The Assassination Of The Athenian Tyrant Hipparchus In 514 BC By Harmodius And Aristogeiton. This event was celebrated by the new democratic regime (after 510 B.C.) with a statue group which was
stolen by the Persians in 480 B.C. The group was replaced, and is known to us from copies of the Roman period. Soon afterwards (c.470-460 B.C.) an Athenian artist offered this version of the event with
figures which are inspired by the statues of the replacement group without copying them, but he added the victim.
Thus, when Pisistratus' sons were expelled in 510 by a combination of exile, intrigue, and Spartan arms (below, p. 36) and the old guard thought that they could resume old-style politics, they found that the
audience had changed. One of them, Cleisthenes, head of the great noble house that had supported Solon, the Alcmeonidae, sensed this change sooner than his rivals and, in Herodotus' words, 'added the people
to his faction, the people who had previously been ignored, now by offering them a share in everything ...' Cleisthenes' own motives may have been selfish; some of the things he did may have been designed to
secure his own or his family's political future. That is no matter. He offered and with popular support gave Attica a new socio-political structure which served it well for some 200 years.
The essence of the new system was the recognition that small local units, country villages or townlets, wards of the city, should control their own affairs independently of the local aristocrat. Each chose its
mayor and its council, and minded its own business. Then, for state purposes, these 'demes' as they were called, were grouped into larger more or less coherent geographical blocks (there are some signs of
gerrymandering here) and from these blocks were constructed ten new tribes, each with one block from what were called the 'Plain', the 'Coast', and the 'City'. Upon the tribes were then based not only the army,
but other parts of the administrative system, above all the Solonian council, now fifty from each tribe, each contingent serving as a standing committee of the whole council for one-tenth of the year.
In this way an Athenian in his village could make use of whatever self-confidence he may have had; at the same time, at state level, he could develop that sense of nationality which the tyranny had begun to
encourage. It is never easy to judge how far legislation promotes a change of attitude, how far it merely recognizes one. Of Athens we can only say that Cleisthenes' legislation came in time to avoid trouble and
that it was enough in accord with what was wanted to allow Athenians to do what later they did. He did not tamper with existing social groups, with their cherished cults, or with their prestige. He had no need
to: he merely created a new structure and gave it the authority.
The Leadership of Sparta
One thing Athenians did was to fight against the Persian invasions, and morally theirs was the credit for Greek victory. But technically it was taken for granted by the Greeks who chose to resist that Sparta
should be their leader. Why? Thanks to the Lycurgan rules Sparta had the only professional army in Greece. She could field 5,000 or so hoplites of her own, backed by a similar number of adequately trained
perioikoi and many more thousands of lightly armed helots. But this army had no great record of success in the sixth century, and it was as much or more due to diplomacy, given weight by the threat of that
army, that she held the respect that she did.
Herodotus says that, thanks to Lycurgus, the Spartans, 'their soil being good and the population numerous ... sprang up rapidly to power and became a flourishing people. In consequence they soon ceased to be
satisfied and to stay quiet ...' In other words, they were not content to enjoy the relaxed pleasures of Alcman but chose to try to extend their domination into northern Peloponnese. They were opposed by one