Extract
[...] But Pisistratus was far from having said his last word. He joined the region of Mount Pangaeum, a region where gold and silver flowed abundantly, and once he had amassed enough wealth, he assembled an army of mercenaries ready to fight and landed in Attica, determined to regain the power that was his. In 542, he was welcomed in Euboea, at Eretria, and received the support of the Thebans and Lygdamis of Naxos, whom Pisistratus himself had installed as tyrant after the conquest of the island of Naxos. [...]
[...] The first coins with coats of arms will appear in Attica at the end of his reign, around 530. But his finances will still be in good shape thanks to the crops. On the justice side, the itinerant courts will appear, heavy penalties will be put in place for all the faults committed. The foreign policy will not be left aside, Athens turning towards the Aegean Sea and the region of the Dardanelles for its new conquests with colonies that will appear in several regions. [...]
[...] Except that, after four years of exile, Pisistratus was recalled to power. Megacles became one of his allies this time, after marrying his daughter to him around 554 BCE. He did everything to make his son-in-law legitimate. The Athenian people were fooled, Megacles did not hesitate to parade through the city on a chariot with a young woman dressed as Athena by his side, and everyone believed it was she, to make it possible for his son-in-law to take power without any problem. [...]
[...] During his reign, the intellectual and aesthetic life of Athens will reach its peak, economic and military cultures and patronage will be concentrated at the tyrant's court. END OF REIGN AND SUCCESSION In 527 BC, Pisistratus died. Hippias and Hipparchus, his two sons, recovered a city-state, which is Athens, which had reached its golden age, military, cultural and economic. After Pisistratus, tyranny would only survive for 17 years, the Pisistratid dynasty would leave room quickly for democracy, which he had himself laid the foundations for. [...]
[...] Pisistrate (600 - 527 BCE) Pisistrate, son of Hippocrates, was the first tyrant of Athens. He ruled from 561 to 527 BCE. He was born around 600 BCE and died in 527 BCE. THE COMING TO POWER Pisistratus was an aristocrat. He quickly became, thanks to his military prestige, the leader of the Diacrii, one of the three factions of partisans that had formed with a leader at its head, during the agrarian crisis in Athens, representing the peasantry, more particularly that of the mountains in the north-east of Attica. [...]
