Xenophon of Ikaria

Xenophon of Ikaria , as he is referred to in older literature, lived in Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) and was one of the people who led the rule of the Thirty tyrants in 404 BC. Oppose resistance. The Attic Demos Ikaria is usually mentioned as his place of origin . Another reading of the name - as suggested by György Németh - leads to the place Kurion in northern Greece.

Xenophon of Ikaria (or Kurion) probably lived as a Metöke (ie as a largely lawless foreigner) in Athens.

When he was ruled by the Thirty Tyrants in 404 BC. When he was arrested for giving information about an alleged democratic conspiracy against the oligarchic government, he, who was not a citizen of Athens, could be tortured as a result. However, he did not provide any information even under torture. Because of his refusal to denounce Athenian citizens and others, he was executed by the tyrants.

The famous Attic rhetor Lysias , whose brother Polemarchus was robbed of his property by the thirty tyrants and only executed for his property and who has since been a staunch democrat himself, mentions Xenophon of Ikaria and Hippias of Thasus, who suffered a similar fate, in his court speech " Against Agoratos ”as shining examples of steadfastness, the refusal to collaborate with tyranny and the self-sacrifice.

While Hippias of Thasus and Xenophon of Ikaria proved to be steadfast characters and martyrs of democracy, Lysias also cites the behavior of the Attic citizen Menestratos from Antiochis as a counterexample . This was also arrested and was supposed to testify about other citizens. However, he was released from this difficult situation due to a protection from his community comrade Hagnodoros von Amphitrope, who was a brother-in-law of the tyrant Kritias, but was then ready to collaborate with the tyrants and denounced numerous citizens who then lost their lives.

Under the reign of terror of the thirty tyrants came from August 404 to March 403 BC. Around 1,500 people died. The victims of the tyranny included, besides many unknowns and the persons mentioned (Polemarchus, Hippias of Thasos and Xenophon of Ikaria), the prominent democratic politicians Cleophon , Strombichides , the athlete Autolycus and the taxiarch Dionysodorus . Even Theramenes , the moderately oligarchic politician , who was suspected of treason by Critias, was executed after a brief show trial .

swell

• Lysias, Speech Against Agoratos 54.
• Xenophon, Hellenika II, 3.23-56.

literature

• György Nemeth: Critias and the Thirty Tyrants . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2006, p. 153.
• Karl-Wilhelm Welwei : Classical Athens . Darmstadt 1999.