Assassination of Hipparchus

For instance, the mass of the Athenians think that Hipparchus was tyrant when he was slain by Harmodius and Aristogiton;

So then, when Harmodius had resisted his solicitation, he insulted him, as he intended.

Now one of them, namely, Aristogiton, escaped from the guards at the moment, through the crowd running up;

Aristogeiton later, having been seized and tortured for a long time.

whence it came about that Harmodius and Aristogeiton, provoked, carried out their deed, with many sharing in it.

He accused the friends of the tyrant—as the popular party say, on purpose, that they might at once commit impiety and become weak, by destroying men who were innocent and their own friends;

Now this was the vision which Hipparchus saw in a dream:

First Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus and brother of the tyrant Hippias, had been slain by Aristogiton and Harmodius, men of Gephyraean descent.

As soon as it was day, he imparted this to the interpreters of dreams, and presently putting the vision from his mind, he led the procession in which he met his death.

I therefore should never dare, I am sure, to deceive you, who are my friend, or disobey the great Hipparchus, after whose death the Athenians were for three years under the despotic rule of his brother Hippias, and you might have heard anyone of the earlier period say that it was only in these years that there was despotism in Athens, and that at all other times the Athenians lived very much as in …