Harmodius (c. 530-514 BC) and Aristogeiton (c. 550-514 BC), known as "the Liberators" and "the Tyrannicides", became heroes in Athens through their role in the overthrow of the Tyranny of the Peisistratid family. They were the first two Greeks considered by their countrymen worthy of having statues raised to them.

Peisistratus seized power in 561 and established a radical regime. Peisistratus is usually called a tyrant, but the Greek word tyrannos does not mean a cruel and despotic ruler, merely one who took power by force. Peisistratus was in fact a very popular ruler, who made Athens wealthy and powerful, although the old aristocratic families he had driven from power hated him. When Peisistratus died in 527/528, his sons Hippias and Hipparchus succeeded him. They continued their father's policies, but their popularity declined after Hipparchus began to abuse the power of his position.

In 514 Hipparchus sought the sexual favours of Harmodius, who was, the historian Thucydides tells us, "then in the flower of youthful beauty." Harmodius was the eromenos of Aristogeiton, whom Thucydides describes as "a citizen then in middle rank of life" and a member of one of the old aristocratic families.

Romantic, erotic and sexual relationships between an adult man (the erastes) and a youth (the eromenos) were sanctioned by custom in Athens and other Greek cities. Hipparchus' own father had been the eromenos of Solon, and had taken an eromenos of his own, Charmus, who had gone on to be the erastes of Hipparchus' brother, Hippias. Hipparchus himself had been the eromenos of Prokleides, a noted Athenian. However, Hipparchus's actions in trying to seduce Aristogeiton's eromenos was a definite breach of the rules. (Thucydides says bluntly that Aristogeiton "was his lover and possessed him.")

Harmodius rejected Hipparchus and told Aristogeiton what had happened. Hipparchus, spurned, avenged himself by having Harmodius' young sister disqualified from carrying a ceremonial offering basket (Kanephoros) at the Panathenaea festival on the pretext she was not a virgin, as required. This was such a mortal offence to Harmodius's family that he and Aristogeiton resolved to assassinate both Hippias and Hipparchus and thus to overthrow the tyranny.

The plot – to be carried out by means of daggers hidden in the ceremonial myrtle wreaths – involved a number of other co-conspirators, but seeing one of these greet Hippias in a friendly manner on the assigned day, the two thought themselves betrayed and rushed into action, ruining the carefully laid plans. They managed to kill Hipparchus, stabbing him to death as he was organizing the Panathenaean processions at the foot of the Acropolis, but the two lovers were killed on the spot by Hipparchus's guards, and there was no revolt.

Aristotle in the Constitution of Athens preserves a tradition that Aristogeiton died only after being tortured in the hope that he would reveal the names of other conspirators. During his ordeal, personally overseen by Hippias, he feigned willingness to betray his co-conspirators, claiming only Hippias' handshake as guarantee of safety. Upon receiving the tyrant's hand he is reputed to have berated him for shaking the hand of his own brother's murderer, upon which the tyrant wheeled and struck him down on the spot. Likewise, there is a tradition that Aristogeiton was in love with a courtesan (see hetaira) by the name of Leæna (lioness) who also was kept by Hippias under torture – in a vain attempt to force her to divulge the names of the other conspirators – until she died. It was said that it was in her honor that Athenian statues of Aphrodite were from then on accompanied by stone lionesses [after Pausanias].

His brother's murder led Hippias to establish an even stricter dictatorship, which proved very unpopular and was overthrown, with the help of an army from Sparta, in 510. This was followed by the reforms of Cleisthenes, who established a democracy in Athens.

Subsequent history came to identify the romantic figures of Harmodius and Aristogeiton as martyrs to the cause of Athenian freedom, possibly for political and class reasons, and they became known as "the Liberators" (eleutherioi) and "the Tyrannicides" (tyrannophonoi). According to later writers, descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton were given hereditary privileges, such as sitesis (the right to take meals at public expense in the town hall), ateleia (exemption from certain religious duties), and proedria (front-row seats in the theater). Since it is not known if Aristogeiton had any descendants (it is most unlikely that Harmodius did), this may be a later invention, but it illustrates their posthumous status.

After the establishment of democracy, the sculptor Antenor was commissioned to produce a statue group of Harmodius and Aristogeiton that was erected in the Agora. Special laws prohibited the erection of any other statues in their vicinity. The cenotaph of the couple was erected in the Kerameikos, and annual offerings (enagismata) were presented there by the polemarch, the Athenian minister of war.

Another tribute to the two heroes was a hymn, or skolion, written by Callistratus, an Athenian poet known only for this work. Its popularity was such that "at every banquet, nay, in the streets and in the meanest assembly of the common people, that convivial ode was daily sung:

He is not dead, our best belov’d,
Harmodius is not lost;
But with Troy’s conquerors remov’d
To some more happy coast.



Bind then the myrtle’s mystic bough,
And wave your swords around;
For so they struck the tyrant low,
And so their swords were bound.



Perpetual objects of our love
The patriot pair shall be,
Who in Minerva’s sacred grove
Struck and set Athens free."

This ode, found in Athenaeus, has been translated by many modern poets such as Edgar Allan Poe, who composed his Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius in 1827. Other skolia existed, of which a few have survived, such as the following:

Harmodius, most beloved. Surely you are not at all dead,
But on the Isles of the Blessed you abide, they say,
The same place where swift-footed Achilles is,
Where roams worthy Diomedes, son of Tydeus, they say.

The story of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and its treatment by later Greek writers, is illustrative of attitudes to pederasty in ancient Greece. Both Thucydides and Herodotus say that the two were lovers, without making any comment on this fact: clearly they assumed that their readers would be familiar with the institution and find nothing remarkable about it. Further confirming the status of the two as paragons of pederastic ethics, a domain forbidden to slaves, a law was passed prohibiting slaves from being named after the two heroes.

The story continued to be cited as an admirable example of heroism and devotion for many years. In 346 BC, for example, the politician Timarchus was prosecuted (for political reasons) on the grounds that he had prostituted himself as a youth. The orator who defended him, Demosthenes, cited Harmodius and Aristogeiton, as well as Achilles and Patroclus, as examples of the beneficial effects of same-sex relationships. Aeschines offers them as an example of dikaios erōs, “just love”, and as proof of the boons such love brings the city. The fact that the statues of the Liberators were still being copied in Roman times shows the durability of their legend.

*Athenian democracy *Athenian pederasty

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*Livius, Harmodius and Aristogeiton by Jona Lendering *Story of Harmodius and Aristogiton