Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/47

ASSASSINATION OF EVAGOKAS. 25 laminian named Nikokreon formed a conspiracy against his life and dominion, but was detected, by a singular accident, before the moment of execution, and forced to seek safety in flight. He left behind him a youthful daughter in his harem, under the care of an eunuch (a Greek, born in Elis) named Thrasydaeus ; who, full of vindictive sympathy in his master's cause, made known the beauty of the young lady both to Evagoras himself and to Pnyta goras, the most distinguished of his sons, partner in the gallant defence of Salamis against the Persians. Both of them were tempted, each unknown to the other, to make a secret assignation for being conducted to her chamber by the eunuch ; both of them were there assassinated by his hand. 1 Thus perished a Greek of preeminent vigor and intelligence, remarkably free from the vices usual in Grecian despots, and form- 1 I give this incident, in the main, as it is recounted in the fragment of Theopompus, preserved as a portion of the abstract of that author by Pho tius (Theopom. Fr. Ill, ed. Wichers and ed. Didot). Both Aristotle (Polit. v, 8, 10) and Diodorus (xv, 47) allude to the assas- sination of Evagoras by the eunuch ; but both these authors conceive the story differently from Theopompus. Thus Diodorus says Nikokles, the eunuch, assassinated Evagoras, and became " despot of Salamis." This appears to be a confusion of Nikokles with Nikokreon. Nikokles was the son of Evagoras, and the manner in which Isokrates addresses him affords the surest proof that he had no hand in the death of his father. The words of Aristotle are fj (tm-deaif) TOV EVVOV%OV "Evayupa T& Kvir- piy 6ta -yap TO TTJV yvvalKa Trape/ltcrtfaj rbv vibv OVTOV UTCEKTEIVSV uf v(3pis* pevoc. So perplexing is the passage in its literal sense, that M. Bacthelemy St. Hilaire, in the note to his translation, conceives 6 evvovxof to be a sur- name or sobriquet given to the conspirator, whose real name was Nikokles. But this supposition is, in my judgment, contradicted by the fact, that Theo- pompus marks the same fact, of the assassin being an eunuch, by another word Qpaav daio'v TOV r]Hiappevo<;,b<;Tiv 'HAeZof TO yevof, etc. It is evident that Aristotle had heard the story differently from Theo- pompus, and we have to choose between the two. I prefer the version of the latter ; which is more marked as well as more intelligible, and which furnishes the explanation why Pnytagoras, who seems to have been the most advanced of the sons, being left in command of the besieged Salamis when Evagoras quitted it to solicit aid in Egypt, did not succeed his father, but left the succession to Nikokles, who was evidently (from the representation even of an eulogist like Isokrates) not a man of much ener- gy. The position of this eunuch in the family of Nikokreon seems to mark the partial prevalence of Oriental habits. VOL. X, 2