Hippias

Family: Athenian · Role: tyrant · First appears: Book 1 · Chapter 1 · Part 3

Hippias, the eldest son of Pisistratus and brother of Hipparchus and Thessalus, was supreme in Athens, though the public commonly believed Hipparchus was tyrant. When Harmodius and Aristogiton suspected he had been warned of their planned attack, they abandoned it. After Pisistratus died, Hippias succeeded him as tyrant.

At the Ceramicus, Hippias ordered participants in an armed procession to gather without their weapons, then had the mercenaries remove the arms and selected men he suspected, including those found with daggers. As his tyranny pressed harder, he put many citizens to death. He had five children by Myrrhine, including Pisistratus son of Hippias, and gave his daughter Archedice in marriage to Aeantides of Lampsacus. After ruling three more years, Hippias was deposed by the Lacedaemonians and the banished Alcmaeonidae, and went into exile. Twenty years later, he left Darius’s court in old age and came with the Medes to Marathon.