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And in those very things which you allege for the Alcmaeonidae, you show yourself a sycophant.
In lineage he was a striking contrast to the plebeian orators of the day. He traced his paternal descent from Ajax, whilst on his mother's side he claimed relationship with the Alcmaeonidae and consequently with Pericles. On the death of his father Clinias Pericles had become his guardian. From early youth the conduct of Alcibiades was marked by violence, recklessness, and vanity.
Now, as the Lacedaemonians knew that if he could be removed from power they would find the Athenians much more easy to deal with, they bade them "drive forth the accursed thing," alluding to Pericles' descent from the Alcmaeonidae by his mother's side, as we are told by Thucydides the historian.
The illustrious family of the Alcmaeonidae was especially concerned in this act of murder and sacrilege, and the Spartans, in reviving the memory of an ancient crime, were aiming a blow at Pericles, who was descended on his mother's side from the Alcmaeonidae.
Hippias, after reigning three years longer over the Athenians, was deposed in the fourth by the Lacedaemonians and the banished Alcmaeonidae, and went with a safe conduct to Sigeum, and to Aeantides at Lampsacus, and from thence to King Darius; from whose court he set out twenty years after, in his old age, and came with the Medes to Marathon.
After this, he accuses of treason the Alcmaeonidae who showed themselves generous men, and delivered their country from tyranny. The Alcmaeonidae were so offended at this villany, that they expelled the tyrant. Now that the Lacedaemonians might have no less share of his malice than the Athenians, behold how he bespatters Othryadas, the man most admired and honored by them.
Under the genius of the Pisistratidae, Athens had rapidly advanced in power, and the restoration of the Alcmaeonidae might have seemed to the Spartan sagacity but another term for the establishment of that former oligarchy which had repressed the intellect and exhausted the resources of an active and aspiring people.
For a little after, acquitting the Alcmaeonidae, he charges others with the treason. "For the shield indeed was shown, nor can it be denied," says he, as if he had seen it himself.
Cleomenes by a public herald proclaimed the expulsion of Clisthenes, upon a frivolous pretence that the Alcmaeonidae were still polluted by the hereditary sacrilege of Cylon.
The conspiracy thus failed; but its suppression was attended with a long train of melancholy consequences. The whole family of the Alcmaeonidae was believed to have become tainted by the daring act of sacrilege committed by Megacles; and the friends and partisans of the murdered conspirators were not slow in demanding vengeance upon the accursed race.
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