The Historians' History of the World 03

At this period scarcely any great enterprise was undertaken in Greece without the sanction of an oracle; yet we cannot but feel some surprise, when we are informed by Thucydides, that Cylon consulted the Delphic god on the means by which he might overthrow the government of his country, and still more at the answer he is said to have received: that he must seize the citadel of Athens during the principal festival of Zeus. Cylon naturally interpreted the oracle to mean the Olympic games, the scene of his glory; and Thucydides thinks it worth observing, that the great Attic festival in honour of the same god occurred at a different season. At the time however which appeared to be prescribed by his infallible counsellor, Cylon proceeded to carry his plan into effect. With the aid of a body of troops furnished by Theagenes, and of his partisans, he made himself master of the citadel. Cylon and his friends soon found themselves besieged by the forces which the government called in from all parts of the country. When the provisions were all spent, and some had died of hunger, the remainder abandoned the defence of the walls, and took refuge in the temple of Athene.

The archon Megacles and his colleagues, seeing them reduced to the last extremity of weakness, began to be alarmed lest the sanctuary should be profaned by their death. To avoid this danger, they induced them to surrender on condition that their lives should be spared. Thucydides simply relates that the archons broke their promise, and put their prisoners to death when they had quitted their asylum, and that some were even killed at the altars of the “dread goddesses,” as the Eumenides, or Furies, were called, to which they had fled in the tumult. Plutarch adds a feature to the story, which seems too characteristic of the age to be considered as a later invention. More effectually to insure their safety, the suppliants, before they descended from the citadel, fastened a line to the statue of Minerva, and held it in their hands, as they passed through the midst of their enemies. But the line chancing to break as they were passing by the sanctuary of the Eumenides, Megacles, with the approbation of his colleagues, declared that they were no longer under the safeguard of the goddess, who had thus visibly rejected their supplication, and immediately proceeded to arrest them. His words were the signal of a general massacre, from which even the awful sanctity of the neighbouring altars did not screen the fugitives: none escaped but those who found means of imploring female compassion.

If the conduct of the principal actors in this bloody scene had been marked only by treachery and cruelty, it would never have exposed them to punishment, perhaps not even to reproach. But they had been guilty of a flagrant violation of religion; and Megacles and his whole house were viewed with horror, as men polluted with the stain of sacrilege. All public disasters and calamities were henceforth construed into signs of the divine displeasure: and the surviving partisans of Cylon did not fail to urge that the gods would never be appeased until vengeance should have been taken on the offenders. Yet if this had been the only question which agitated the public mind, it might have been hushed without producing any important consequences. But it was only one ingredient in the ferment which the conflict of parties, the grievances of the many, and the ambition of the few, now carried to a height that called for some extraordinary remedy. Hence Cylon’s conspiracy and its issue exercised an influence on the history of Athens, which has rendered it forever memorable, as the event which led the way to the legislation of Solon.e

FOOTNOTES

[9] [According to some, the name Erechtheus was imported into “history” from the legend of the contest between Minerva (Athena) and Neptune (Poseidon Erechtheus) for the Acropolis. Erechtheus, though defeated, was permitted to remain; later he was thought of as a hero, and finally given a place along with Cecrops (the imaginary ancestor of the Cecropes) in the list of kings.]

[10] Payne Knight has supposed Theseus a merely fabulous personage, because he is not mentioned in any passage of Homer’s poems, excepting one which he has reckoned not genuine. It seems bold to oppose such negative testimony to the positive of Thucydides and Cicero.

[11] The successors of Medon were Acastus, Archippus, Thersippus, Phorbas, Megacles, Diognetus, Pherecles, Ariphron, Thespieus, Agamestor, Æschylus, Alcmæon (Ol. VII, 1. B.C. 752).

[12] His predecessors were Charops, Æsimedes, Clidicus; he was succeeded by Leocrates, Apsander, and Eryxias. Creon, the first annual archon, enters upon his office B.C. 684.

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CHAPTER IX. SOME CHARACTERISTIC INSTITUTIONS