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Updated: June 21, 2025
Harmodius and Aristogiton had planned to kill Hippias first as he was arranging the order of the procession outside the city, but, upon approaching the spot where he was standing, they were thunderstruck at beholding one of the conspirators in close conversation with the despot.
Harmodius was so quick that he managed to kill Hipparchus; but, before his companions could join and protect him, he was cut down by the tyrants' guards. Aristogiton, his friend, rushed forward to save him, but was made prisoner, and dragged before Hippias, who bade him tell the names of his companions.
Then would my name be immortalised among the patriot heroes of antiquity, and my memory, like that of Harmodius and Aristogiton, be honoured by statues erected at the public expense."
It is also said that, when submitted to the torture, Aristogiton, with all the craft of revenge, asserted the firmest friends of Hippias to have been his accomplices. Thus harassed by distrust, Hippias resolved to guard by terror a power which clemency had failed to render secure. He put several of the citizens to death.
Harmodius and Aristogiton are in everybody's mouth; the memory of Leonidas the Lacedæmonian and Epaminondas the Theban is as fresh as ever. Those philosophers were not acquainted with the many instances in our country to give a list of whom would take up too much time who, we see, considered death desirable as long as it was accompanied with honor.
Solicited without success by Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, Harmodius told Aristogiton, and the enraged lover, afraid that the powerful Hipparchus might take Harmodius by force, immediately formed a design, such as his condition in life permitted, for overthrowing the tyranny.
Aristogiton, a common accuser, was a terrible man of war within the assembly, always inflaming the people to battle, but when the muster-roll came to be produced, he appeared limping on a crutch, with a bandage on his leg; Phocion descried him afar off, coming in, and cried out to the clerk, "Put down Aristogiton, too, as lame and worthless."
Aristogiton and Harmodius were to begin, but were to be supported immediately by their accomplices against the bodyguard. The conspirators were not many, for better security, besides which they hoped that those not in the plot would be carried away by the example of a few daring spirits, and use the arms in their hands to recover their liberty.
Harmodius and Aristogiton had already their daggers and were getting ready to act, when seeing one of their accomplices talking familiarly with Hippias, who was easy of access to every one, they took fright, and concluded that they were discovered and on the point of being taken; and eager if possible to be revenged first upon the man who had wronged them and for whom they had undertaken all this risk, they rushed, as they were, within the gates, and meeting with Hipparchus by the Leocorium recklessly fell upon him at once, infuriated, Aristogiton by love, and Harmodius by insult, and smote him and slew him.
He invited several distinguished poets, such as Anacreon and Simonides, to his court. The people appear to have been contented with their rule; and it was only an accidental circumstance which led to their overthrow and to a change in the government. Their fall was occasioned by the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who were attached to each other by a most intimate friendship.
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