Trojan War are represented as being bound by personal ties to Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon,
who are themselves married to two daughters of the Spartan basileus Tyndareus. In some instances,
tyrants could lay claim to a more direct Homeric connection. The sixth-century tyrant of Athens,
Peisistratus, claimed to be directly descended from Nestor, the basileus of Pylos who appears in both the
Homeric poems. In fact, Peisistratus is the name of Nestor’s youngest son in the Odyssey. This is rather
suspicious. It is all the more suspicious when we consider the fact that Peisistratus’ son Hipparchus,
whom we mentioned above as a patron of poetry, introduced the Homeric epics into Athens and instituted
formal recitations of the Iliad and the Odyssey at the festival of the Panathenaea, a festival that was
expanded on a grand scale by Hipparchus’ father, the tyrant Peisistratus. It seems all but certain that we
are dealing here with outright invention on the part of Peisistratus and his family. That is, the name and the
role of Peisistratus, the son of Nestor, were fabricated and included in Homer’s Odyssey in sixth-century
Athens in order to provide an ancestry for the tyrant of Athens (and his son) that could be represented as
connecting him with a Homeric character, namely Nestor, who was especially known for his wisdom and
sound advice.
“I am referring to your fellow citizen and mine, Hipparchus son of Peisistratus, from the family of
the Philaedae. He was the oldest and most sensible of Peisistratus' sons and, to name but a few of the
many shining examples of his good sense, he was the first to introduce the Homeric poems into this
land, requiring the rhapsodes at the Panathenaea to recite them from start to finish, taking turns as
they still do today. He also dispatched a ship from his navy to transport Anacreon of Teos to our city,
and he kept Simonides of Ceos always in attendance, inducing him to stay with lavish payments and
gifts. He did this out of a desire to educate the citizens, so that he would have the best possible
subjects to rule.” (Plato, Hipparchus 228 b–c, Socrates conversing with a fellow Athenian)Another feature of the Athenian festival of the Panathenaea, the festival especially promoted by the tyrant
Peisistratus, was the inclusion of athletic and equestrian contests which attracted the finest contestants
from all over the Greek world. In addition to patronage of the arts and substantial public works projects,
Greek tyrants typically involved themselves, either as participants or as sponsors, in major sporting
events. Myron, the tyrant of Sicyon, was a winner in the chariot race at the Olympic games in 648 BC, as
was his descendant, the tyrant Cleisthenes, about 70 years later. In 640 BC, the victor in one of the foot
races at Olympia was the Athenian Cylon, son-in-law of Theagenes, the tyrant of Megara; Cylon tried but
failed to make himself tyrant of Athens. Earlier in the seventh century, Pheidon, the tyrant of Argos,
marched with his army to Olympia and took control of the games, presiding over them himself as Hitler
was to do in Berlin in 1936. The Olympic games were the oldest, and for nearly two centuries the only,
Panhellenic games. They afforded tyrants and other members of the aristoi an opportunity to display their
individual accomplishments in the manner of Homeric heroes. For Greek athletic contests, such as
wrestling, boxing, foot races, and chariot races, are exclusively individual affairs, in which one person
attempts to assert superiority over all other contestants; there are no serious “team sports” in ancient
Greece. After the development of the hoplite phalanx and the virtual disappearance of the Homeric style
of warfare, in which the individual warrior sought to secure fame by distinguishing himself in single
combat, success in athletic contests became an especially desirable method of displaying one’s individual
worth. For this reason, in the sixth century BC, a need was felt to increase the number of venues in which
such displays could take place. In rapid succession, between 586 and 573 BC, three additional
Panhellenic games were founded, the Pythian games at Delphi, the Isthmian games near Corinth, and the
Nemean games near Argos. Shortly afterwards, in 566 BC, the festival of the Panathenaea at Athens was
reorganized and began to include athletic and equestrian events. Peisistratus himself may have been