Harmodios

Harmodios ( ancient Greek Ἁρμόδιος ) was one of the tyrant murderers of Athens . He came from the Demos Aphidnai and belonged to the tribe of Gephyra who immigrated to Athens .

Statues of the murderers Harmodios and Aristogeiton . Roman marble copies of Greek bronze sculptures from 477/476 BC BC National Archaeological Museum, Naples

Together with his friend Aristogeiton , he belonged to a group of conspirators who wanted to eliminate the Peisistratid tyranny in Athens. During the Great Panathenaic Islands of 514 BC They carried out an attack on the tyrant brothers Hippias and Hipparchus . At the place of execution, the Leokoreion as the starting point of the parade in the northwest of the agora , however, only Hipparchus was apparently present and was killed. While Aristogeiton was initially able to escape and only later died under torture, Harmodios was killed immediately by the guards.

The motives for the act were Aristogeiton's jealousy as Erastes of the younger Harmodios on Hipparchus and the denigration or defamation of the sister of Harmodios.

After the fall of tyranny and the expulsion of Hippias in 510 BC. A memorial was erected on the agora to the murderers of the tyrants , the second version of which is known from Roman copies - after the robbery of the original group committed by Xerxes .

literature

• Julius Miller : Harmodios 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VII, 2, Stuttgart 1912, Col. 2378.
• Julius Miller: Aristogeiton 1 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 1, Stuttgart 1895, Col. 930 f.

Remarks

1. ↑ Plutarch , quaestiones convivales 1,10,3 .
2. ↑ Herodotus 5.57 .
3. ↑ Herodotus 5: 55f. ; 6,123 ; Thucydides 1.20 . 6.55-59 ; Aristotle , Athenaion politeia 18 ; Diodorus 9,1,4 .
4. ↑ Diodorus 10:17 ; Plutarch, Amatorius 16:27 ; Aristotle, Rhetoric 2,1401 b .
5. ↑ Thucydides 6.56 ; Aelian , varia historia 11.8 .
6. ↑ Iustinus , epitoma historiarum Philippicarum 2.9 .