Xanthippos (Athens)

Xanthippos (Greek Ξάνθιππος), son of Ariphron , was a politician and general in ancient Athens . He came from the noble family of the Buzygen . His exact life dates are unknown. It is believed to have been around 520 BC. And died at an unknown date after 479 BC. (Debra Nails gives a date of death around 470 BC).

Xanthippos was married to Agariste of the Alkmaionid family . Shortly before the birth of her first child (around 490 BC), Agariste is said to have dreamed - as Plutarch reports - that she would give birth to a lion. A few days later she gave birth to a son, whom Xanthippos named " Pericles " and who later became Athens' most famous statesman.

Xanthippos began his political career shortly afterwards in 489 BC. BC as the accuser of the general Miltiades , who was held responsible in Athens for the defeat in the campaign against Paros and for whom he demanded the death penalty. Xanthippos won the trial, but the sentence was commuted to a heavy fine. (The exceptionally high fine was only paid to Kimon , Miltiades' son, years later, after the convicted Miltiades had died in prison.)

484 BC Xanthippos was banished from Athens (probably because of his opposition to the policies of Themistocles and his naval plans) by a court of fragments (ostracism). When Athens announced a general amnesty because of the impending attack of the Persian Great King Xerxes I on Greece, Xanthippos was able to return to his hometown early and took part in the sea battle of Salamis in 480 BC. Part. The subsequent political change made it possible that in place of Themistocles his critics Aristeides and Xanthippos in the new college of strategists for the year 480/479 BC. Were chosen. Under the supreme command of the Spartan King Leutychidas , Xanthippos himself took over a command as the naval commander.

After their epoch-making victory over the Persian fleet at Salamis , the united Greek fleet at Mykale (a promontory on the Ionian coast) achieved a brilliant victory over the rest of the Persian fleet. Then she sailed to the Hellespont to destroy the bridge built there by Xerxes. When the Spartans saw that the bridge had already been demolished, they returned with their ships to the local waters. Xanthippos decided, however, to undertake an attack with the Athenian fleet on the Thracian peninsula Chersonese, which was still occupied by Persians, and besieged the refuge of the Persian governor Artayktes in the fortress Sestos , which he was only able to take after a long siege. Artayktes was able to flee from there shortly before the city was surrendered with some loyal followers, but Xanthippos had him pursued and captured again. Since Artayktes had plundered and desecrated the cult sanctuary of the Greek hero Protesilaos in Elaios , Xanthippos complied with the demands of the inhabitants of Elaios and had Artayktes and his son executed.

As the writer Pausanias reports, a statue was erected on the Acropolis by the Athenians in honor of Xanthippus and his participation in the victory of Mycale . The statue, which has not survived, stood at the Propylaea and near Athena Lemnia, right next to the statue of the poet Anacreon of Teos, with whom Xanthippos is said to have been friends.

literature

• Debra Nails: The People of Plato . Indianapolis, Cambridge 2002.
• Rudolf Engel: Xanthippos 1. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 5, Stuttgart 1975, column 1400 f.

Remarks

1. ↑ Herodotus 6,131; Plutarch, Pericles 3.
2. ↑ Herodotus 6,136.
3. ↑ Plutarch, Themistocles 10.
4. ↑ Herodotus 8,131.
5. ↑ Herodotus 7.33; 9.114-120.
6. ↑ 1,25,1.