Appendix 1—
Herodotus and Aristotle on Peisistratus's Rise to Power
—Herodotus 1.59.3–6, ed. C. Hude (Oxford, 1927)
—Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 13.4–5, ed. M. Chambers
(Leipzig, 1986)
Twentieth-century reconstructions of the political alignments in Athens shortly before Peisistratus seized power for the first time as tyrant of Athens in the archonship of Comeas (561/60) take their point of departure from the new material in the Athenaion Politeia of Aristotle discovered in 1890. The primacy of Herodotus's account, indeed, was no more formally denied than was Aristotle's dependence on Herodotus, who, of course, not only stood much closer to the events but was the first writer to establish the literary tradition before oral history was dissipated by time. However, the sudden concentration on Aristotle, not only as a new source but as an intellect entitled to the greatest respect, resulted in a subtle but nonetheless decisive shift in the weight assigned to the testimony of each writer—with results that have not greatly aided our understanding of this vital epoch of Athenian history.
The influence of that greatest of scholars, Wilamowitz, has proved commanding in his willingness to accommodate Ath. Pol. 13.4–5 to the parallel passage in Herodotus (1.59). He asserted that "rather close agreement" prevails between Herodotus and Aristotle in their description of the three parties that controlled Attica when Peisistratus rose to power—except for Aristotle's correction of hyperakrioi to diakrioi and his characterization of Peisistratus's party as democratic.[1]
To Wilamowitz was added the prodigious influence of Georg Busolt, who reaffirmed the existence of the three great parties.[2] Busolt explained, in accordance with Aristotle, that "Peisistratos had acquired repute and influence because of his deeds in war. His friendly ways and nurturing of decidedly democratic principles won him the favor and trust of the people. Then he succeeded in forming the third party, the core of which consisted of the poor country people of the Diakria."[3] To this group Peisistratus added those impoverished by the seisachtheia and still another element—those who, though freed from debt by Solon, remained without means—and, further, the former hektemeroi. These people (Busolt continued) wanted redistribution of land and a change in the state.
In essence, therefore, it was an agrarian Volkspartei that stood in direct opposition to the rich possessors of land whom they hated, the "men of the plain." The revolutionary character of the group naturally attracted all of those who had anything to fear from the existent order of the state or something to hope from a revolution.[4]
It should be observed that Busolt concentrated on Peisistratus's opposition to the "men of the plain," downplaying the paralioi (men of the seacoast) in this context. The reason (one may infer) is to be found in a subsequent development, the agreement between Megacles and Peisistratus, as well as in the conviction, promoted by Aristotle, that the Alcmeonids were political "moderates." (The underlying assumption proved attractive to later scholars; Hignett,[5] for instance, would later assert that the Hyperakrioi were "a wing" of the Paralioi that "decided to break away" in the interests of vigorous and progressive government.) On the other hand, Busolt made an important observation in the course of his discussion, which, unfortunately, he failed to develop—viz., that a state of feud existed between the men of the plain and the men of the coast before Peisistratus involved himself in the political struggle.[6] That fact, which derives from Herodotus, though duly noted by Busolt, is allowed to drop as if irrelevant to his reconstruction of the tripartite division of Athens before Peisistratus's seizure of the tyranny.
Beloch took essentially the same view of the territorial divisions and their importance, though he espoused an idiosyncratic view of the entire sequence of events.[7] He was followed by his pupil De Sanctis,[8] who distinguished between the political coloration of the Diakrioi and Paralioi on the grounds that the latter, though democratic in orientation, were as averse to tyranny as they were to oligarchy. Hignett continued along the lines sketched by Busolt. He was careful to note that Peisistratus's "revolutionary party" was created "when the other two parties were already in existence," that the nucleus of the party (except for the wing torn from the Paralioi) lay in east Attica, and that "its adherents must have been drawn from all parts of Attica."[9] Again following Busolt, Hignett asserted that "by feats of arms [in the war against Megara,
Peisistratus] . . . acquired fame and popularity, and before long he was able with the support of his party to seize the Acropolis and establish 'tyranny' in Athens."[10]
In 1973, building on work done shortly before,[11] Victor Ehrenberg well presented the discussion as it has been refined in recent years, writing that
the three regions undoubtedly existed, although they were by no means as accurately defined as is often assumed . . . The regions frequently overlapped, especially in the mesogaea, the plain of the interior. They are best understood as popular concepts, and therefore not clear-cut geographical units. . . . Nevertheless, if we avoid any strict definitions, it may still be right to divide sixth-century Attica into these three parts. It is less certain to what extent each region contained its own special type of people. . . . The main fault of the division, however, seems to be that the city has no place in it, or rather belonged to both pedion and paralia; moreover, it is known that Peisistratus as the head of the diacrii found substantial support in the city. Most of the real clashes among the groups must have occurred just there.[12]
Ehrenberg concludes:
There were three factions, led by individual members of the aristocracy and loosely connected with regional areas, where they probably found the bulk of their respective supporters. On the whole, it is the old picture of feuding clans, but the conflicts within the noble class went deeper now, as the aristocrats were facing a new developing society in which the non-nobles played a decisive part. . . . Moreover, the danger of a one-man rule had, by then, complicated the issues. We cannot be sure whether Lycurgus, or even Megacles, aimed at becoming tyrants, though we know from Solon that the idea was in the air. The rivalry of the great clans was probably as strong as ever.[13]
It will be apparent from this that the picture presented by Wilamowitz has acquired certain shadings, qualifications, and alterations of detail, but the tripartitive division, rooted in local segments of Attica and generative of the civil discord in which Peisistratus triumphed, remains clear to view. The dilemma, of course, consists in the fact that the local
origins of the "three contestants" are irrelevant to the material facts, just as control of the city of Athens, which Peisistratus achieved, is irrelevant to the stasis between the men of the plain and the men of the coast. The vendetta between Megacles and Lycurgus was an aristocratic feud on which the existence of a putative "third faction" from beyond the hills in east Attica has no bearing whatever. It is equally plain that the local patriotism of the people in east Attica can have had no bearing on the decision of the city population in Athens to confer the tyranny.
The difficulty is not eliminated by allowing Peisistratus some measure of influence in the other regions: the nature of regional politics based on feudal loyalty makes it impossible to believe that any influence we may (gratuitously) confer on Peisistratus in these areas would have been allowed to operate. We are vainly superimposing two incompatible models of political behavior on one and the same landscape. Above all, the alleged intrusion by Peisistratus into the factional disputes splitting the men of the coast and the men of the plain, if it occurred, shows no obvious connection with his acquisition of the tyranny, a position conferred by the residents of the city of Athens.
The problem has all along been of Aristotle's making, for he introduced a schematic conception of the political situation in Attica that, he thought, made Herodotus's version more cogent and understandable, but in fact proceeded from a fatal misconception. Let us reconsider Herodotus's account. We notice, first of all, that Herodotus explains the precondition of Peisistratus's rise to power with a genitive absolute that speaks of the warfare between two groups, those led by Megacles and Lycurgus. Nothing here is problematic. It is the old story of aristocratic feud between the leaders of neighboring territorial units, and we may well believe that this vendetta raised havoc in the city of Athens as well as in the districts themselves. Now though Herodotus is terse, he is not obscure. The genitives absolute serve the purpose of clarifying not only the political situation but the nature of the opportunity presenting itself to Peisistratus.[14] The sentence structure implies that (as Herodotus viewed it) Peisistratus saw that this stasis made the conditions ripe for a tyranny (precisely as comparable conditions facilitated tyranny elsewhere in Greece, not to say in Athens just before 594).
The city was at the mercy of these marauders and someone—a ty-
rant—would be needed to suppress their activities and give political independence and civil harmony to the state and, more especially, to the city of Athens. So Peisistratus acquired backing of his own—Herodotus's "third stasis" (compare his description of Cylon's supporters in 5.71)—and also claimed 
that he was representing the interests of the Athenians of eastern Attica. Herodotus regarded that claim as either a pretense or a piece of propaganda capable of exploitation, as he showed by his use of the qualifying words. Now the Hyperakrioi play no part whatever in the unfolding of subsequent events, but it is clear enough why Peisistratus would have uttered such a claim, and why Herodotus commented on it. It announced that he was enrolling under his banner a hitherto ignored segment of the population. This, again, is typical of the pattern set in the origin of the other Hellenic tyrannies. Observe, however, that Herodotus separates the stasiotai (of the "third stasis") from the Hyperakrioi whom Peisistratus claimed to represent. The action took place at Athens, where these stasiotai played a role in persuading the residents of the city to grant him a bodyguard. At least that is what Herodotus intended us to infer. Natural implications flow from the strict economy of his presentation. Furthermore, his words dovetail perfectly. Herodotus is careful to observe that "the demos, " which in this case must be the residents of the city, gave him a guard of "city men" (astoi ) to serve as club-bearers, with whom he seized the acropolis. This time, however, unlike the time of Cylon, he was allowed to keep it. The Athenians did not, "when they perceived this, rush in a body from the fields against them and, encircling the acropolis, press the siege" (Thuc. 1.126.7, on Cylon). Instead, Peisistratus became the tyrant of Athens, "neither disrupting the existing magistracies nor making changes in the established laws" (Hdt. 1.59.6). The city appears to have been content; it was the consolidated power of the staseis that then drove him out.
Peisistratus possessed three advantages that permitted him to grasp the tyranny. He was of noble birth, without which the notion of aspiring to a tyranny would have been ludicrous; he had attained fame and a following in Athens as a leader in the Athenian war against Megara; and he was unconnected with, and therefore the natural opponent of, the great families on seacoast and plain, which were squeezing Athens from both sides. His own support in eastern Attica gave him suitable standing to become the natural protector of "all Athenians" while the distance of that region from Athens removed the element of danger from that quarter. To put it more accurately, Athens's insulation from
the area beyond the hills freed the city from the prospect that Peisistratus might use his new authority for the benefit of his own locality. In this sense, the Athenians were not exchanging King Log for King Stork. Since the time of Cylon the centripetal influence of Athens within the larger and historically fragmented land of Attica gradually intensified; it is marked by such milestones as the Code of Dracon, the expulsion of the Alcmeonids, Solon's virtual tyranny, and the occupation of Athens by Peisistratus in 561/60. His subsequent expulsion from the city, like the arrangement he then made with Megacles in order to secure his return, testifies to the comparative weakness of the city if the combined force of the local barons was arrayed against it. But Peisistratus knew how to make himself loved, and in the process fulfilled the historical role played throughout Hellas by the great tyrants.
To sum up. When Aristotle came to this tradition as it was sketched by Herodotus, the latter's emphasis upon regionalist division no doubt evoked for Aristotle the picture of a tripartite Attica enmeshed in reciprocal hostility, out of which Peisistratus emerged victorious. Aristotle was not oblivious to the unsatisfactory implications of this view, however, and he did the best he could to provide Peisistratus with a categorical assortment of natural allies. It was a process facilitated by Aristotle's tendency to retroject political motivations and ideologies of the fifth and fourth centuries into earlier times, where they properly do not belong. Ideological tendencies, to the extent that they existed, were subordinate to the ambitions of the great feudal families; apart from local patriotism and the prosecution of feuds, their aspirations so far as Athens was concerned went no farther than to control state offices and dispense the law. The need for a tyrant who could stabilize the situation had been felt in Athens by 594, if not earlier; Peisistratus's backing came from the citizens of the city.