at Rhodos
it was given divine honors.
Several comments of the ancients regarding the statue have come down to us. When asked, in the presence of Dionysius
, the tyrant of Syracuse
, which type of bronze was the best, Antiphon the Sophist
replied, "That of which the Athenians made the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton." Lycurgus
, in his oration against Leocrates, asserts that, "In the rest of Greece you will find statues erected in the public places to the conquerors in the games, but amongst you they are dedicated only to good generals, and to those who have destroyed tyrants. Other sculptors made statues of the heroes, such as Praxiteles
, who made two, also of bronze.
The statue group has been seen, in modern times, as an invitation to identify erotically and politically with the figures, and to become oneself a tyrannicide. According to Andrew Stuart, the statue "not only placed the homoerotic bond at the core of Athenian political freedom, but asserted that it and the manly virtues (aretai) of courage, boldness and self-sacrifice that it generated were the only guarantors of that freedom’s continued existence".
The configuration of the group is duplicated on a painted vase, a Panathenaic amphora
from 400, and on a base-relief on the Elgin throne, dated to ca. 300.
) praising them for restoring isonomia
(equal distribution of justice) to the Athenians. It "may be referred to 500 BC or thereabouts", and is ascribed to Callistratus, an Athenian poet known only for this work. It is preserved by Athenaeus
. Its popularity was such that "at every banquet
, nay, in the streets and in the meanest assembly of the common people, that convivial ode was daily sung", When sung, the singer would hold a branch of myrtle in his hand. This ode has been translated by many modern poets such as Edgar Allan Poe
, who composed his Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius in 1827. The following translation was judged to be the best and most faithful of a number of versions attempted in Victorian England.
Other skolia existed, of which a few have survived, such as the following:
Tyrannicide
Tyrannicide literally means the killing of a tyrant, or one who has committed the act. Typically, the term is taken to mean the killing or assassination of tyrants for the common good. The term "tyrannicide" does not apply to tyrants killed in battle or killed by an enemy in an armed conflict...
s (τυραννοκτόνοι) after they killed the Peisistratid tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...
Hipparchus, and were the preeminent symbol of democracy to ancient Athenians.
Background
The principal historical sources covering the two are ThucydidesThucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
in his History of the Peloponnesian War
History of the Peloponnesian War
The History of the Peloponnesian War is an account of the Peloponnesian War in Ancient Greece, fought between the Peloponnesian League and the Delian League . It was written by Thucydides, an Athenian general who served in the war. It is widely considered a classic and regarded as one of the...
(VI, 56-59) and The Constitution of the Athenians
Constitution of the Athenians
The Constitution of the Athenians is the name of either of two texts from Classical antiquity, one probably by Aristotle or a student of his, the other attributed to Xenophon, but not by him....
(XVIII) attributed to Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
or his school, but their story is documented by a great many other ancient writers, such as Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
and Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
. Herodotus claimed that Harmodius and Aristogeiton presumably were "Gephyraeans" i.e. Boeotia
Boeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...
ns of Syrian or Phoenician origin. Plutarch in his book On the malice of Herodotus
On the malice of Herodotus
Plutarch in his On the Malice of Herodotus, with the original title in Greek criticizes the historian Herodotus for all manner of prejudice and misrepresentation. It has been called the “first instance in literature of the slashing review.”...
criticized Herodotus for prejudice and misrepresentation and he argued that Harmodius and Aristogeiton were Euboea
Euboea
Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...
ns or Eretria
Eretria
Erétria was a polis in Ancient Greece, located on the western coast of the island of Euboea, south of Chalcis, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow Euboean Gulf. Eretria was an important Greek polis in the 6th/5th century BC. However, it lost its importance already in antiquity...
ns.
Peisistratus
Peisistratos (Athens)
Peisistratos was a tyrant of Athens from 546 to 527/8 BC. His legacy lies primarily in his institution of the Panathenaic Festival and the consequent first attempt at producing a definitive version for Homeric epics. Peisistratos' championing of the lower class of Athens, the Hyperakrioi, can be...
seized power in 561 BC and established a dictatorial regime. Peisistratus is usually called a tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...
, but in archaic Greek the word tyrannos does not mean a cruel and despotic ruler, merely one who took power by force. Peisistratus was in fact a very popular ruler, who made Athens wealthy and powerful, although the old aristocratic families he had driven from power hated him. When Peisistratus died in 528/527 BC, his son Hippias
Hippias (son of Pisistratus)
Hippias of Athens was one of the sons of Peisistratus, and was tyrant of Athens in the 6th century BC.Hippias succeeded Peisistratus in 527 BC, and in 525 BC he introduced a new system of coinage in Athens. His brother Hipparchus, who may have ruled jointly with him, was murdered by Harmodius and...
, with the help of his younger brother Hipparchus
Hipparchus (son of Pisistratus)
Hipparchus or Hipparch was a member of the ruling class of Athens. He was one of the sons of Peisistratos.Although he was said among Greeks to have been the tyrant of Athens along with his brother Hippias when Peisistratos died, about 528 BC...
, retained power. The two continued their father's policies, but their popularity declined after Hipparchus began to abuse the power of his position.
Hipparchus invited Harmodius' young sister to be the kanephoros
Kanephoros
The Kanephoros was an honorific office given to unmarried young women in ancient Greece, which involved the privilege of leading the procession to sacrifice at festivals; the highest honour was to lead the pompe at the Panathenaic Festival...
(to carry the ceremonial offering basket) at the Panathenaea festival, and then publicly chased her away on the pretext she was not a virgin, as required. This was an offense of such magnitude to Harmodius' family that he, together with Aristogeiton who was already fired by feelings of jealousy due to Hipparchus having made unrequited sexual advances toward Harmodius (possibly the motivation for Hipparchus's humiliation of Harmodius's sister), resolved to assassinate both Hippias and Hipparchus and thus to overthrow the tyranny.
According to Aristotle, it was Thessalos, the hot-headed son of Peisistratus´ Argive
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
concubine and thus half-brother to Hipparchus, who was the one to court Harmodius and drive off his sister.
The assassination
The plot – to be carried out by means of daggers hidden in the ceremonial myrtle wreaths on the occasion of the Panathenaic Games – involved a number of other co-conspirators. Thucydides claims that "this was the only day on which it was possible for the citizens who formed the parade to assemble armed without arousing suspicion". Aristotle disagrees, asserting that the custom of bearing weapons was introduced later, by the democracy.Seeing one of these greet Hippias in a friendly manner on the assigned day, the two thought themselves betrayed and rushed into action, ruining the carefully laid plans. They managed to kill Hipparchus, stabbing him to death as he was organizing the Panathenaean processions at the foot of the Acropolis
Acropolis
Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...
. Herodotus expresses surprise at this event, asserting that Hipparchus had received a clear warning concerning his fate in a dream. Harmodius was killed on the spot by spearmen of Hipparchus´ guards, while Aristogeiton was arrested shortly thereafter. Upon being told of the event, Hippias, feigning calm, ordered the marching Greeks to lay down their ceremonial weapons and to gather at an indicated spot. All those with concealed weapons or under suspicion were arrested, gaining Hippias a respite from the uprising.
Thucydides' identification of Hippias as the two's purported main target, rather than Hipparchus who was Aristogiton's rival erastes, has been suggested as a possible indication of bias on his part.
Aristogeiton's torture
AristotleAristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
in the Constitution of Athens preserves a tradition that Aristogeiton died only after being tortured in the hope that he would reveal the names of the other conspirators. During his ordeal, personally overseen by Hippias, he feigned willingness to betray his co-conspirators, claiming only Hippias' handshake as guarantee of safety. Upon receiving the tyrant's hand he is reputed to have berated him for shaking the hand of his own brother's murderer, upon which the tyrant wheeled and struck him down on the spot.
Leæna
Likewise, there is a tradition that Aristogeiton (or Harmodius)was in love with a courtesan (see hetaera
Hetaera
In ancient Greece, hetaerae were courtesans, that is to say, highly educated, sophisticated companions...
) by the name of Leæna (Λέαινα - meaning lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
ess) who also was kept by Hippias under torture – in a vain attempt to force her to divulge the names of the other conspirators – until she died. One version holds that previous to being tortured she had bitten off her tongue, afraid that her resolve would break from the pain of the torture. Another is that the Athenians, unwilling to honour a courtesan, placed a statue of a lioness without a tongue in the vestibule of the Acropolis
Acropolis of Athens
The Acropolis of Athens or Citadel of Athens is the best known acropolis in the world. Although there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is commonly known as The Acropolis without qualification...
simply to honor her fortitude in maintaining silence. The statue was made by the sculptor Amphicrates. It was also in her honor that Athenian statues of Aphrodite were from then on accompanied by stone lionesses [after Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
].
Aftermath
His brother's murder led Hippias to establish an even stricter dictatorship, which proved very unpopular and was overthrown, with the help of an army from SpartaSparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
, in 508. This was followed by the reforms of Cleisthenes
Cleisthenes
Cleisthenes was a noble Athenian of the Alcmaeonid family. He is credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in 508/7 BC...
, who established a democracy
Athenian democracy
Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 508 BC. Athens is one of the first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model,...
in Athens.
Apotheosis
Subsequent history came to identify the figures of Harmodius and Aristogeiton as martyrs to the cause of Athenian freedom, possibly for political and class reasons, and they became known as "the Liberators" (eleutherioi) and "the Tyrannicides" (tyrannophonoi). According to later writers, descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton's families were given hereditary privileges, such as sitesis (the right to take meals at public expense in the town hall), ateleia (exemption from certain religious duties), and proedria (front-row seats in the theater).A number of years after the event, it had become a received tradition among the Athenians to believe that Hipparchus was the elder of the brothers, and to fashion him as the tyrant.
Statues and artistic depictions
After the establishment of democracy, Cleisthenes commissioned the sculptor AntenorAntenor
Antenor was an Athenian sculptor, of the latter part of the 6th century BC. He was named after the mythological figure also called Antenor. He was the creator of the joint statues of the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton, set up by the Athenians on the expulsion of Hippias. These statues...
to produce a bronze statue group of Harmodius and Aristogeiton
Harmodius and Aristogeiton (sculpture)
A sculptural pairing of the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton was well known in the ancient world in two major versions but survives only in Roman marble copies...
. It was the first commission of its kind, and the very first statue to be paid for out of public funds, as the two were the first Greeks considered by their countrymen worthy of having statues raised to them.
According to Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, it was erected in the Kerameikos in 509, as part of a cenotaph
Cenotaph
A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...
of the heroes. Annual offerings (enagismata) were presented there by the polemarch
Polemarch
A polemarch was a senior military title in various ancient Greek city states . The title is composed out of the polemos and archon and translates as "warleader" or "warlord", one of the nine archontes appointed annually in Athens...
, the Athenian minister of war. There it stood alone as special laws prohibited the erection of any other statues in their vicinity. Upon its base was inscribed a verse by the poet Simonides
Simonides
* Simonides of Ceos, , a lyric poet* Semonides of Amorgos, an iambic poet* Flavius Simonides Agrippa, son of Roman Jewish Historian Josephus* Constantine Simonides, 19th-century forger of 'ancient' manuscripts...
: "A marvelous great light shone upon Athens when Aristogeiton and Harmodios slew Hipparchus".
The statue was taken as war booty in 480 BC by Xerxes I during the early Greco-Persian Wars
Greco-Persian Wars
The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire of Persia and city-states of the Hellenic world that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus...
and installed by him at Susa
Susa
Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....
. As soon as the Greeks vanquished the Persians at Salamis
Salamis Island
Salamis , is the largest Greek island in the Saronic Gulf, about 1 nautical mile off-coast from Piraeus and about 16 km west of Athens. The chief city, Salamina , lies in the west-facing core of the crescent on Salamis Bay, which opens into the Saronic Gulf...
, a new statue was commissioned. It was sculpted this time by Kritios
Kritios
Kritios was an Athenian sculptor, probably a pupil of Antenor, working in the early 5th century BCE, whose manner is on the cusp of the Late Archaic and the Severe style of Early Classicism in Attica. He was the teacher of Myron...
and Nesiotes, and set up in 477/476 BC. It is the one which served as template for the group we possess today, which was found in the ruins of Hadrian's villa
Hadrian's Villa
The Hadrian's Villa is a large Roman archaeological complex at Tivoli, Italy.- History :The villa was constructed at Tibur as a retreat from Rome for Roman Emperor Hadrian during the second and third decades of the 2nd century AD...
and is now in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. According to Arrian
Arrian
Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period...
, when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire, in 330, he discovered the statue at Susa and had it shipped back to Athens. When the statue, on its journey back, arrived at Rhodos
Rhodos
In Greek mythology, Rhodos or Rhodus also known as Rhode was the goddess of the island of Rhodes and wife of Helios, she was the daughter of Aphrodite and Poseidon. -References:* Grimal, Pierre, , Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 9780631201021....
it was given divine honors.
Several comments of the ancients regarding the statue have come down to us. When asked, in the presence of Dionysius
Dionysius
The Graeco-Roman name Dionysius, deriving from the name of the Thracian god Dionysus, was exceedingly common, and many ancient people, famous and otherwise, bore it. It remains a common name today in the form Dennis . The modern Greek form of the name is Dionysios or Dionysis. The Spanish form of...
, the tyrant of Syracuse
Syracuse, Italy
Syracuse is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture, and as the birthplace of the preeminent mathematician and engineer Archimedes. This 2,700-year-old city played a key role in...
, which type of bronze was the best, Antiphon the Sophist
Antiphon
An antiphon in Christian music and ritual, is a "responsory" by a choir or congregation, usually in Gregorian chant, to a psalm or other text in a religious service or musical work....
replied, "That of which the Athenians made the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton." Lycurgus
Lycurgus of Athens
Lycurgus was a logographer in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BCE.Lycurgus was born at Athens about 396 BC, and was the son of Lycophron, who belonged...
, in his oration against Leocrates, asserts that, "In the rest of Greece you will find statues erected in the public places to the conquerors in the games, but amongst you they are dedicated only to good generals, and to those who have destroyed tyrants. Other sculptors made statues of the heroes, such as Praxiteles
Praxiteles
Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue...
, who made two, also of bronze.
The statue group has been seen, in modern times, as an invitation to identify erotically and politically with the figures, and to become oneself a tyrannicide. According to Andrew Stuart, the statue "not only placed the homoerotic bond at the core of Athenian political freedom, but asserted that it and the manly virtues (aretai) of courage, boldness and self-sacrifice that it generated were the only guarantors of that freedom’s continued existence".
The configuration of the group is duplicated on a painted vase, a Panathenaic amphora
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from 400, and on a base-relief on the Elgin throne, dated to ca. 300.
Skolia
Another tribute to the two heroes was a hymn (skolionSkolion
Not to be confused with scholionSkolion , also scolion , were songs sung by invited guests at banquets in ancient Greece. Often extolling the virtues of the gods or heroic men, skolia were improvised to suit the occasion and accompanied by a lyre, which was handed about from singer to singer as the...
) praising them for restoring isonomia
Isonomia
Isonomia was a word used by Ancient Greek writers such as Herodotus and Thucydides to refer to some kind of popular government...
(equal distribution of justice) to the Athenians. It "may be referred to 500 BC or thereabouts", and is ascribed to Callistratus, an Athenian poet known only for this work. It is preserved by Athenaeus
Athenaeus
Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...
. Its popularity was such that "at every banquet
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
, nay, in the streets and in the meanest assembly of the common people, that convivial ode was daily sung", When sung, the singer would hold a branch of myrtle in his hand. This ode has been translated by many modern poets such as Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, who composed his Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius in 1827. The following translation was judged to be the best and most faithful of a number of versions attempted in Victorian England.
In myrtles veil'd will I the falchion wear,
For thus the patriot sword
Harmodius and Aristogiton bare,
When they the tyrant's bosom gored,
And bade the men of Athens be
Regenerate in equality.
Oh! beloved Harmodius! never
Shall death be thine, who liv'st for ever.
Thy shade, as men have told, inherits
The islands of the blessed spirits,
Where deathless live the glorious dead,
Achilles fleet of foot, and Diomed.
In myrtles veil'd will I the falchion wear,
For thus the patriot sword
Harmodius and Aristogiton bare,
When they the tyrant's bosom gored;
When in Minerva's festal rite
They closed Hipparchus' eyes in night.
Harmodius' praise, Aristogiton's name,
Shall bloom on earth with undecaying fame;
Who with the myrtle-wreathed sword
The tyrant's bosom gored,
And bade the men of Athens be
Regenerate in equality.
Other skolia existed, of which a few have survived, such as the following:
Harmodius, most beloved. Surely you are not at all dead,
But on the Isles of the Blessed you abide, they say,
The same place where swift-footed Achilles is,
Where roams worthy Diomedes, son of Tydeus, they say.
External links
- Livius, Harmodius and Aristogeiton by Jona Lendering