24. The Sacrilegious Trick That Freed Athens From Tyranny
After Peisistratos died in 527 BC, he was succeeded as co-tyrants by his sons Hippias and Hipparchus. The duo governed Athens competently and with a light hand, until Hipparchus was assassinated in 514 BC in a private feud stemming from a romance that went bad. After his brother’s assassination, Hippias grew paranoid, and his rule became oppressive as he lashed out indiscriminately at enemies real and imagined. As the number of Hippias’ victims and exiles forced to flew Athens grew, the popularity that tyranny had enjoyed in his father’s day declined. One exile was Cleisthenes, who began plotting with other exiles to overthrow the tyranny.
Invasion was considered, but Hippias had a well-equipped army, while the exiles did not, and lacked the funds for an army of their own. So they set out to secure aid from Sparta, which had the Greek world’s best army, to liberate Athens. The Spartans were famous for their piety, so to get them to help, the Athenian exiles bribed the priests of Delphi, the Greek world’s most important religious site and home of the Oracle of Delphi. The Oracle, which for centuries had given petitioners cryptic answers that could be interpreted in a variety of ways, suddenly began giving every Spartan who showed up the same uncryptic answer: “Liberate Athens!” So the Spartans marched into Attica in 508 BC, liberated Athens, then marched back home.
