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Let me suppose that Hippocrates, instead of desiring your acquaintance, wished to become acquainted with the young man Zeuxippus of Heraclea, who has lately been in Athens, and he had come to him as he has come to you, and had heard him say, as he has heard you say, that every day he would grow and become better if he associated with him: and then suppose that he were to ask him, 'In what shall I become better, and in what shall I grow? Zeuxippus would answer, 'In painting. And suppose that he went to Orthagoras the Theban, and heard him say the same thing, and asked him, 'In what shall I become better day by day? he would reply, 'In flute-playing. Now I want you to make the same sort of answer to this young man and to me, who am asking questions on his account.
A man of low birth, Orthagoras, obtained the tyranny, and it continued in his family for a century, the longest tyranny in Greece, because the gentlest. Sicyon was of no marked influence at the period we are about to enter, though governed by an able tyrant, Clisthenes, whose policy it was to break the Dorian nobility, while uniting, as in a common interest, popular laws and regal authority.
For, as the great Florentine has well observed, "To found well a government, one man is the best once established, the care and execution of the laws should be transferred to many." That of Orthagoras and his sons in Sicyon. "Of all governments," says Aristotle, "that of an oligarchy, or of a tyrant, is the least permanent."
The tyranny of Orthagoras and his family at Sicyon, it is true, continued longer than any other: the reason for which was, that they used their power with moderation, and were in many particulars obedient to the laws; and, as Clisthenes was an able general, he never fell into contempt, and by the care he took that in many particulars his government should be popular.
However, as he rejected his brother's advice, and treated him with contempt, Timoleon took Aeschylus, his kinsman, brother of the wife of Timophanes, and his friend the seer, whom Theopompus calls Satyrus, but Ephorus and Timaeus call Orthagoras, and, after an interval of a few days, again went to his brother.
When his single admonition was rejected and contemned by him, he makes a second attempt, taking with him Aeschylus his kinsman, brother to the wife of Timophanes, and a certain diviner, that was his friend, whom Theopompus in his history calls Satyrus, but Ephorus and Timaeus mention in theirs by the name of Orthagoras.
Weary of the oppression of the nobles, they finally rose in rebellion and overthrew the government. Orthagoras, once a cook, but now leader of the rebels, became master of the state, and he and his descendants ruled it for a hundred years. The last of this dynasty was Cleisthenes, a just and moderate ruler, concerning whom we have a story to tell.
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