Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/186

174 PEISISTRATUS. The Spartans before long discovered the trick that had been played upon them by the Alc- maeonidae and the Delphic oracle ; and their jealousy of the Athenians being stimulated by the oracles, collected by Hipparchus, which Cleomenes found in the Acropolis, in which manifold evils were portended to them from the Athenians, they began to repent of having driven out their old friends the Peisistratidae, and accordingly sent for Hippias, who came to Sparta. Having summoned a congress of tlieir allies, they laid the matter before them, and proposed that they should unite their forces and restore Hippias. But the vehe- ment remonstrances of the Corinthian deputy Sosicles induced the allies to reject the proposal, Hippias, declining the offers that were made him of the town of Anthemus by Amyntas, and of lolcos by the Thessalians, returned to Sigeum (Herod, v. 90 — 94), and addressed himself to Artaphernes. (Respecting the embassy of the Athenians to counteract his intrigues, see Arta- phernes.) He appears then with his family to have gone to the court of Dareius (Herod. I. c.) : while here they urged Dareius to inflict vengeance on Athens and Eretria, and Hippias himself ac- companied the expedition sent under Datis and Artaphernes. From Eretria he led them to the plain of Marathon, as the most suitable for their landing, and arranged the troops when they had disembarked. While he was thus engaged, we are told, he happened to sneeze and cough violentlj', and, most of his teeth being loose from his great age, one of them fell out, and was lost in the sand ; an incident from which Hippias augured that the expedition would miscarry, and that the hopes which he had been led by a dream to enter- tain of being restored to his native land before his death were buried with his tooth (Herod, vi. 102, 107). Where and when he died cannot be ascer- tained with certainty. According to Suidas (s. v. 'iTTTTias) he died at Lemnos on his return. Accord- ing to Cicero {ad Att ix. 10) and Justin (ii. 9) he fell in the battle of Marathon ; though from his advanced age it seems rather unlikely that he should have been engaged in the battle. The family of the tyrant are once more mentioned (Herod, vii. 6) as at the court of Persia, urging Xerxes to invade Greece. Hippias was in his youth the object of the affection of a man named Charmus (who had pre- viously stood in a similar relation to Peisistratus ; Plut. Solon. 1), and subsequently married his daughter (Athen. xiv. p. 609, d). His first wife was Myrrhine, the daughter of Callias, by whom he had five children (Thucyd. vi. 55). One of his sons, named Peisistratus, was Archon Eponymus during the tyranny of his father. Of Archedice, daughter of Hippias, mention has already been made. According to Thucydides (/. c.) Hippias was the only one of the legitimate sons of Peisistratus who had children. What became of Thessalus we do not know. He is spoken of as a high-spirited youth (Heraclid. Pont, 1), and there is a story in Diodorus {Fragm. lib. X. Olyrap, Ixvi.) that he refused to have any share in the tyranny of his brothers, and was held in great esteem by the citizens. [C. P. M.] PEISrSTRATUS. 1 . A Lacedaemonian, who founded Noricus, in Phrygia (Eustath. ad Dionys. •62). 2. A king of Orchomenus, in the time of the PEITHAGORAS. Peloponnesian war, who became the object of the hatred of the oligarchical party, and was murdered in an assembly of the senate. To avoid detection his body was cut to pieces, and the parts of it carried away by the senators under their robes. Tlesimachus, the son of Peisistratus, who was privy to the conspiracy, quieted the populace, who were incensed at the disappearance of their king, by a story of his having appeared to him in a super- human form after he had left the earth. (Plut. Farall. vol, ii. p. 313,b.) 3. A Boeotian statesman, who took the side of the Romans in the war between them and Philip, king of Macedonia. In conjunction with Zeux- ippus, he was instrumental in inducing the Boeo- tians to attach themselves to Flamininus. After the battle of Cynoscephalae, when the faction of Brachyllas gained the upper hand, Peisistratus and Zeuxippus had Brachyllas assassinated, a crime for which Peisistratus was condemned to death (Liv. xxxiii. 27, 28 ; Polybius, Leyat. viii). 4. A native of Cyzicus. In the war between the Romans and Mithridates, when Cyzicus was besieged by Mithridates (b, c, 74), Peisistratus was general of the Cyzicenes, and successfully defended the city against Mithridates (Appian, de Bello Mitli. 73). [C. P. M] PEISON (nefo-ojj/), one of the thirty tyrants established at Athens in B. c. 404. He was one of the authors of the proposal that, as several of the resident foreigners were discontented with the new government, and thus afforded a specious pretext for plundering them, each of the Thirty should select for himself one of the wealthy aliens, and, having put him to death, should appropriate his property. The proposal was adopted in spite of the opposition of Theramenes, and Peison went with Melobius and Mnesitheides to apprehend Lysias and his brother Polemarchus. Lysias, being left alone with Peison, bribed him with the offer of a talent to allow him to escape ; but Peison, after the most solemn oaths, seized all the money he could lay his hands upon, refusing to leave Lysias even as much as would serve for the ex- penses of his jourpey, and then delivered him up to Melobius and Mnesitheides. (Xen. Hell. ii, 3. §§ 2, 21, &c. ; Lysias, c. Eratostli. pp. 120, 121.) [E. E.J PEITHA'GORAS,or PEITHA'GORES (n«. Qayopas, HeiOayopris). 1. A tyrant of Selinus in Sicily, from whom the Selinuntians freed them- selves (b. c. 519) by the help of Euryleon of Sparta (Herod, v. 46; Plut. Lj/c. 20). [Dorieus ; Euryleon.] 2. A soothsayer, brother of Apollodorus of Ara- phipolis, who was one of the generals of Alexander the Great. According to Aristobulus (ap. Arr. Anab. vii. 18), Apollodorus, having joined the king on his return from his Indian expedition and ac- companied him to Ecbatana, imagined that he had grounds for dreading his displeasure, and wrote therefore to Peithagoras at Babylon, to inquire whether any danger threatened him from Alexan- der or Hephaestion. The answer was that he had nothing to fear from Hephaestion, who (so the vic- tims portended) would soon be removed out of his way. The next d{iy Hephaestion's death took place (b.c. 324,) and not long after Apollodorus re- ceived the same message from Peithagoras with respect to Alexander. Here again the event justi- fied the prediction (Plut. Alex-. 73). [E. E.J