Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Book IILytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
History
Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Book II
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Athens (Greece) -- History
It is also said that, when submitted to the torture, Aristogiton, with
all the craft of revenge, asserted the firmest friends of Hippias to
have been his accomplices. Thus harassed by distrust, Hippias
resolved to guard by terror a power which clemency had failed to
render secure. He put several of the citizens to death. According to
the popular traditions of romance, one of the most obnoxious acts of
his severity was exercised upon a woman worthy to be the mistress of
Aristogiton. Leaena, a girl of humble birth, beloved by that
adventurous citizen, was sentenced to the torture, and, that the pain
might not wring from her any confession of the secrets of the
conspiracy, she bit out her tongue. The Athenians, on afterward
recovering their liberties, dedicated to the heroine a brazen lioness,
not inappropriately placed in the vicinity of a celebrated statue of
Venus [243]. No longer depending on the love of the citizens, Hippias
now looked abroad for the support of his power; he formed an alliance
with Hippoclus, the prince of Lampsacus, by marrying his daughter with
the son of that tyrant, who possessed considerable influence at the
Persian court, to which he already directed his eyes--whether as a
support in the authority of the present, or an asylum against the
reverses of the future. [244]
It was apparently about a year before the death of Hipparchus, that
Stesagoras, the nephew and successor of that Miltiades who departed
from Athens to found a colony in the Thracian Chersonesus, perished by
an assassin's blow. Hippias, evidently deeming he had the right, as
sovereign of the parent country, to appoint the governor of the
colony, sent to the Chersonesus in that capacity the brother of the
deceased, a namesake of the first founder, whose father, Cimon, from
jealousy of his power or repute, had been murdered by the sons of
Pisistratus [245]. The new Miltiades was a man of consummate talents,
but one who scrupled little as to the means by which to accomplish his
objects. Arriving at his government, he affected a deep sorrow for
the loss of his brother; the principal nobles of the various cities of
the Chersonesus came in one public procession to condole with him; the
crafty chief seized and loaded them with irons, and, having thus
insnared the possible rivals of his power, or enemies of his designs,
he secured the undisputed possession of the whole Chersonesus, and
maintained his civil authority by a constant military force. A
marriage with Hegesipyle, a daughter of one of the Thracian princes,
at once enhanced the dignity and confirmed the sway of the young and
aspiring chief. Some years afterward, we shall see in this Miltiades
the most eminent warrior of his age--at present we leave him to an
unquiet and perilous power, and return to Hippias.
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