Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/127

MILD GOVERNMENT OF PEIS1STRATUS. 109 thority, though it seems that we ought to make some allowance for the circumstance of Thucydides being connected by descent with the Peisistratid family. 1 The judgment of Herodotus is also very favorable respecting Peisistratus ; that of Aristotle favorable, yet qualified, since he includes these despots among the list of those who undertook public and sacred works with the deliberate view of impoverishing as well as of occupying their subjects. This supposition is countenanced by the prodigious scale upon which the temple of Zeus Olympius at Athens was begun by Peisistratus, a scale much exceeding either the Parthenon or the temple of Athene Polias, both of which were erected in later times, when the means of Athens were decidedly larger, 2 and her disposition to demonstrative piety certainly no way diminished. It was left by him unfinished, nor was it ever completed until the Roman emperor Hadrian undertook the task. Moreover, Peisistratus introduced the greater Panathe- naic festival, solemnized every four years, in the third Olympic CVVIOVTUV. It is, indeed, possible to construe this passage so as to refer both TUV filv and TUV ?E to xpr//j<nuv, which would signify that Peisistratus obtained his funds partly from the river Strymon, and thus serve as basis to the statement of Dr. Thirlwall. But it seems to me that the better way of construing the words is to refer TUV piv to %P r l/< l < tTUV avv66oiai, and rtiv 6e to eTtiKovpoiai, treating both of them as genitives absolute. It is highly improbable that he should derive money from the Strymon : it is highly probable that his mercenaries came from thence. 1 Hermippus (ap. Marcellin. Vit. Thucyd. p. ix,) and the Scholiast on Thucyd. i, 20, affirm that Thucydides was connected by relationship with the Peisistratidae. His manner of speaking of them certainly lends counte- nance to the assertion ; not merely as he twice notices their history, onca briefly (i, 20) and again at considerable length (vi, 54-59), though it does not lie within the direct compass of his period, but also as he so emphati- cally announces his own personal knowledge of their family relations. "On 6e npeaflvraToc uv 'I~7r/af Tjpzev, slfi&f fiev KO.I anoy uitpifleoTepov uh^uv laxvpi&fiai (vi. 55). Aristotle (Politic, v, 9, 21) mentions it as a report (Qaai) that Peisfstra tus obeyed the summons to appear before the Areopagus ; Plutarch adds that, the person who had summoned him did not appear to bring the cause to trial (Vit. Solon 31), which is not at all surprising: compare Thacyd rl, 56, 57. f Aristot. Politic, r, 9, 4 Pikaearchus, Vita Grseciae, pp. 140-166, vi fc'uhr; Pnusan. i, 18, 8.