Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/130

 112 HISTORY OF GREECE. gens called Gephyraei, the former was a beautiful youth, attached to the latter by a mutual friendship and devoted intimacy, which Grecian manners did not condemn. Hipparchus made repeated propositions to Harmodius, which were repelled, b it which, on becoming known to Aristogeiton, excited both his jealousy and his fears lest the disappointed suitor should employ force, fears justified by the proceedings not unusual with Grecian despots, 1 and by the absence of all legal protection against outrage from such a quarter. Under these feelings, he began to look about, in the best way that he could, for some means of putting down the despotism. Meanwhile Hipparchus, though not entertaining any designs of violence, was so incensed at the refusal of Harmodius, that he could not be satisfied without doing something to insult or humiliate him. In order to conceal the motive from which the insult really proceeded, he offered it, not directly to Harmodius, but to his sister. He caused this young maiden to be one day summoned to take her station in a religious procession as one of the kanephoras, or basket carriers, according to the practice usual at Athens ; but when she arrived at the place where her fellow-maidens were assembled, she was dismissed with scorn as unworthy of so respectable a function, and the summons ad- dressed to her was disavowed. 2 An insult thus publicly offered It is to be recollected that he died before the introduction of the Ten Tribes, and before the recognition of the demes as political elements in the commonwealth. 1 For the terrible effects produced by this fear of v3pi dg rr/v see Plutarch, Kimon, 1 ; Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 17. 2 Thucyd. vi, 56. Toi> 6' ovv 'pu66iov uirapvq&EVTa ryu Treipaaii', u dievoeiTO, xpovTrr/'huKiaev ' ud&QTjv yap avrov, Koprjv, iTra-yye'^ KOVOVV o'taovaav iv TTOUTTTJ TIVI, u/r///.a<rav, Acj'Oiref ovde cKayyeiAat a Ala rd pr) u^iav elvai. Dr. Arnold, in his note, supposes that this exclusion of the sister of Harmodius by the Peisistratids may have been founded on the circumstance that she belonged to the gens Gephyrsei (Herodot v, 57); her foreign blood, and her being in certain respects uri/ior, disqualified her (lie thinks) from ministering to the worship of the gods of Athens. Thore is no positive reason to support the conjecture of Dr. Arnold, which seems, moreover, virtually discountenanced by the narrative of Tim- cydides, who plainly describes the treatment of tliis young woman as a de- liberate, preconcerted insult. Had tf ere existed any assignable ground of