Loomis, 'Sorrow and the Pity:  A Prolegomenon to a History of Athens under the Peisistratids, c. 560-510 B.C.', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9409
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9409-loomis-sorrow

@@@@94.9.14, Lavelle, The Sorrow and the Pity

Brian M. Lavelle, <i>The Sorrow and the Pity:  A Prolegomenon to
a History of Athens under the Peisistratids, c. 560-510 B.C.</i>
(Historia Einzelschriften 80). Stuttgart:  Franz Steiner Verlag,
1993. Pp. 147. ISBN 3-515-06318-8.
  Reviewed by William T. Loomis -- University of Michigan

  The title of this monograph is taken from Marcel Ophuls' 1971
film <i>Le chagrin et la pitie</i>, which "created a national
uproar in France by exploding the hallowed myth that France as a
nation had resisted German occupation during the World War" (p.
16).  In this study, which builds upon sixteen earlier articles
on the Peisistratids and his 1983 University of British Columbia
dissertation, Lavelle, now an associate professor of Classical
Studies at Loyola University Chicago, argues that fifth-century
Athenians also created a myth of resistance against the
Peisistratid tyranny.  The unraveling of this myth, he asserts
(Chapter 1 "Introduction"), yields not only a more accurate
history of sixth-century Athens under the Peisistratids but also
a better understanding of fifth-century Athenian psychology.

  In Chapter 2 ("Genesis of the Athenian Myth of Resistance"),
L. infers from the election of Hipparchos son of Charmos as
eponymous archon in 496 that the Peisistratids were still
"politically viable" in the earliest years of the fifth century,
but that the prosecution in 493/2 of the "Peisistratid
cooperative" Miltiades for <i>tyrannis</i> shows that the
political climate had changed dramatically in three years, and
that Miltiades' second conviction, for <i>apate</i> in 489,
reflects increased hostility against the Peisistratids.  One
wonders, however, whether Hipparchos really could have been
elected in 496 if he had seemed politically close to the expelled
tyrants, and Herodotos (6.104.2, 136) speaks only of Miltiades'
own (allegedly) excessive behavior.  L. is on more solid ground
when he follows the <i>communis opinio</i> (as, e.g., in CAH IV2
338) that by 487 popular hostility against persons (arguably)
associated with the Peisistratids and the Persians is clearly
demonstrated by the ostracism of the same Hipparchos son of
Charmos.  Herodotos' (6.123.2) and Thucydides' (1.20.2, 6.54-59)
accounts of the "tyrannicide" of 514 show that they were aware
that popular tradition (embodied in the skolia [Page, <i>PMG</i>
893-896]) had transformed a politically ineffective act of
personal vengeance into the decisive blow that ended the tyranny,
but L. perceptively observes that even Thucydides must have been
contaminated by this tradition, since otherwise he would not have
reported that the original target had been Hippias, rather than
Aristogeiton's rival erastes Hipparchos. 

  In Chapter 3 ("The Myth Transcendent"), L. distills from the
sources a "minimum record" of the Peisistratid period ("The
Tyranny Without Adornment") before turning to "Imprints of
Deformation".  L. argues that early fifth-century Athenians
(especially the Alkmeonidai) were embarrassed by their (and their
ancestors') collaboration with the Peisistratids, that they
accordingly suppressed the record of this collaboration, and that
this suppression ("'silence' from abridgment") resulted in
Herodotos' scanty account of the Peisistratids.  L. goes so far
as to reconstruct an official <i>damnatio memoriae</i> in the
480s, but his evidence for this (including Livy 31.44.8: 
<i>postremo inclusum, ut omnia quae aduersus Pisistratidas
decreta quondam erant eadem in Philippo</i> [V of Macedon]
<i>seruarentur</i>) is offset by other evidence which he
acknowledges, e.g., the dedicatory inscription of Peisistratos
son of Hippias on the Altar of Apollo Pythios (whose letters,
Meiggs & Lewis #11 report, "are still clear") and the Altar of
the Twelve Gods, which L. agrees (p. 77, n. 75) was overbuilt
only in the third quarter of the fifth century.  L. goes on to
reconstruct the various kinds of "Apology" made by the
Alkmeonidai and Antiphon for their ancestors' collaboration: 
outright denial, selective admission and general confession, in
each case with the implication that the demos as a whole had been
even more implicated.

  In Chapter 4 ("Components of Revision in the Tradition about
the Tyranny"), L. discusses "genos-tradition" and
"demos-tradition":  "it was demos-tradition that Harmodios and
Aristogeiton slew the tyrant Hipparchos and freed Athens;
genos-tradition (i.e., Alkmeonid) that they did not ....  On the
other hand, it is genos-tradition (again, Alkmeonid) that the
Gephyraioi were not Athenians, but foreigners; demos-tradition,
while not stated, is surely that the Gephyraioi were most
assuredly Athenian."  The notion that Peisistratos' rise was
inevitable (e.g., the prodigy of Hippokrates' pots boiling over
at Olympia, Amphilytos' prophecy before Pallene) excused the
submission of all Athenians and thus could be the product of
demos-tradition, but L. thinks that it was contrived by the
Alkmeonids to obscure their own more specific collaboration,
evidenced not only by the marriage alliance which resulted in
Peisistratos' second tyranny, but also by Peisistratos' original
rise to power, which L. argues could not have occurred without
the political support of Megakles; this reconstruction has a
certain appeal, but is it likely that the Alkmeonidai were
responsible for the detail (Hdt. 1.61.1) that Peisistratos
avoided "normal" intercourse with Megakles' daughter because the
Alkmeonidai were under a curse?  Similarly, L. sees evidence for
Alkmeonid "guilt" in Kleisthenes' archonship of 525/4, his
bribery at Delphi to encourage Spartan intervention in Athens,
and his post-507 efforts for "subjection to Persia"; the first
fact (like most archonships) is omitted by Herodotos, the second
(L. argues) is cast in a light favorable to the Alkmeonidai,
while the third probably is not even a fact (at p. 103, n. 53, L.
concedes that he is not "persuaded that Kleisthenes was
necessarily a member of the embassy to Sardis", which Hdt. 5.73
says had been sent to make an alliance, not to give earth and
water).  As the prime example of demos-tradition, L. points to
the alleged disarmament of the demos, either just after
Hipparchos' assassination in 514 (Thuc. 6.58) or after the Battle
of Pallene in 546/5 (Ath. Pol. 15.3-4); both disarmaments (which
are contradicted elsewhere by the demos' domestic and foreign
military service for the Peisistratids) tended to excuse the
demos' failure in 514 to support the "tyrannicides" and more
generally to revolt at any time before 511/0.  L. concludes with
a catalogue of "Themes of Apology and Explanation", attributes of
the Peisistratids which excused collaboration with them: 
trickery, divine assistance/sanction, sexual misconduct,
righteousness, "good" rule/"bad" rule and (with respect to the
Peisistratid period) silence.

  Following an "Epilogue", which summarizes his conclusions, L.
provides a very full Bibliography of recent work on the
Peisistratids.

  There are editorial slips (misspellings, missing words,
non-syllabic word divisions, and errors in grammar and
punctuation) on nearly every page, but they usually are not
misleading.  What is baffling on occasion is the English prose
style and syntax, e.g., the second sentence of the book (p. 9): 
"A sharper focus on the period would advantage us in several
ways, the obvious ones, of course, but, perhaps most importantly,
in fathoming Athens after the tyranny, during the fifth century
B.C."

  This is a provocative approach to the very limited evidence on
the Peisistratids.