Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/131

 ASSASSINATION OF HIPP ARC HUS. H8 filled Harmodius with indignation, and still farther exasperated the feelings of Aristogeiton : both of them, resolving at all haz- ards to put an end to the despotism, concerted means for aggres- sion with a few select associates. They awaited the festival of the Great Panathenrea, wherein the body of the citizens were accustomed to march up in armed procession, with spear and shield, to the acropolis ; this being the only day on which an armed body could come together without suspicion. The con- Bpirators appeared armed like the rest of the citizens, but carry- ing concealed daggers besides. Harmodius and Aristogeiton undertook with their own hands to kill the two Peisistratids^ while the rest promised to stand forward immediately for their protection against the foreign mercenaries ; and though the whole number of persons engaged was small, they counted upon the spontaneous sympathies of the armed bystanders in an effort to regain their liberties, so soon as the blow should once be struck. The day of the festival having arrived, Hippias, with his for- eign body-guard around him, was marshalling the armed citizens for procession, in the Kerameikus without the gates, when Har- modius and Aristogeiton approached with concealed daggers to execute their purpose. On coming near, they were thunder- struck to behold one of their own fellow-conspirators talking familiarly with Hippias, who was of easy access to every man and they immediately concluded that the plot was betrayed. Ex pecting to be seized, and wrought up to a state of desperation, they resolved at least not to die without having revenged them- selves on Hipparchus, whom they found within the city gates near the chapel called the Leokorion, and immediately slew him. His attendant guards killed Harmodius on the spot ; while Aris- togeiton, rescued for the moment by the surrounding crowd, was exclusion, such as that which Dr. Arnold supposes, leading to the inference that the Pcisistratids could not admit her without violating religious cus- tom, Thucydides woull hardly have neglected to allude to it, for it would have lightened the insult; and indeed, on that supposition, the sending of the original summons might have been made to appear as an accidental mistake. I will add, that Thucydides, though no way forfeiting his obliga- tions to historical truth, is evidently not disposed to omit anything wbiclj con be truly said in favor of the Peisistratids. VOL. IV. 80C