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Demos: The Men Who Made and Perfected Ancient Athenian Democracy

Khalid Elhassan January 13, 2025 16 min

Democracy - Ancient Athens — Ancient Athens. Imgur

13. The Gay Lovers’ Spat That Rocked a Tyranny

Democracy - Ancient Greek vase depicting the assassination of Hipparchus — Ancient Greek vase depicting the assassination of Hipparchus. Martin von Wagner Museum, Wurzburg, Germany

At first, Hippias and Hipparchus governed Athens competently and with a light hand. Then Hipparchus was assassinated in 514 BC at the hand of two gay lovers, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, in a private feud that stemmed from an attempt at romance that went bad. Hipparchus had hit on Harmodius, the eromenus, or younger gay lover, of Aristogeiton. Harmodius shot Hipparchus down, and told Aristogen what had happened. The spurned Hipparchus then set out to get some payback. He invited Harmodius’ kid sister to play a role at a religious festival, then publicly berated and chased her away as ineligible because she was not a virgin. That shamed Harmodius’ family. In retaliation, Harmodius and Aristogeiton decided to assassinate both Hipparchus and his brother Hippias, and free Athens of tyranny. They were only partially successful. At the Panathenaian festival, they stabbed Hipparchus to death, but only wounded Hippias.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.