LAVELLE, BRIAN M., Koisyra and Megakles, the Son of Hippokrates , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 30:4 (1989) p.503 

Koisyra and Megakles, 
the Son of Hippokrates 

Brian M. Lavelle 

KOISYRA is linked to Megakles and the Athenian Alkmai­
onidai in scholia to Aristophanes' comedies,l from which 
we learn the following, sometimes quite contradictory, 

information about her: (1) the name is Eretrian/she was from 
Eretria;2 (2) the name/she was synonymous with nobility, 
wealth, luxurious living, and "thinking big" (JlEya CPPOV£tv), a 
phrase regularly used to indicate an arrogant, even tyrannical 
temperament;3 (3) she was a slave and a runaway slave;4 (4) she 
was the mother of "Megakles";5 (5) she was the wife of "Alk­
maion";6 (6) she was married to Peisistratos "when he at­
tempted to rule as tyrant" (L Nub. 48). The seemingly precise L 
Nub. 46, 0 1tp6)'to~ M£ya1(A:il~ KOlaupa~ ~v '\)i6~, adds further 
confusion. 

In his study of the testimonia concerning this intriguing 
woman, T. L. Shear, Jr, discerned no less than three Koisyrai, all 
related to an Alcmaeonid Megakles. 7 Koisyra I, an Eretrian, was 
the wife of Alkmaion, the beneficiary of Kroisos' largesse and 

1 I presume that testimonia about Koisyra in the Suda and Hesychios 
(infra) mostly paraphrase Aristophanic scholia, extant and otherwise; cf U. 
von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aristoteles und A then I (Berlin 1893) 111 n.20. 

2 I Nub. 46, 48; Suda S.'ll. EYlC£lC01(J'UPCOJ.u:Vllv. That the name is called 
Eretrian suggests that the scholiasts or, more likely, their primary sources the 
comic poets, cited more than one Koisyra, but that the earliest Koisyra was 
Eretrian in fact. It does not necessarily mean, however, that more than one 
Koisyra was from Eretria: indeed, taken literally, I Ach. 614 indicates that a 
Koisyra was born at Athens (see infra). 

3 I Ach. 614; Nub. 46, cf 48 (and Tzetzes ad loee.), 800; Suda. On the 
connotations of llEya <PPOV£\V see LSJ S.'ll. <PpDVECO II.2.b. 

4 I.Nub. 64, 800; Pax 450. 
5 I Ach. 614, Nub. 46 and Tzetzes, 64; Hesych. S.'ll. tylC£lCOt(J'UPCOllEVll' I 

Nub. 800 is anomalous in reporting Koisyra as wife or daughter of Megakles, 
and this is almost certainly erroneous (see infra at nAO) . 

.; Suda; cf J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families, 600-300 B.C. (Oxford 
1971: hereafter APE) 381. 

7 "Koisyra: Three Women of Athens,» Phoenix 17 (1963) 99-112. 

503 



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504 KOISYRA AND MEGAKLES 

the father of the "first Megakles" (11).8 This Megakles, who 
flourished during the second quarter of the sixth century, acted 
as kingmaker for the Athenians, first establishing Peisistratos as 
tyrant and then deposing him for the insult to his daughter 
(Hdt. 1.61.1£). Only his fame, Shear believed, could account for 
the epithet 1tpoho~ in the scholion. 9 Koisyra II, an Athenian, 
was the daughter of this Megakles and the namesake of her 
Eretrian mother: it was she (unnamed by Herodotus) who was 
misused sexually by Peisistratos. 1o Finally, Koisyra III was the 
wife and cousin of Megakles Hippokratous, the ostracise of 486, 
and the mother of the younger Megakles (V) with whom the 
comedy of Aristophanes is much concerned.ll 

J. K. Davies, however, dismissed Shear's three Koisyrai, 
pointing out that the "first Megakles" of the scholion ought to 
be the first named in Nub. 46, i.e., Megakles (V) Megakleous, 
Aristophanes' contemporary comedic mark. The one and only 
Koisyra was married to Megakles, the son of Hippokrates. 
Davies' economization is attractive, since the scholia, which are 
similarly worded and contain the same general information, 
more plausibly refer to fewer Koisyrai than to many and rather 
specifically to the mother of the "first Megakles." 

But there are "loose ends: as Davies puts it, left in the scholi­
asts' tradition by his treatment. How did the identifications of 
Koisyra as (1) the wife of Alkmaion, great-grandfather of 
Megakles IV, and as (2) the wife of Peisistratos intrude into the 
tradition after all if there was general knowledge and agreement 
about the wife of Megakles Hippokratous? For Davies (381), 
the first problem could "easily be accounted for as a misinter­
pretation" of I Nub. 46. In this case, "Megakles" was under-

8 I use Davies' enumeration here. On Alkmaion I see APF 369-71. 
9 Shear omits to explain how the fame of this -first Megakles" can have 

occluded the celebrity of those named Megakles who lived before the son of 
Alkmaion-I am thinking specifically of Megakles I, who earned the agos for 
his genos (APF 370£)-or, especially, those who lived after him, who were 
famous in their own right and nearer in time to the comic poets (cf. APF 381): 
for while Herodotus, the ultimate source for information about the son of 
Alkmeon for the scholia, portrays him as little more than a cynical 
cooperative with Peisistratos, Megakles IV, the son of Hippokrates, was the 
second man ostracized (with charges of luxurious living: see infra n.15), 
became subsequently Pythian victor in the four-horse competition at Delphi, 
was commemorated by Pindar (Pyth. 7 and scholia), and very probably 
medized at the time of the Persian War (see infra). 

10 Cf. J. van Leeuwen, ed., Aristophanes, Nubes (Leiden 1898) 17; C. E. 
Graves, ed., Aristophanes, The Clouds (Cambridge 1911) 79. 

11 Cf. also R. Cromey, -On Deinomache," Historia 33 (1984) 388ff. 



LAVELLE, BRIAN M., Koisyra and Megakles, the Son of Hippokrates , Greek, Roman and 
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stood by the author of the Suda (or his source) to be the son of 
Alkmaion, i. e., Shear's "first" Megakles (II), not the son of 
Megakles Hippokratous. But this is a tremendous act of faith, a 
lectio difficillima in fact: for we must accept that, while the mis­
interpreter of the scholion read the remoter Megakles (cf. supra 
n.9) into his misinterpretation because of his familiarity with 
Herodotus at least, the same author completely disregarded 
other references to the more recent Megakleis in comedies and 
comedic scholia (or their sources) and, more pertinently, rather 
precise identifications of Megakles IV and V, when all this 
information was right before him. Or to put it differently, the 
inconsistent author was, simultaneously, both ingenious and 
puerile in respect of the same information. 12 

The second explanation is equally harrowing. Koisyra's 
marriage to Peisistratos, a problem "very much more awkward 
to explain," Davies declared either a fact or, as he preferred, "an 
imaginative expansion of Herodotos' account Esc. of Peisistra­
tos' marriage to Megakles' daughter] in the light (a) of the 
known connection between the name Koisyra and Megakles' 
family, and (b) of Peisistratos' known later relationship with 
Eretria." But how did Megakles' daughter, unnamed in 
Herodotus, become "Koisyra," especially if (on Davies' assump­
tion) the latter was widely known to have been the wife of one 
fifth-century Megakles (IV) and mother of another (V)? How 
did Peisistratos' link with Eretria figure at all into his dealings 
with the Alcmaeonids? Needless to say, both explanations are 
not convincing.13 

My purpose in this paper is to offer other explanations for the 
problems involved with the Koisyra-tradition; I take the scholia 
to be generally valid, not invented, and proceed on that 
assumption. There is, in fact, one very solid prop for assuming 
such validity: that there was at least one historical Koisyra, kin 
to Megakles Hippokratous and older than he, is proven by 
ostraka cast against Megakles in 486, naming him the "son of 
Koisyra." 14 From this evidence, it is also reasonable to assume 

12 APF 380f. Of course, if this author was more ingenious than the other 
sources for Koisyra/Megakles, then Davies' other assumptions about Koisyra 
are overturned. 

13 Cf. P. J. Bicknell, "'Athenian Politics and Genealogy: Some Pendants," 
Historia 23 (1974) 146 n.S. 

14 See H. B. Mattingly, "'Facts and Artifacts: the Researcher and his Tools," 
The University of Leeds Review 14 (1971) 283, and Cromey (supra n.ll) 390 
n.19. I should think that the doubts of J. Toepffer (Attische Genealogie [Berlin 



LAVELLE, BRIAN M., Koisyra and Megakles, the Son of Hippokrates , Greek, Roman and 
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506 KOISYRA AND MEGAKLES 

that Koisyra's reputation for extravagance and a hybristic 
nature, attested in the scholia, was already well established, since 
similar charges were levelled against Megakles in the same 
ostrakophoria.1S But, most importantly, the ostraka also accord 
with the information in many of the scholia that Koisyra was in 
fact the mother of Megakles. Thus, while the ·son of Koisyra" 
inscriptions may have amounted to further charges of high and 
dangerous living, they should not be taken as gratuitously 
attached to Megakles as slander simply for the occasion of his 
ostrakophoria. Rather, these inscriptions and iteration of the 
mother-son relationship in the scholia make the conlusion 
inescapable that a famous Koisyra was the mother of Megakles 
IV, that she was the wife of Hippokrates Megakleous, and that 
her reputation for wealth and Megakles' was shared because of 
their affinity.16 The "first Megakles" of L Nub. 46 is thus 
identified as the second man ostracized, Pythian victor of 486 
and celebrated for his victory by Pindar (Pyth. 7). Such fame as 
this Megakles acquired through these exploits can surely have 
eclipsed any attaching to the sixth-century Megakles (supra n.9) 
for later sources; and 1tp&'to~ can in fact amount to 'earlier' 
instead of 'first' (cf. LSJ S.V. 1tp6'tEPO~ B.L3). 

Obviously the story cannot end there, since there is more 
from the scholia to be taken together with information from 
other sources about mother and son. According to the author 
of Ath.Pol. 22.4, Megakles, the son of Hippokrates, was a (JU'Y­
'YEV"'~ of the tyrants. Since the Alcmaeonid descendants of Mega­
kles later admitted to such kinship (!soc. 16.25), it cannot be 
seriously doubted as fact. 17 Blood-relationship between Alc­
maonids and Pisistratids cannot be accounted for by Peisistra­
tos' abortive marriage to Megakles' daughter (whatever her 
name), since there was no issue; nor could it have come about if 
Koisyra had been wed to Peisistratos before Hippokrates, since 

1889] 243 n.1), Wilamowitz (supra n.1), and K. J. Dover (ed., Aristophanes, 
Clouds [Oxford 1968] 99f) are invalidated by this evidence. 

15 See Mattingly (supra n.14) 283; G. M. E. Williams, -Athenian Politics, 
508/7-480 B.C.: A Reappraisa~" Athenaeum 60 (1982) 539-43. 

l' The point of the inscribers would have been to underscore that Megakles' 
suitability for ostracism-his flaw, so to speak-was inherent (cf. Thuc. 6.55.1 
and the listing of Myrrhine on the stele adikias), and further to dishonor 
Megakles by mentioning his mother by name (cf. David Schaps, -The 
Woman Least Mentioned," CQ N.s. 27 [1977] 323-30, esp. 327). 

17 See B. M. Lavelle, -A Note on the First Three Victims of Ostracism," CP 
83 (1988) 131-35. 



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BRIAN M. LAVELLE 507 

that would have made the charge of "blood-relation" simply 
slanderous: the Alcmaeonids can have rejected it and lessened 
the political liabilities such kinship entailed at Athens. 18 If 
Koisyra was the mother of Megakles, she must be the link to 
whom or through whom such affinity to the tyrants is to be 
traced, for Hippokrates' mother was Agariste of Sikyon (cf 
APE 371H). One and the same woman can hardly have been 
wife of Alkmaion, wife, daughter, or sister of Peisistratos, and 
then wife of Hippokrates: that would be asking too much even 
of a noble Athenian woman. Not all the scholia can be taken 
literally or considered to have equal value; but in attempting to 
salvage all that we can of the tradition, it is still most reasonable 
to conclude that there was more than one Koisyra (pace 
Davies). 

We begin with what the scholia repeat several times and what, 
by the same token, seems factual enough: 'Koisyra' is an 
Eretrian name, an historical Koisyra who came to Athens was a 
haughty and noble Eretrian woman. At first glance, this would 
be the Koisyra who married Hippokrates some time in the 
520'S.19 But a marriage-arrangement between the Alkmaionidai 
and the Eretrian hippeis after 546 seems not at all likely, since 
the hippeis, who were firm allies of the Pisistratids at Pallene 
and against the Alcmaeonids, had little to gain in any way from 
the now thoroughly diminished Alcmaeonids, who had re­
mained accursed and unacceptable politically even to the 
Athenians through the sixth century.20 

Eretrian ties to Peisistratos and his family, on the other hand, 
were conspicuously close from well before Pallene. After 
Peisistratos' short, disastrous marriage to Megakles' daughter, 
the tyrant fled from Athens to Eretria and there considered a 
return to Athens (Hdt. 1.61.2f). Eretria was not only safe harbor 
for him, but, by implication, offered him and his family the real 

18 Xanthippos. the father of Perikles. is called an Alcmaeonid in the scholia 
to the Hypothesis of Aristeides. On the Four (3.532, lines 23-26 Dindorf), but 
can only have been so termed because of his marriage to Agariste. the sister of 
Megakles (IV). Being charged an Alcmaeonid need not. however, have 
implied ouyyiv £la. 

19 Cf APF 379 on the approximate birthdate of Agariste. the sister of Mega­
kles and the mother of Perikles. 

20 On the Alcmaeonids and the Kylonian incident: Hdt. 5.71; Thuc. 1.126.2-
12; Pluto Sol. 12; M. Lang, -The Kylonian Conspiracy." CP 62 (1967) 243-49. 
The curse remained a political sword of Damocles. which the Spartans 
thought exploitable as late as the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. 
1.126.2. 127.tf}. 



LAVELLE, BRIAN M., Koisyra and Megakles, the Son of Hippokrates , Greek, Roman and 
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508 KOISYRA AND MEGAKLES 

possibility of immediate return to Attica. Dissuaded by Hippias, 
Peisistratos instead turned north, heading first to the Chalcidice 
and Eretrian concessions there, and then to Mount Pangaeon. 21 

There, apparently in cooperation with the Eretrians, he secured 
the fortune that enabled his return to Athens and the final 
establishment of his tyranny. Peisistratos spent some time again 
in Eretria marshalling his allies and mapping his attack; he was 
sustained on Euboia once more by the hippeis who joined him 
in the invasion of Attica, fought beside him at Pallene, and ap­
parently helped to consolidate his power at Athens in the after­
math of the battle at the expense of the previously powerful 
Alkmaionidai. 

The record of Pisistratid-Eretrian association adds up to rather 
extraordinary cooperation and becomes even more conspicu­
ous because it flourished most in Peisistratos' darkest hours. 
Very close relations are implied and a dynastic marriage 
between Peisistratos and the most influential of Eretrian noble 
houses would explain much. Such marriages were common 
enough during the Archaic period and provided substantial 
military and financial advantages to complement the prestige 
they seem to have offered both parties. In fact, the best exam­
ples involve Athenians aiming at tyranny: Kylon's marriage to 
Theagenes' daughter obtained for him an armed force of 
Megarians for his attempted coup, while Peisistratos' to Mega­
kles' daughter bought him the latter's assent to tyrannical rule; 
Theagenes, through the goodwill of Kylon and his heirs, could 
secure Salamis and his northeastern frontier, while Megakles' 
spoiled marriage-allliance with Peisistratos was aimed, on his 
part, at procuring the succession for the Alcmaeonid's descend­
ants.22 Of course, Megakles himself had allied with Kleisthenes, 
tyrant of Sicyon, through Agariste: (Hdt. 6.126.2-131.2). Peisis­
tratos surely knew the advantages of his marriage-arrangement 
with Timonassa, the daughter of Gorgilos of Argos, for it got 
for him the support of 1,000 Argive fighters at Pallene.23 

Eretria's enduring and generous military and (obviously) 

21 Ath.Pol. 15.2; cf. J. W. Cole, ·Pisistratus on the Strymon," G&R 22 (1975) 
42ff; L. H. Jeffery, Archaic Greece (New York 1976) 95; P. J. Rhodes, A 
Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1981) 207; D. 
Viviers, ·Pisistratus' Settlement on the Thermaic Gulf: A Connection with the 
Eretrian Colonization," iRS 1 07 (1987) 193ff. 

22 On Kylon and Theagenes: Thuc. 1.126.3ff; R. P. Legon, Megara. The Po­
litical History of a Greek City-State to 336 B.C. (Ithaca 1981) 93ff (cf. also 
supra n.20); on Megakles and Peisistratos: Hdt. 1.60. 

23 Hdt. 1.61.4; Ath.Pol. 17.4. 



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BRIAN M. LAVELLE 509 

financial support for Peisistratos is understandable, if predicated 
upon dynastic marriage. The logical candidate for the link is 
Koisyra, a noble and haughty Eretrian woman who was married 
to Peisistratos "when he attempted to rule as tyrant" (:E. Nub. 
48), i.e., before 546 when he became tyrant again. 24 As Pei­
sistratos had obtained military assistance from Argos because of 
his earlier marriage to Timonassa, as Hippias would later obtain 
diplomatic aid from Hippoklos of Lampsakos through the 
marriage of his daughter Archedike to Aiantides (Thuc. 6.59.3f), 
so did the old tyrant secure the arms and aid of the Eretrian 
hippeis through his marriage to Koisyra (1). 1 should think that 
it was this Koisyra, born and bred in an Eretrian noble house 
and then married to Peisistratos, who established the reputation 
for extravagance and J.1£Yll CPPOV£l.V attaching to the name. 

If this assumption is correct, then it is also reasonable to 
assume that the marriage produced issue, necessary cement for 
the alliance-we compare Peisistratos' refusal to rrocreate with 
Megakles' daughter and its result-and one 0 these was a 
maiden appropriately named Koisyra (II) after her mother. 25 
When that maiden came of age, she too became useful as part of 
a marriage-arrangement, the political benefits of which the 
Pisistratids were apparently always quite well aware. To forge 
better-albeit politically innocuous-relations with the dimin­
ished but still influential clan of the Alkmaionidai, Koisyra (II), 
whose offspring would have no hope whatsoever of succes­
sion, was married to Hippokrates after 530 (but before 520).26 
The arrangement can be seen as simply another facet of Pei­
sistratos' conciliatory policy toward Athenian aristocrats, con­
sistent with his inclusion of members of leading families in at 
least the outward appearances of power and privilege by means 
of existing offices: Koisyra's marriage to Hippokrates amounted 
to dynastic intermarriage on a lesser scale. 27 This link also helps 
to explain better how the Pisistratids, while including others in 
the archonships, were "always able to keep one of their own in 
office" (Thuc. 6.54.6). 

24 Apparently this was originally suggested by Heinze, De rebus Eretrien­
sium 29 (Toeppfer [supra n.14]). 

25 Cf APF 371£ on Agariste, daughter of Agariste of Sikyon; Shear (supra 
n.7) 103. C[. also W. Ribbeck, ed., Die Acharner des Aristophanes (Leipzig 
1864) 231 on two Koisyrai. 

26 Cf. APF 379. 
27 Cf. Andoc. 2.26 on those who reconciled with Peisistratos after Pallene 

and became related to the tyrants. 



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510 KOISYRA AND MEGAKLES 

The Alcmaeonids and the Pisistratids were certainly close po­
litically by the mid-520's, as the Athenian archon list (M.lL. 6) 
shows: Hippias and Kleisthenes, the uncle of Hippokrates, 
were archons eponymoi in consecutive years (526/5 and 52514). 
The po Ii tical closeness of the Alkmaionidai to and indeed their 
kinship with the Pisistratids-Alcmaeonid protestations of miso­
tyrannism (Hdt. 6.123.1) notwithstanding-are made more 
understandable by the marriage of Hippokrates the brother of 
Kleisthenes to Koisyra the daughter of Peisistratos; again both 
the (JuYY£VEtU of Megakles the son of Hippokrates to the tyrants 
is explained along with charges of extravagance and high living, 
tantamount to a tyrannical disposition, which were attached to 
Megakles on ostraka and which can thus be traced through his 
mother to his maternal grandmother and grandfather.28 Suspi­
cions of treasonous cooperation with Hippias and the Persians 
at Marathon and after were certainly enhanced by this kinship, 
and the failure of the Athenians to forget this alleged Alcmae­
onid collaboration surely accounts at least partially for diminu­
tion of the family's political fortunes after the Persian Wars.29 

Two problems remain: (1) how can we account for Koisyra as 
the wife of Alkmaion (Suda), who is identified as the father of 
Megakles the kingmaker? I suggest that 'AAKJluicovo<; is a cor­
ruption or misunderstanding of 'AAKJlUlCOV[io]ou or, ultimately, 
of 'AAKJl£cov[io]ou: cf M£YUKAi\<; thmoKpu'toU<; 'AAKJl£covioou. 30 
Koisyra was not the "wife of Alkmaion (=Alkmeon)," but the 
"wife of (an) Alkmaion[id] (=Alkmeon[id])." 

(2) Why are Megakles and Koisyra called douloi in many of 
the scholia?31 Obviously neither was a slave in fact; both were 
noble and apparently very wealthy. Either the status of the two 
changed so that they actually became slaves, or the charges are 
really without substance and slanderous in nature. Davies (AP F 
381) suggests that "the alternatives of escape or enslavement 
which faced the Eretrians in 490 (Hdt. vi. 101) offer a back-

28 Cf Alcmaeonid admission of affinity in Isoc. 16.25; on the similarity of 
Perikles to Peisistratos who would thus have been Perikles' great-grandfather, 
cf. Pluto Per. 7.1f, cf 16.1, 39.5; cf. also Lavelle (supra n.17) 135; W. G. Forrest, 
&Themistokles and Argos," CQ N.5. 10 (1960) 233. 

29 Hdt. 6.115, 121-24; cf. D. Gillis, Collaboration with the Persians 
(=Historia Einzelschr. 34 [Wiesbaden 1979]) 45-58; Lavelle (supra n.17) 135. 

10 F. Willemsen, «Die Ausgrabungen im Kerameikos, 1966," ArchDelt 23 
(1968) 29. Cf also M.lL. pAO ['AAlC]J.lf.Ov[tBrov I KaA]AtX<JEV[O<; I 'Ap]t<J'to[vOJlO; 
pAl 'ht1tOlCpa'tE<; 'AAlCJ.lf.ovi& 'AA.o1tElCE"OEV. 

11 I Pax 450, Nub. 46; Koisyra is called BoUA,ll in I Nub. 64 and Bpa1tE'tTl<; 
('runaway slave') in I Nub. 800 (but cf supra n.5 and nAO infra). 



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BRIAN M. LAVELLE 511 

ground in terms of which the ridiculing of Koisyra and 
Megakles (V) as runaway slaves ... becomes all too intelligible.'" 
In my view, this statement raises more questions than it settles: 
did Koisyra and Megakles somehow make their way from 
Athens to Eretria and, when it fell, were they transported to 
inner Asia by the Persians? Did they actually then become 
slaves, and sub seq uently escape from the Persians, thus 
becoming 'runaways'? Or were they Persian collaborators who 
were among the few to remain in Eretria after the city was 
destroyed and were called slaves by their enemies? Or were 
they simply termed slaves because of what had happened at 
Eretria? 

A better path of enquiry might be to seek why these two 
nobles should be called slaves by A thenians, taking doulos in 
the context of their known connections and actions. When 
Megakles was ostracized in early 486, he left Athens and then 
obtained his victory in the four-horse chariot race at Delphi 
later the same year. His exile from Athens was apparently bitter 
for him, for Pindar in his epinikion for the occasion (Pyth. 
7.17-20) laments the phthonos lately attaching to the noble 
Megakles and his lament squares with charges of extravagance 
found on ostraka cast against Megakles by disapproving Athen­
ians. Pindar's attempt at consolation suggests that Megakles had 
been humiliated by his ostracism at the hands of the Athenians. 

Of course, for a proud man mistreated, vengeance is a 
ubiquitous wraith. Expelled from his city and left unprotected, 
Megakles would have found natural refuge among his relatives 
and fellow exiles, the Peisistratidai. Such appears to have been 
the course followed by Hipparchos, the son of Charmos, the 
first man ostracized and another relative of the tyrants. 32 

Sometime before 480, Hipparchos was convicted of prodosia, 
and he along with other eXAt'tllPLOt Kat 7tpo06'tat ("sinners and 
traitors") was proscribed upon a bronze stele set up on the 
Athenian Acropolis.J3 The former term, it must be noted, was 
especially attached by the Athenians to the Alcmaeonids for 
their role in the sacrilegious slaughter of Kylonians in the late 
seventh century, a slaughter for which Megakles' great-great-

32 Ath.Pol. 22.4; APF 451; Rhodes (supra n.21) 27lf. 
33 Lycurg. Leoc. 117; cf B. M. Lavelle, II Adikia, the Degree of Kannonos 

and the Trial of the Generals," C&M 39 (1988) 30f. 



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512 KOISYRA AND MEGAKLES 

grandfather was held especially responsible.H In view of 
Marathon, of Athenian reaction to alleged Alcmaeonid 
treachery at the time of the battle and afterward (Hdt. 6.121), of 
deep fears of further treachery attested by inscriptions found 
upon other ostraka cast during the 480's, and of the impending 
Persian invasion at the end of the decade, the likeliest causes for 
Hipparchos' conviction were his defection to the Pisistratids 
and to the Persians after his ostracism and his subsequent failure 
to return to Athens when the exiles were recalled. This is no 
new idea.35 Prime facie, it is also reasonable to conclude that the 
maligned and humiliated Megakles followed the lead of his kins­
man Hipparchos, and was convicted and proscribed with him 
for the same reasons. This, too, is not a new idea. 36 

There is, however, other evidence to indicate Megakles' 
Medism after his ostracism. First, a scholion to Ar. Ach. 614 
mentions the son of Koisyra among other prodotai .37 In view of 
the circumstances, the mention of Megakles here can hardly be 
fortuitous. Second, the description of Megakles Hippokratous 
as a doulos further underscores the likelihood of his Medism. 
Subjects of the Persian King, noble or base, destitute or 
wealthy, were all his douloi as he constantly reminded them, 
and they themselves. 38 The term doulos applied especially to 
the Greek subjects of the Great King by Greeks who hated the 
Persians-viz. the Athenians-amounted to derision aimed at 
those who chose servitude to the barbarian Mede over free­
dom. 39 That Megakles was so derided (perhaps mostly in 
comedy after his public condemnation) supports the belief that 
he deserted Athens and threw in with the city's enemies. By 
extension of insult to Megakles, Koisyra his mother was also 
called ()OUA,ll, and it is very possbile that the exceptional designa-

34 See supra n.20; on aA.l'tf}ptO~, Ar. Eq. 445f with schol.; cf. E. MaetZner, ed., 
Lycurgi Oratio in Leocratem (Berlin 1826) 279f; cf. also M.lL. p.42; Rhodes 
(supra n.21) 27M; and more recently, R. Merkelbach, "'Nochmals das Xan­
thippos-Ostrakon," ZPE 62 (1986) 57-62. Contra Merkelbach, Xanthippos 
was identified as an Alkmeonid (see supra n.18). 

35 Cf. G. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte II (Gotha 1895) 660f n.l; Mattingly 
(supra n.14) 282f. 

36 Mattingly (supra n.14) 282f. 
31 P.Oxy. VI 856.6lf; cf. Shear (supra n.7) 101 n.7. 
38 Cf. M.lL. 12 (the letter of Dareios to Gadatas,); cf. Hdt. 5.49.2; 6.11.2,44.1; 

7.8.3, 11.4; 8.100.3, 102.2; 9.48.2 (on Greek douloi of the Persian King); 1.89.1, 
114.5,129.4,210.2; 3.140.5; 7.9.2, 39.1, 96.2,135.3; 8.102.3 (on Persian douloi of 
the Persian King); cf. also 5.49.3, 8.101.3, and passim. 

39 Cf. Hdt. 1.120.5, 5.49.2, 6.11.2. 



LAVELLE, BRIAN M., Koisyra and Megakles, the Son of Hippokrates , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 30:4 (1989) p.503 

BRIAN M. LAVELLE 513 

tion of her as opa1t£'tllC; appears as an embellishment to intensify 
the pejoration inherent in 80UAOC;.4O 

On the evidence, Megakles is more than implicated in a 
charge of Medism. His affinity to the Pisistratids and the indig­
nity of his ostracism must have influenced his course of action 
after he was driven from Athens; the destruction of 
Alcmaeonid political fortunes, in the male line, for some time 
after 480 gauges the gravity of Megakles' actions and Athenian 
reaction to them. 41 

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY 

October 1989 

40 L Nub. 800 is actually anomalous in calling Koisyra a drapetes (cf. supra 
n.5). On the pejorative extension of douleia to Koisyra, cf. Pluto Them. 1.2; F. 
Frost, Plutarch's Themistocles (Princeton 1980) 61f; A. J. Podlecki, The Life of 
Themistocles (Montreal 1975) 1f, 114f. Was Themistocles' mother made a 
"Thracian slave-girl" because of his Medism? 

41 Cf. APF 381.