He presented himself as a “great friend of the poor” and the thetes, the lowest and most numerous of Solon’s four classes, saw in him a savior. One day he drove into the agora in a chariot, apparently wounded as if he had just escaped an assassination attempt and complaining of a plot against him because of his policies to help the underprivileged. However, the aged Solon arrived on the scene and claimed that the whole affair was a trick. He accused the people of being empty-headed: “You listen to the words of a crafty man, but not to what he does.”
The matter was raised at the ecclesia.
The meeting was packed with supporters of the Hills faction. They paid no attention to Solon’s objections and decided that Pisistratus should be allowed a bodyguard of fifty men armed with clubs. With their assistance the would-be tyrant then seized the Acropolis and made himself master of the city.
He took no steps to silence the ever-vociferous Solon; their common, loving past presumably protected the old man. The lawgiver had kept his integrity, but if he looked back he must have considered himself and his reforms to have failed. But he did not repine. He devoted himself to the joys of sex, wine, and the arts. He wrote up the story he had heard in Egypt about lost Atlantis. A year or so into the tyranny he died.
Megacles and his fellow-clansmen saw that the game was lost and immediately went back again into the safety of exile. Five years passed and the other two factions of the Plain and of the Coast put their differences on one side and joined forces to overpower and eject Pisistratus. The tyrant was driven from Attica. But the victors soon fell out.
The Alcmaeonids were not fools. They must have noticed that they and the other great clans lacked popular support. Without it, they would find it hard to hold on to their old monopoly of power. Their best option was to restore Pisistratus and govern through him, be his collective éminence grise. So despite the family’s hostility to tyranny, another Megacles, grandson of the man who massacred the followers of Cylon, did a deal. He would help Pisistratus return to power on condition that he marry his daughter. The aspirant despot agreed, although he already had a perfectly good wife and two healthy sons, Hippias and Hipparchus.
Pisistratus understood the value of publicity and of symbolism. He staged a grand entrance into Athens. He found an unusually tall young woman from a country district. Pisistratus dressed her up in a suit of armor, taught her how to present herself convincingly as a goddess, and drove her in procession into the city. Town criers went ahead shouting: “Men of Athens, give Pisistratus a warm welcome, for Athena herself is bringing him home to her own citadel. She honours him more than all men.” What better way of demonstrating that Pisistratus enjoyed divine approval and had a legitimate claim to rule?
Herodotus calls the stunt “the silliest idea I have ever heard of,” and claims that some people were taken in by the impersonation. Maybe so, but in an age that saw the birth of drama, most Athenians will have recognized a theatrical spectacular when they saw one, were entertained by it—and accepted the political point that Pisistratus was making.
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It was not long before Pisistratus fell from grace again. The problem was the arrangement with Megacles. He did not want to imperil the succession of his legitimate sons by new rivals, so, to avert the risks of pregnancy, he avoided ordinary sexual intercourse with his new wife and penetrated her up the anus. This was a grave insult and Megacles was furious when he found out about it. He withdrew his backing for Pisistratus and began assembling a grand alliance against him. The tyrant conceded without a fight and fled the country.
The second exile lasted ten tedious years. Pisistratus and his sons talked the matter over and agreed that they would work to regain power at Athens, however long it took. They went to Thrace, a large territory lying between Greece and the Hellespont, which was inhabited rather than governed by rough, semi-barbaric peoples. Evidently he was neither short of money or international contacts—nor sheer organizational energy.
First, he settled in the northeastern shoulder of Greece off the Thermaic Gulf. The king of the notoriously wild Macedonians may have made him a grant of land. In any event he established some kind of fortified outpost or town there. This was no mean achievement, for, although full of economic promise, the area was dangerous; a quarter of a century previously an Athenian colony had been wiped out by locals. Sometime later Pisistratus moved along the coast to the mountain range of Pangaeum north of the island of Thasos, where he exploited abundant silver and gold mines.
Pisistratus became very rich and in 546/5 recruited a small mercenary army. He won support for his cause from the important city-states of Argos in the Peloponnese and of Attica’s neighbor Thebes, as well as from the friendly tyrant of Naxos, the largest island of the Cyclades. Sensing that his moment had finally arrived, he moved to the town of Eretria on the island of Euboea. Attica lay just across the water. It was fairly obvious what was going to happen next and public sentiment in Athens rallied to the former tyrant. Once he was sure he would receive a warm reception, Pisistratus made his move. He sailed across the narrow strait and landed on the beach of Marathon.
Men from town and countryside flocked to meet and greet him. Herodotus commented sardonically: “These were people who found tyranny more welcome than freedom.” Little is known of the government of Athens during the decade of Pisistratus’s absence, but we will not go far wrong if we presume aristocratic misrule. An army of the self-defined better class of persons assembled to halt the invader.
The vicissitudes of his life had taught Pisistratus a lesson. He knew that his tyranny would not succeed by trickery, women dressed up as goddesses, the use of force, or ingenious alliances with former enemies. If he was to avoid going on his travels again he would have to rule by consent. During the coming battle he kept this very much in mind. He wanted as little blood to flow as possible.
The two sides met at a sanctuary of Athena near bee-loud Mount Hymettus. A seer gave Pisistratus a prophecy, which said:
The net has been cast, and the trap opened;
The tuna will swarm through the moonlit night.
Although obscure, the tone of the message was positive, and Pisistratus welcomed it.
He noticed that a shoal of optimistic Athenians had eaten their lunch and were either asleep or playing dice. He led his soldiers in a surprise attack, broke in on their siesta, and routed them. He sent his sons on horseback to chase after the fleeing enemy and when they had caught up with them to promise there would be no reprisals. They told them not to worry and go home.
Tyrant for the third and last time, Pisistratus wanted to show from the outset that he intended to run a tolerant and forgiving regime. Nobody need fear punishment or persecution—except perhaps for the Alcmaeonids.
6
Charioteers of the Soul
Pisistratus had a debt to pay.
Leader of the thetes, the unpropertied poor, he knew they had great expectations of his government. If he wanted to hold on to power, he would have to make a real difference to their lives. Fortunately, the means of doing so was to hand.
Most aristocrats had fled the country on the restoration of the tyranny and abandoned their estates. Solon had not dared, nor wished, to threaten their titles of ownership, but now the time had come for turning the screw.
If there was one group of people whom Pisistratus could not pardon it was the absent Alcmaeonids and their like. So he confiscated the vacant farming land, divided it into lots, and distributed it among those in greatest need—landless laborers in the fields and unemployed men in the city. He offered start-up loans to enable the new owners to make the most of their opportunity. Pisistratus’s aim was not only to develop agriculture, but also to encourage citizens to engage in private enterprise (rather than political activism).