Who Sang The Harmodios

Historia 69, 2020/1, 2–16
DOI 10.25162/historia-2020-0001
Loren J. Samons II
Who Sang “the Harmodios”?

ABSTRACT: Scholars have usually treated the skolia celebrating Harmodios and Aristogeiton as
reflecting composition near Hipparchos’ murder (514/3 B. C.), yet the songs betray traditions
that developed significantly later. By the 420s, when Aristophanes indicates that the songs were
popular, different versions of “the Harmodios” existed. One version, sung in the first person,
likely reflects the views of those who saw certain democratic leaders as metaphorical “tyrants.”
Other versions praised the current Athenian regime or served simply as hymns honoring the
“tyrannicides.” The skolia reflect conditions of the later fifth century more than those around
the time of the assassination.
Keywords: Harmodios – Aristogeiton – tyranny – skolia – isonomia – demokratia
Athenaeus (15.695a-b) records a set of skolia, or drinking-songs, four of which concern

Harmodios and Aristogeiton, the celebrated assassins of the Peisistratid Hipparchos.1
As it happens we know from Aristophanes that singing “the Harmodios” was popular in
Athens during the Peloponnesian War.2 Thucydides (1.20; cf. 6.53–59) in a way confirms
this, noting that contemporary Athenians’ ignorance of their own history led them to
believe mistakenly that the murdered Hipparchos (rather than his brother Hippias) had
been tyrant when the assassination occurred in 514/3.3 This specific historical error –
that Harmodios and Aristogeiton had slain the tyrant – appears in two preserved ver-
sions of the song, suggesting that they, or similar versions, were popular in Thucydides’
1 I thank Professors Jeffrey Henderson and Stephen Esposito, as well as Professor Kai Brodersen and the
anonymous readers, for valuable criticisms and suggestions. Recent scholarship on the Harmodios skolia
has tended to appear in English, a fact that explains the relative paucity of non-Anglophone works cited in
this paper.
2 Acharn. 980, 1093, Wasps 1224–26, Lys. 632, schol. Wasps 1239 = Storks fr. 430; cf. Plato Comicus fr. 198b.
3 Herodotos (5.55–57, 62–65) got the story right, but neither author could correct the popular view: cf. Plato
Hipparchos 228b-229b, Symp. 182c. For trenchant analysis of Thucydides’ treatment of the conspiracy and
its programmatic function in his work, see Meyer (2008). The idea of Harmodios and Aristogeition as “ty-
rannicides” in fact (rather than in spirit) was of course fostered by the famous statues of the two erected in
Athens and perhaps by (at least some) epigrams which adorned them or their public grave (Paus. 1.29.15) –
see in general Brunnsåker (1971), Taylor (1991), and Azoulay (2017), and, for a potential reconstruction of
the epitaph and its likely (post 451) date, Lebedev (1996), 263–68 – as well as their association with the
Panathenaia and certain cultic activities (if not a formal cult) centered on them by the later fifth century
and perhaps as early as 477/6; on this cult, see most recently Shear (2012) and cf. Azoulay (2017), esp.
pp. 84–87. As Jacoby (1949), p. 162, notes, these factors taken together produced the popular misconcep-
tion about the deed that Thucydides sought to correct.
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Who Sang “the Harmodios”? 3
day. Tastes change, however, and a fragment of Antiphanes indicates that singing “the
Harmodios” already seemed out of date (to some) by the mid fourth century.4
Scholars most often have viewed these skolia as stemming from a time near the events
they describe.5 Thus the references in the songs to Harmodios and Aristogeiton “making
Athens isonomous” have seemed to some important and early evidence for the name
or slogan (isonomia) of either the regime Kleisthenes installed ca. 507 or the one he re-
placed, potentially illuminating the nature of the government to which the slogan could
attach.6 Others, notably Felix Jacoby, have identified anti-Alkmeonid sentiments in the
skolia, which they interpret as at attempt to rob the Alkmeonid Kleisthenes and his clan
of credit for establishing the new government by transferring praise to the assassins.7
On the other hand, C. W. Fornara and I attempted to show that an early date for those
versions of the skolia referring to Hipparchos as “tyrant” is inherently unlikely because
the skolia contain the very historical errors and popular view criticized by Thucydides:
i. e., no one soon after 514/3 would have composed a song that made Harmodios and
Aristogeiton the slayers of the tyrant – instead of the tyrant’s brother – and that celebrat-
ed the supposed tyrannicides’ creation of isonomia, when the murder actually made the
regime more harsh (Hdt. 5.55, 62). The Peisistratid tyranny was not in fact ended until
three years after the supposed tyrannicides’ action. On this view the “tyrant-slayer” ver-
sions of the skolia are not likely to have been composed (at least in the form preserved
by Athenaeus) very soon after Hipparchos’ murder.8
Jacoby based his view of the skolia’s early composition – or, rather, on the ear-
ly tradition of the tyrannicides accomplishing something epochal upon which the
4 Kassel and Austin PCG fr. 85 = Athenaeus 11.503d. The song was not forgotten, however, and may have had
a later vogue based on the obscene possibilities of the “sword in myrtle” phrase (see nn.46, 48 below), as
a law passed sometime before 336 forbidding lampooning the heroes in song suggests (Hyp. Phil. 3): see
Henderson (1987), p. 153, and, for another view on the law, O’Sullivan (2011).
5 E. g., Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry (1961), pp. 394–96 (probably composed c. 510, with later additions), and
Wilamowitz (1893), II.319, “schwerlich viel jünger als der tat.” Fornara (1970), 158, even suggests the skolia’s
“belligerent tone suggests a date before the liberation,” and Shear, Jr., (1994), 224, also believes the skolia
“almost certainly contemporary with the events.” Most recent discussion of their date of composition has
tended to focus on the period from ca. 511/10 to 477 (e. g., Jones [2014], 230); for relevant evidence and
scholarship, see also Taylor (1991), pp. 22–35.
6 See especially Ostwald (1969), pp. 97, 112–13, and Fornara (1970), esp. 170–80, who treated the reference
to isonomia in the skolia as essentially aristocratic in tone, while Ostwald and others have usually seen a
democratic connection (e. g., Taylor [1991], pp. 24–27). It perhaps has not been sufficiently emphasized
that the word isonomia does not actually appear in the skolia, and that the relatively rare adjective derived
from it and actually present in the song is used in Thucydides to describe a brand of oligarchy (3.62.3–4).
Hansen (1991), pp. 82–84, notes that the term isonomia “is poorly attested in classical Athens” (82).
7 Jacoby (1949) pp. 159–60 with nn., and Podlecki (1966), who demonstrates the difficulty in connecting
the praise of Harmodios and Aristogeiton with Kleisthenes and the Alkmeonids themselves, who could
boast of their own participation in the actual overthrow of the tyrant Hippias in 511/0 (Hdt. 5.62–65), and
who finds the source of the propaganda in the circle of Themistokles. Cf. Thomas (1989), pp. 257–61, who
argues that “the tyrannicides were convenient and innocuous symbols for all Athenian groups” (p. 260).
We shall argue below that groups of very different political persuasions could use the tryannicides to their
own – perhaps not always “innocuous” – ends.
8 Fornara and Samons (1991), pp. 42–48; cf. Taylor (1991), pp. 32–33, and Podlecki, (1966), who placed the
skolia’s composition ca. 477.
4 loren j. samons ii
skolia depend – in part on an epigram of Simonides: ἦ μέγ᾽ Ἀθηναίοισι φόως γένεθ᾽,

ἡνίκ᾽Ἀριστογείτων Ἵππαρχον κτεῖνε καὶ Ἁρμόδιος.9 A second distich of the poem almost
certainly ended with the phrase πατρίδα γῆν ἐθέτην, and apparently the whole epigram
was inscribed on the base of the famous statues commemorating Harmodios and Aris-
togeiton erected in 477/6 and replacing the work removed by Xerxes.10 But since the
epigram as preserved nowhere calls Hipparchos “the tyrant,” and this is the relevant
historical error contained in the skolia, the view that the songs are likely antique because
they reflect the same tradition as the epigram is unjustified. That is, a tradition that Har-
modios and Aristogeiton “freed the land” (vel sim.) even if also historically inaccurate –
since the tyranny actually grew harsher after 514/3 – represents a more general idea and
arguably an earlier stage in the development of the tale than the notion that they actually
“slew the tyrant.”11 The reference to making Athens “isonomous” (which appears in the
skolia) almost certainly became attached to the tradition earlier than the idea that they
were actual tyrannicides.
In short, the historically inaccurate notion that Harmodios and Aristogeiton had
slain the tyrant and thus brought good government to Athens seems to represent a later
telescoping of the following sequence: 1) Harmodios and Aristogeiton began hostile
actions against the Peisistratids by killing Hipparchos, 2) the Peisistratid tyrant Hippias
was ultimately expelled a few years later, 3) Athens after this developed “isonomous”
government. The development of the idea that Harmodios and Aristogeiton were some-
how responsible for “freeing” Athens thus almost certainly precipitated the notion that
they had actually killed “the tyrant.” The conclusion was natural enough and would have
seemed confirmed by the Athenians’ ongoing efforts – through the erection of statues
and the creation of cult activities centered on them at the Panathenaia12 – to promote
Harmodios and Aristogeiton as in some way responsible for setting the events in motion
9 Page (1981) 76D: see Jacoby (1949), p. 339 n.52.

10 See Page (1981), p. 188. On the statues themselves, see Brunnsåker (1971), Taylor (1991), and Azoulay
(2017). The epigram from 477/6, in turn, may have been copied from one perhaps adorning the base of
the original statues, as Meritt (1936), 355–58, maintained and Jacoby (1949), p. 339 n.52 believed, though
the latter suggests that the date of the erection of the first statues cannot be fixed precisely. Fornara (1970),
157–58, accepted the testimony of the early erection of the original statues (510/9, in the year of the Ro-
man overthrow of their tyrants, according to Pliny, NH 34.17). I would suggest that such an early date –
immediately after or just before 511/10 – is inconsistent with the idea that the original statues bore the
same epigram found on the base for the later figures. While Harmodios and Aristogeiton could have been
praised just after 511/10 for “getting the ball rolling” (so to speak) in 514/3, they could not have been said
to have “freed the land” (much less to have “made Athens isonomous”) in the immediate aftermath of the
experience of Hippias’ harsh tyranny of 514/3 to 511/10. The epigram on the statue group erected in 477/6
therefore either did not appear on the original statues, or the original statues were somewhat later than
ca. 511/10. In addition, Fornara’s argument [1970], 164–66, that the question of whether or not Hipparchos
was actually tyrant is “academic” [165] because he was part of the tyrant family, ignores the fact that the
important historical error contained in the tradition embodied in the skolia is not that Hipparchos was
actually tyrant, but that he was tyrant and that by his assassination Athens was made free and “isonomous”
(see below). Azoulay (2017), 26–30, is inclined to place the erection of the original statues just after the
battle of Marathon, when anti-Peisistratid (and anti-Alkmeonid) feelings were running quite high.
11 Cf. Page (1981), p. 187.
12 Shear (2012).
that eventually led not only to the end of the tyranny, but also to the establishment of
the new regime that ultimately became known as demokratia.13 The popular view could
easily develop despite the fact that the epigram on their famous statues, so far as we can
tell, did not make the bald claim that they had acted as actual tyrannicides.
Nevertheless, the fact that statues commemorating the actions of Harmodios and
Aristogeiton stood in Athens from the early fifth century (at the latest), the likely in-
stitution of a cult celebrating them by the 470s, and the image of the “tyrannicide” on
a stamnos attributed to the Copenhagen Painter ca. 47014 all suggest that Athenians by
that time may very well have been singing drinking songs about the pair “freeing” Ath-
ens from oppression. But the existence of such songs does not necessitate or even sug-
gest an early date for the composition of the historically confused forms of the skolia.
On balance, it seems safe to conclude that some amount of time was necessary for the
specific, “tyrannicide plus liberation created good government” tradition reflected in
the skolia at issue here to develop. However, even if this developed tradition was in place
by the 470s, the likely period in which the cult of the assassins was formally instituted
and the statue group bearing the epigram about “freeing the land” (vel sim.) was erect-
ed,15 this would not explain for us why historically inaccurate songs about Harmodios
and Aristogeiton, especially those sung in the first person, were so popular in the 430s
and 420s B. C. And this is the question we seek to answer here.
What of the other Attic skolia contained in Athenaeus’ collection?16 If they were all
demonstrably early in date this might add some weight to the presumed late sixth-cen-
tury or early fifth-century date of composition for “the Harmodios.” A short review of
the arguments upon which scholars have dated the collection of Attic skolia found in
Athenaeus (15.694c-695f) to this period will not inspire much confidence in the theory
of their early composition.17 The skolia themselves reveal few historical markers. Apart
from vague reference to the Persian wars (no. 5), mention of Leipsydrion (no. 24), Ke-
don (no. 23; cf. Ath. Pol. 20), and the murder of Hipparchos (nos. 10–13), the rest float in
13 Ober (2005) treats the statue group by Kritios and Nesiotes erected in 477/6 as a “self-consciously demo-
cratic monument” (p. 216). However, we do not even know that the term demokratia had been coined by
the 470s, much less that an ideology associated with it had already arisen. The monuments commemorat-
ing Harmodios and Aristogeiton will have been monuments to “freedom” rather than to “democracy,” as
the epigram they apparently carried seems to have underscored. Ober illustrates the way the “tyrannicide”
and images of the act became associated with democratic ideology after the late fifth century, but this de-
velopment reflects a time well after the idea of demokratia had crystalized as a distinct species within the
genus of “free” polis government (see n.39).
14 Würzburg L515.
15 Shear (2012). It might be objected that Thucydides’ description (6.55) of the stele (of unknown date) com-
memorating the injustice (adikia) of the tyrants listed all the sons of Peisistratos and not just Hippias, and
that therefore they were all considered (in some sense) “tyrants.” But it is the combination of two historical
errors – that Hipparchos was actually tyrant and that his assassins made Athens free – that suggest a later
date of composition for the famous version of the Harmodios skolia.
16 Van der Valk (1974) addresses Athenaeus’ collection as a whole and excavates useful principles for under-
standing the arrangement of skolia there; however, the paper does not much advance the question of when
the skolia themselves are likely to have been composed. On Athenaeus’ collection as a whole, see also
Reitzenstein (1893), pp. 13–24, and Wilamowitz (1893), pp. 316–22.
17 See esp. Taylor (1991), pp. 24 ff. with n.3 for discussion and bibliography.
time as jokes (no. 22), proverbs (nos. 8, 20), and references to gods and heroes (nos. 1–4,
14–17). On the other hand, an important indication of a date of composition – the his-
torical errors about Hipparchos and the establishment of free government – have too of-
ten been ignored, and the subject matter of the skolia treated as a relative indicator of the
time of composition.18 In fact, the historically inaccurate “tyrannicide” skolia (as distinct
from more general hymns praising H. and A.19) should belong to a period some time af-
ter the events themselves, when the truth of the deed had been obscured or forgotten.20
Despite uncertainty about the temporal provenience and particular aim of the
song(s), most scholars would seem to share Jacoby’s view that these skolia represent
“poetry with a purpose, a poetry deliberately adopting facts.”21 Since, moreover, the song
was apparently popular during the Peloponnesian War, one would like to know who,
at that time, sang “the Harmodios” and to what end? I suggest that by the last third of
the fifth century “the Harmodios” had developed into at least two basic and politically
distinct forms, one of which was a hymn to the “tyrannicides” and the free (ultimately
democratic) regime they helped – one could argue – to establish, and another which
expressed discontent with the contemporary leaders of the radical democracy.
The texts of the preserved skolia regarding Harmodios and Aristogeiton are reproduced
below.22
A
ἐν μύρτου κλαδὶ τὸ ξίφος φορήσω
ὥσπερ Ἁρμόδιος καὶ Ἀριστογείτων
ὅτε τὸν τύραννον κτανέτην
ἰσονόμους τ᾽ Ἀθήνας ἐποιησάτην.
18 Cf. Reitzenstein (1893), pp. 15–19, who treated the connections of several skolia with works of Pindar and
Praxilla and concluded that the collection “kurz von der Mitte des fünften Jahrhunderts ihren Abschluss
gefunden hat” (p. 15).
19 Some of these songs praising Harmodios and Aristogeiton were probably originally (and certainly ulti-
mately) sung at the Panathenaia: see Philostratos VA 7.4.3, Dem. 19.280, and Cic. Mil. 80, with Shear (2012),
108–9. Jones (2014) argues that some of these public songs were in fact skolia.
20 There is one other possible indication of a date for at least one version of “the Harmodios,” though admit-
tedly of questionable worth. Hesychios, s. v. Ἁρμοδίου μέλος, attributes the song to a certain Kallistratos.
It is tempting to connect the name with the didaskalos of several of Aristophanes’ plays, though the name
was common and it is more than possible that Hesychios or his source inferred the authorship from Aris-
tophanes’ frequent references to the skolia.
21 (1949), p. 340 n.54. But cf. Taylor (1991), p. 27.
22 Page, PMG, nos. 893–96 = Athenaeus 15.695 a-b; the letters assigned to each version in the text are my own.
B
φίλταθ᾽ Ἁρμόδι᾽, οὔ τί πω τέθνηκας
νήσοις δ᾽ ἐν μακάρων σέ φασιν εἶναι,
ἵνα περ ποδώκης Ἀχιλεὺς
Τυδεΐδην τέ †φασι τὸν ἐσθλὸν† Διομήδεα.
C
ἐν μύρτου κλαδὶ τὸ ξίφος φορήσω
ὥσπερ Ἁρμόδιος καὶ Ἀριστογείτων
ὅτ᾽ Ἀθηναίης ἐν θυσίαις
ἄνδρα τύραννον Ἵππαρχον ἐκαινέτην.
D
αἰεὶ σφῶιν κλέος ἔσσεται κατ᾽ αἶαν,
φίλταθ᾽ Ἁρμόδιε καὶ Ἀριστόγειτον,
ὅτι τὸν τύραννον κτανέτην
ἰσονόμους τ᾽ Ἀθήνας ἐποιησάτην.
These skolia may be divided into two types based on their opening lines: one is a seem-
ingly straightforward celebration of the tyrannicides (B and D), while the other places
the singer in a position similar to that of the great heroes (A and C). By treating these
skolia as a single song (e. g., “the Harmodios Song”23) or even as a set – i. e., as a group
of hymns to the current regime and the “tyrannicides” – instead of different songs/ver-
sions on a related theme, scholarship on the Harmodios skolia has heretofore usually
neglected the significance of this difference between the two types.24 When viewed sim-
ply as praise for the actions of the tyrannicides or the regime they inspired (and thus
lumped together with songs B and D), songs A and C fail to impress upon the modern
reader their full meaning for the ancient singer.
The singer of what we might call the “active” version of “the Harmodios” (i. e., A and
C) was not a passive chronicler merely lauding Athenian heroes, but a participant in an
analogous battle. Thus he sings “I will bear my sword in a branch of myrtle, like Harmo-
23 As does, for example, in an otherwise valuable paper, Rosivach (1988), 48–50.

24 In an interesting paper, O’Sullivan (2011) suggests that aristocratic versions of the skolia may have im-
pugned Harmodios’ and Aristogeiton’s action as motivated by sexual jealousy (rather than political pref-
erences), as Thucydides’ excursus in book 6 argues (but see Lavelle [1986], who maintains convincingly
that Thucydides implies that it was an insult to Harmodios’ sister’s virtue that inspired the brother’s strong
reaction). O’Sullivan argues that such implicitly anti-democratic versions may have led to the law against
denigrating Harmodios and Aristogeiton in song to which Hyperides (n.4) refers. Since manifold versions
of “The Harmodios” apparently existed, this is certainly possible. It does not, however, explain the “active”
versions of the skolia preserved in Athenaeus, which use Harmodios and Aristogeiton as positive examples
for potential, contemporary “tyrannicide.” Moreover, I believe Jacoby, O’Sullivan, and others are too ready
to identify particular, narrow factions (be they Alkmeonids or committed oligarchic conspirators) with
the fashioning and promulgation of particular skolia. The nature of the symposia, other potential venues
for performance (see Jones [2014]), and the skolia themselves suggest songs that are meant to appeal to a
relatively broad (and relatively public) audience.
dios and Aristogeiton …” The significance of the tyrannicides’ actions in this version of
the song is not that they established the present regime or free government and should
therefore be praised, but rather that they have provided a model for present action.25 That
is, this first-person version of the song is inherently active and political, and the singers
of it should therefore be Athenians who, for one reason or another feeling pressed by a
type of “tyranny” and wishing to rid themselves of the “tyrant,” look to Harmodios and
Aristogeiton for inspiration.26 Since the actions they contemplate are relatively unlikely,
not to mention dangerous and revolutionary, the song most probably refers to meta-
phorical (i. e., political) “slaying” of a “tyrant.” Alternatively or in addition, the singing of
the skolion itself could take on a vicarious or mock aspect – they sang the song since they
would or could not perform the actual deeds.27 Our knowledge of the symposia where
such skolia were often performed should permit (if not confirm) this inference.28
Recently G. S. Jones has argued that skolia were often, if not usually, performed in
public, civic or ritual contexts or in non-elite symposia. Rightly understood, he main-
tains, the skolia tend to exhibit or reflect egalitarian or democratic views.29 Jones’ collec-
tion of evidence for the performance of skolia outside of elite symposia is impressive and
deserves to change the conventional view of skolia as the sole preserve of aristocrats. Yet,
in the end, his argument simply opens the door for considerations of the multiple types
of political or social messages possible in the skolia themselves. And while it is certainly
true that some of the preserved skolia may serve as hymns to the current regime and/
or egalitarian principles, the potentially aristocratic connotations of the term isonomia,
25 Fornara (1970) 169, 178, saw that the skolia carry a message about the singer’s present intentions, but be-
lieved that the songs originated in the period immediately after Hipparchos’ murder and expressed the
singers’ intentions regarding Hippias (178); for him the songs “owed their continuous popularity to their
sardonic relevance to other potential dynasts, notably the Alcmeonids” (169). Yet this form of the skolia
cannot be so early for the reasons adumbrated above, nor did all the skolia about Harmodios carry the
same message: the targets of some versions surely included, but were not limited to, Alkmeonids.
26 Contrast Azoulay (2017), pp. 73–74, who maintains that after the oligarchic revolution of 404, “the skolion
of Harmodius switched from being simply a playful amusement into a kind of patriotic hymn” (74). Rath-
er, so far as we are able to judge, different versions of the song in the fifth century could always perform
one or more of these (hardly mutually exclusive) roles at the same time – amusement, political statement,
patriotic hymn.
27 The potentially vicarious nature of the act described was surely intensified by the presence of a myrtle
bough, which was passed from singer to singer at the symposium (Pollux 6.108): the song itself thus truly
became “a sword in myrtle.” Van der Valk (1974), 9, rightly sees the polyvalent force of the myrtle (asso-
ciated with sacrifices, singing of skolia, the Panathenaia), but concludes that the “myrtle-branch … forms
the important topic of the poem.” Rather, the key topic in the active version of the poem is the prospec-
tive action the singer plans, taking Harmodios and Aristogeiton as his models. One reader for the journal
suggests the possibility that the active version of the skolion acted as a response to the statue group of
Harmodios and Aristogeiton “as much as a response to a specific threat posed by a particular individual
in Athenian politics.” I would agree that such a response is possible, but surely when we have a song about
political assassination sung in the first person by someone who claims to be “bearing his sword” we are
entitled to ask for whom his metaphorical sword is intended.
28 The symposia were rather uninhibited affairs, admitting of somewhat raucous activities; see Taylor (1991),
p. 27. On skolia in general see Jones (2014) and (2016), Liapis (1996), Lambin (1992), esp. pp. 219–23,
266–307, Bowra (1961), pp. 373–97, Harvey (1955), 161–63, Aly, s. v. “skolion,” RE (1927), cols. 558–66, and
Reitzenstein (1893), pp. 3–44.
29 Jones (2014).
and – more importantly – the active, first-person stance of some of the Harmodios sko-
lia combined with the historical errors they contain point in a different direction for
those particular songs.30
Indeed, combining the core idea of the active form of the skolia themselves and the
time of their known vogue at Athens, we may cautiously seek for likely candidates for
the “tyrant” against whom the singers of this version of “the Harmodios” would turn
their swords. Of course, Athenian aristocrats and others before and during the Pelo-
ponnesian War had a series of demagogues to vilify, namely Perikles and those who suc-
ceeded him in his position as champion of the demos but were arguably less scrupulous
in their manipulation of the assembly (Thuc. 2.65; Arist. Ath. Pol. 28; cf. Plut. Per. 9.1).
It does not seem impossible that Thucydides son of Melesias, Antiphon, Kritias, Alkib-
iades (or even Aristophanes) and their hetairoi would sing such a song with the likes of
Perikles, Kleon, or Kleophon in mind.31 The songs are supple enough to allow the elite
enemies of one such as Alkibiades to apply the verses to him. Events of the last decade or
so of the century confirm that such political sentiments not only existed, but also might
ultimately inspire real actions.
Contemporary evidence shows that fear of tyranny gripped the common members
of the Athenian demos in this period (Thuc. 6.53, 60; cf. Aristoph. Wasps 417, 464, 487,
Lys. 618, 630–3), and Athenian institutions and traditions formally perpetuated the no-
tion that potential tyrants formed a threat to the polis.32 But we must not forget that this
fear could motivate those of more aristocratic/conservative sentiments as well as the
“democrats.” Athenians from a wide range of political sentiments could decry the dan-
gers from overbearing or corrupt leaders or from the people themselves. Aristophanes
notes that all men feared Demos as a tyrant (Knights, 1111–14), and, although they are
styled “the thirty (tyrants),” oligarchs like those who revolutionized Athens in 404 (or
411) almost certainly saw themselves not as tyrants but as a countervailing force to an
ochlocracy manipulated by “tyrannical” demagogues.33
Moreover, the more conservative or pro-aristocratic Athenian families were not
the most likely place for the demos or elites to see potential tyrants. After all, it was the
arch-democrat Perikles and his followers whom the comic poets dubbed the “new Pei-
sistratids,” thereby directly linking them with tyranny (Plut. Per. 16; cf. 7.1), and Hero-
dotos’ text provides ample evidence that the connections between the tyrannical family
of the Peisistratids, the Persians, and the cursed family of the Alkmeonids (including
30 Jones (2014), esp. 256–57, is somewhat too ready to conclude that isonomia/isonomos usually carried pop-
ular or democratic overtones; against this, see Thuc. 3.62.3–4, and Fornara (1970) with n.6 above. Jones,
pp. 252–53, also strangely attempts to use Thucydides’ relatively defensive account of the Peisistratid tyran-
ny to suggest that anti-tyrannical feelings among the common Athenians were rising in Athens both before
and after Hipparchos’ assassination.
31 Cf. Fornara (1970), 157, 169, 180, who thinks it likely that the skolia “acquired[d] an anti-Periclean nuance”
(180).
32 For the curse against potential tyrants opening the assembly, see Andok. 1.97, Ar. Thesm. 338–39; for the
decree at the Dionysia offering a reward for killing a tyrant, see Ar. Birds, 1074–75; for the Athenian legal
tradition, Ostwald (1955).
33 As implied by schol. Aeschines 1.39 (Dilts 82, p.22), the memorial of Kritias.
Kleisthenes, and Perikles and Alkibiades on their mothers’ sides) had not been forgot-
ten.34 Moreover, while one suspects that Plutarch’s report of Perikles’ fear that he might
be suspected of aiming at becoming tyrant (Per. 7) derives at least in part from the fact
that Perikles’ “adviser” Damon may have been ostracized as a suspected supporter of
tyranny (Per. 4; cf. 9),35 the ostracism itself along with the contemporary comparisons of
Perikles with the tyrant Peisistratos justify the biographer’s inference. In short, conserv-
ative elites were at least as likely to see potential or metaphorical “tyrants” in demagogic
leaders like Perikles as the common members of the demos were to identify “tyrannical”
conspiracies among the well-to-do. Complicating matters even further, the supporters
of one democratic leader could see a potential “tyrant” in their preferred champion’s
rival, while all Athenians (as Aristophanes says) feared the potentially tyrannical demos
itself.
Both ancient and modern pro-democratic (and anti-tyrannic) prejudices and lat-
er Greek tradition tend to obscure the fact that it was certain aristocrats and not the
commoners who usually lost their “freedom” to the tyrants in the seventh and sixth
centuries. As is well known, apologetic branches of Athenian tradition also sought to
obfuscate the fact that the tyrants themselves were closely connected with the later
“democratic” Alkmeonids and ostensibly “anti-Persian” Kimonids.36 We must not forget
that the tyrant of the sixth century, who had championed the demos – including the dis-
enfranchised, those of “impure” birth or those whose wealth derived from non-landed
sources – could be more easily associated programmatically or ideologically with a well-
born democrat of the fifth century than with the contemporary elites of more conserv-
ative views (who opposed both tyranny and radical democracy). Tyranny only came to
be the natural opposite of democracy – as opposed to aristocracy – after a long period of
political development in Hellas,37 and demokratia in its original form could hardly have
been characterized as a polar opposite or natural enemy of tyranny. It is true that when
Kleisthenes established the Athenians’ new regime ca. 507, that government – in so far
as it rejected tyranny in favor of rule by the citizenry – resembled non-tyrannic polis
34 See Samons (2017), and Fornara and Samons (1991), pp. 3 ff., especially 14–23. For Perikles’ father Xan-
thippos’ connection with the Alkmeonids and his ostracism, see Lavelle (1988), 25–27. By the late fifth
century the Peisistratids may have become symbolic of “dire menace to the democracy” (Lavelle, 38), but
the comparison of Perikles with the Peisistratids in order to blacken his reputation likely derived from elite
opponents of the statesman (see below).
35 On the association of Pericles with tyrants/tyranny and on the historicity, motivations, and likely date of
Damon’s ostracism (perhaps ca. 442), see Wallace (2015), pp. 56–57 (tyranny) and esp. 51–64 (ostracism);
on Damon, cf. Fornara and Samons (1991), pp. 160–61.
36 Samons (2017) argues that the Alkmeonids’ and Kimonids’ “defense” against accusations of tyrannic/Per-
sian connections almost certainly generated the apologetic passages in Herodotos (e. g., 6.121–24, 131).
37 Compare Dover, HCT IV, p. 337, who writes “after a century of democracy the conception of the tyrant
as a popular champion had faded (the example of Dionysios renewed it in the minds of fourth-century
philosophers), and the Athenians regarded oligarchy and tyranny indifferently as the antithesis of democ-
racy.” While Dover may be right about fourth-century Athens, “the Athenians” of earlier periods cannot
be treated as a monolithic unit in such a matter: conservatives of the fifth century apparently drew con-
nections between popular leaders and tyranny, as the criticisms of Perikles and the “New Peisistratids”
suggest. Fourth-century philosophers continued the practice. Cf. Jacoby (1949), p. 343 n.73: “oligarchs and
conservatives generally are the strongest opponents of tyranny.”
governments found elsewhere in Hellas. Yet in so far as the regime granted more status
or protection to the commoners (at the expense of aristocrats), who were championed
by a former associate of the Peisistratids and grandson of the homonymous tyrant of
Sicyon, Kleisthenes’ new regime resembled nothing so much as another tyranny, and
this must have been at least part of the grounds on which the Spartans attempted to
destroy it.
Here, indeed, we confront the paradox demokratia generated and which we may de-
tect in our later fifth-century sources. The Athenians’ regime after 507 could be fairly
analogized both to typical, aristocratically-dominated “isonomous” regimes elsewhere
in Greece and to tyranny, which were the only two forms of Greek polis government
available for comparison at the time. Yet Kleisthenes’ and the Athenians’ new regime
as it developed in the late sixth and early fifth centuries eventually altered and then de-
stroyed the political bipolarity between tyranny and traditional polis government that
existed in the sixth century.38 Neither tyranny nor traditional (elite-dominated) polis
government, demokratia would eventually be painted as the enemy of both. Thus what
developed, over the course of this period – the late sixth to mid-to-late fifth centuries –
was a kind of triangle of political stances, with tyranny, traditional aristocratic/citi-
zen-based polis government, and what would eventually be known as demokratia each
occupying one angle, and with each being notionally opposed to, and eliding the differ-
ences between, the other two forms. Thus proponents of demokratia ultimately charac-
terized their oligarchic enemies as “tyrants,” just as politically conservative aristocrats
could see the demos or the demagogue as a potential “tyrant.” But these attitudes reflect
a period after demokratia had developed and after its nature (as both non-tyranny and
non-traditional polis government) had been established.39 And we must keep in mind
that supporters of radical democracy almost certainly could and did employ accusations
of “tyranny” against rival democratic leaders of whom they disapproved.
To understand the various versions of “the Harmodios” we must grasp the fact that
the idea of “tyrant slaying” had polyvalent implications in fifth-century Athens, and was
available for aristocratic, democratic, or simply patriotic messages.40 Athenians of very
38 I do not doubt that the bipolarity we see in our sources (e. g., Hdt. 5.92) itself represents an oversimpli-
fication of historical reality, in which the actual forms of polis government probably ranged from overt
tyranny, through family domination (oligarchia or dynasteia) to domination by a broader elite with more
or less influence over the assembled citizenry.
39 Rosivach (1988) reasonably places the crystallization of “democracy” as an idea opposing both tyranny
and rule of the few between the 440s and the 410s. Sealey (1973), 253–95, and (1987), pp. 91–106, shows
clearly how demokratia developed from a fluid term with the frequently negative connotations of “rule of
the demos” (mid to late fifth century) to a broad term representing the rule of law and government opposed
to tyranny (fourth century). In my opinion, it was the oligarchic revolutions in and just after the Pelopon-
nesian War that marked the watershed in Athenian views. Before this, virtually no praise of demokratia per
se exists in our sources; afterwards, the word becomes associated with and a virtual synonym for good
government (in contrast to both tyranny and oligarchy) in Athenian discourse: see also Samons (2001).
40 Indeed, the situation is even more complicated and fluid than this, as individuals or even the demos as a
whole could, at times, see the benefits of “tyrannic” wealth and/or power: see the contributions of Hen-
derson and of Kallet in Morgan (2009). Ober (2005), e. g., p. 225, paints an overly “bipolar” (democracy vs.
tyranny) picture of the Athenian political landscape, especially for the period before the late fifth century.
different political ideals might find ample reason to sing a song praising the supposed
tyrannicides. One therefore need not conclude with Jacoby that a cult of Harmodios
and Aristogeiton – much less all the songs praising them – was fostered as part of a
“conservative” reaction against the Alkmeonids and the democrats in order to recognize
the potentially aristocratic implications of the active, “I will bear my sword in myrtle”
version of the Harmodios skolia.41
Let us, for a moment, contemplate the alternative case, with an Athenian of more
progressive or democratic sentiments as the singer of the active version of “the Har-
modios” during the time we know it to have been popular. On whom, beyond a rival
democratic leader, could the “democrats” of the later fifth century focus their ire as a
potential or symbolic “tyrant,” worthy of political assassination (at least via song) with
a sword hidden in myrtle? After the ostracism of Thucydides son of Melesias the more
conservative faction in Athens lacked an obvious and preeminent leader. And while the
author of the Athenenaion Politeia has no difficulty in listing the leaders of the aristocrat-
ic faction after Thucydides Melesiou (Nikias and Theramenes, Ath. Pol. 28.3–5), it is in
fact difficult to imagine a single aristocrat of a conservative bent – beyond Alkibiades –
of the 430s–420s who could provoke the sentiment the song expresses. Alkibiades, of
course, was a very worthy target in the period just after this, but he was no true partisan
of the oligarchs (or any faction), although he might certainly have been painted as such
from time to time and surely inspired the intonation of many “anti-tyrant” verses after
his rise to prominence in the years following 420.42
Yet beyond the still less than prominent Alkibiades, on whom could Athenians of
more democratic sentiments of the 420s fix as an obvious target at which to aim their
musical sword as they intoned the “Harmodios”?43 This active version of the song cer-
tainly seems most appropriate for those Athenians who saw potential “tyrants” among
the leading demagogues like Perikles and Kleon.
Can Aristophanes’ references to “the Harmodios” add anything to these conclusions
about the political nature of these skolia? In the Acharnians (425 B. C.), one may note
that it is only after the chorus has been convinced by Dikaiopolis of the uselessness of
41 See Jacoby (1949), pp. 159–60, 340 n.53; for a defense of his view (with modifications) see Podlecki (1966),
with n. 7 above. Van der Valk (1974), sees differing political implications in the various versions of the song,
but misunderstands the significance of “isonomous,” which he treats as exclusively democratic in force,
and fails to see the almost certainly aristocratic implications of the first-person versions of the skolion.
42 On the Athenian traditions surrounding Alkibiades, including those linking him with potential tyranny,
see Gribble (1999). Such traditions may help explain why Thucydides chose to insert his long digression
on Harmodios and Aristogeiton (6.54–59) within his account of the Athenians’ recall of Alkibiades from
Sicily to stand trial, as Dover (HCT 4: 329) suggested.
43 I do not mean to imply the cries of “tyranny” and “conspirator” were not leveled by the demos against
conservative aristocrats (see especially Wasps 417 ff.), but rather that it would be difficult to single out an
oligarch as “the tyrant” (especially one who was also accused of conspiracy!). This is not to mention the
unlikelihood of hetairoi or other participants in elite symposia complaining about potential oligarchic (as
opposed to democratic) “tyrants.” Aly, RE s. v. “skolion” col. 563, and Bowra (1961), pp. 373, 397, note the
typically aristocratic origins and nature of the skolia; Reitzenstein (1893), p. 15, places the origin of the
skolia “in den Adelskreisen Athens.” But see Jones (2014), who argues that skolia were performed regularly
in other, more public venues.
the war with Sparta that the chorus mentions the singing of “the Harmodios” (lines
978–80). M. Taylor deemed the connection with peace with Sparta significant, but
maintained that the song was thus to be associated with “peaceable company.”44 The
fact that peace with Sparta was a conservative policy opposed by radical democrats like
Kleon makes it tempting to link the song here with those who supported such a policy.
But, in fact, there is no indication of which version of the song Aristophanes alludes to
in the Acharnians. The audience, therefore, was free to imagine a simple hymn to the
“tyrannicides” or a more active (and potentially politically pointed) version of the song
and thus this passage really only confirms that singing versions of “The Harmodios” was
popular in the mid 420s.45
In Lysistrata (411) it is the chorus of Marathonomachai who, seeking to overthrow
the tyranny of Athenian women, make reference to bearing their swords in a branch of
myrtle (lines 631–35).46 One can perhaps draw few inferences about possible political
implications of particular versions of the song from this passage, since the generation
of Marathon in Aristophanes is hardly to be associated with radically democratic (or
oligarchic) politics.47 However, this passage does emphasize the active nature of one ver-
sion of the song and the Athenian singers’ awareness that the lines they sang were prospec-
tive rather than retrospective in significance. Harmodios and Aristogeiton offered a model,
albeit here a farcical and suggestive one, for action against the oppressive tyrant(s).48
The famous passage found in Aristophanes Wasps (422 B. C., lines 1224–27) seems
somewhat ambiguous for our purposes. Bdelykleon, briefly controlling his “Kleon-lov-
ing” father, then teaches Philokleon to sing “the Harmodios.” The natural inference is
that Philokleon would not have intoned this song on his own while he was still in the
thrall of Kleon, but the conclusion is complicated by the fact that Bdelykleon takes
on the persona of the demagogue Kleon while teaching the tune. Bdelykleon begins
with a line not found in the preserved versions of the song (“No one yet was born in
Athens …”), and Philokleon joins in with a resounding criticism of the “scoundrel and
thief ” (presumably Kleon).49 Bdelykleon then warns his father that singing such a line
in Kleon’s presence will lead to dire consequences.
Taylor has concluded from these lines that Kleon had profited politically from a
democratic fear of tyranny “perhaps fostered by himself,” and that he sought to identify
44 Taylor (1991), pp. 89–90.

45 The reference to Harmodios in line 1093 makes a pun on one version of the song’s opening line (and per-
haps pokes fun at a contemporary Harmodios, as Jeffrey Henderson suggests to me [letter]), but has no
obvious political overtones; cf. Taylor (1991), p. 90.
46 For the possible sexual undertone here see Henderson (1990), pp. 122, 134.
47 In the Wasps they are the dupes of the demagogues (lines 698 ff.), addicted to jury pay (525, 605–7, 1120),
but still the heroic generation that repelled the Mede and established the empire (1075–1100).
48 Compare Azoulay (2017), 60, who argues that the quotation of the first-person opening of the Harmodios
skolion here sought “to erase the song’s political aspect.” I do not doubt that the first-person “sword in
myrtle” phrase carried sexual or obscene undertones, as both Azoulay and Lambin (1979) show, but it also
made the song personal, prospective, and explicitly political.
49 The fact that Philokleon continues by quoting another verse that attacks Kleon (and aligns him with the
tyrant Pittakos) suggests that the Athenian statesman is the “scoundrel and thief ” to whom Philokleon
refers in his version of “the Harmodios.”
himself with the “champions of democracy,” Harmodios and Aristogeiton.50 While this
is possible, one should again recall that Philokleon only sings “the Harmodios” after
Kleon’s hold on him has been broken. Bdelykleon seeks to show his father how to sing
the song in Kleon’s presence and in a way that would avoid offending the politician. But
Philokleon simply turns the song into a direct (as opposed to an oblique?) attack on the
demagogue. In any case, the passage does testify to the potential political (and satirical)
uses of drinking songs, suggesting that the clever symposiast or other performer could
put them to manifold uses.
As noted, the passage from the Wasps indicates an opening line for “The Harmodios”
different than those contained in the four versions recorded by Athenaeus, and the play
shows that the skolia were subject to improvisation and alteration.51 This fact and the
differences in the preserved versions of the Harmodios suggest that versions palatable
to persons of different political stripes existed (or were improvised) at Athens. The ver-
sion Kleon/Bdelykleon chooses may very well have been a variation with democratic
as opposed to more conservative overtones. However this may be, the passage from the
Lysistrata and the repetition of the active sentiment in Athenaeus shows that the line in
the first person was a frequent part of the song, apparently to be rendered or omitted
as the muses (or political sentiments) moved the individual performer. The decision,
then, to sing the verse “I will bear my sword in a branch of myrtle” arguably suggests
something significant about the singer: he has an object of his “tyrannicide” in mind as
he sings. When we combine that decision with the known period of the song’s vogue,
the aristocratic environments in which it could be sung, and its “tyrannicidal” theme, we
may justifiably look to Athenian democratic leaders like Perikles and Kleon as the likely
objects of this rendition in the 420s.
Different versions of “the Harmodios” existed and particular forms of the song may
have been put to many purposes. As W. G. Forrest wrote in a related context, “The
events of 514–510 offered a perfect maze from which to tease out vice or virtue ac-
cording to taste and purpose.”52 While some versions apparently served as patriotic
hymns implicitly praising Athens’ current regime, at least one form of the song seems
to represent an anti-demagogic (if metaphorical) rallying cry of the later fifth century,
when we know the song was popular. All known versions of “the Harmodios” suggest
a song of contemporary relevance rather than a kind of historical nugget reflecting
actual political conditions of the late sixth century. The songs inform us more about
the culture of the mid to late fifth-century hetaireiai and symposia, as well as about
the cultic activities and general political culture of Athens, than about the Peisistratid
tyranny, the nature and purpose of Kleisthenes’ revolution, or the aristocratic regime
his reforms replaced.
During the Peloponnesian War groups of conservative Athenian aristocrats, perhaps
50 Taylor (1991), pp. 90–91.

51 Azoulay (2017), pp. 48–51, usefully emphasizes the improvisational nature of the singing of skolia at the
symposium.
52 Forrest (1995), 241.
well into their cups, sometimes sang of taking sword in hand – like the famous assassins
from the clan of the Gephyraioi – killing a “tyrant” and making Athens “isonomous.”
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Who Sang The Harmodios

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Historia 69, 2020/1, 2–16

Who Sang “the Harmodios”?

Athenaeus (15.695a-b) records a set of skolia, or drinking-songs, four of which concern

skolia depend – in part on an epigram of Simonides: ἦ μέγ᾽ Ἀθηναίοισι φόως γένεθ᾽,

9 Page (1981) 76D: see Jacoby (1949), p. 339 n.52.

23 As does, for example, in an otherwise valuable paper, Rosivach (1988), 48–50.

44 Taylor (1991), pp. 89–90.

50 Taylor (1991), pp. 90–91.

O’Sullivan, L. (2011). “Tyrannicides, Symposium, and History: A Consideration of the Tyrannicide

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