after a six‐day SIEGE in 490 BCE (6.101.2). Alcimachus was a common name in the AEGEAN region (LGPN I, 29 s.v. Ἀλκίμαχος), but nothing more is known of this man.
SEE ALSO: Aeschines; Medize
ALCMAEON (Ἀλκμέων, ὁ)
BRIAN M. LAVELLE
Loyola University Chicago
Alcmaeon, son of MEGACLES (I), lived around 600 BCE and was eponymous for the Athenian clan of the ALCMAEONIDAE. Herodotus (6.125) tells how Alcmaeon assisted Lydian envoys at DELPHI while in EXILE from ATHENS for his clan’s part in the Cylonian affair. CROESUS king of LYDIA rewarded him at SARDIS with as much GOLD dust as he could carry from the treasury. Alcmaeon filled his clothes, boots, HAIR, and mouth; when Croesus amusedly observed him staggering from the treasury, he allowed him to take again as much. The story is folktale—Croesus ruled in the mid‐sixth century—but accounts for the wealth that permitted Alcmaeon to field a victorious CHARIOT‐team at OLYMPIA in 592 and that likely purchased his return to Athens. If Alcmaeon served as Athenian general during the First Sacred War (Plut. Sol. 11.2), reinstatement likely occurred before 590; the prestige of his Olympic victory may have helped to pave his way back to Athens. Alcmaeon’s son MEGACLES (II) was an important political figure in mid‐sixth‐century Athens (1.59.3).
SEE ALSO: Athletes and Athletic Games; Chronology; Cylon; Laughter; Wealth and Poverty
FURTHER READING
1 Davies, J. K. 1971. Athenian Propertied Families, 600–300 B.C., 370–71. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
2 Lavelle, Brian M. 2005. Fame, Money and Power: The Rise of Peisistratos and “Democratic” Tyranny at Athens, 78–79. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
3 PAA 122455 (vol. 2, pp. 52–53).
ALCMAEONIDAE (Ἀλκμεωνίδαι, οἱ)
BRIAN M. LAVELLE
Loyola University Chicago
Athenian clan descended from ALCMAEON, many of whose members were prominent Athenian politicians from the seventh to fifth centuries BCE. The Alcmaeonidae were perpetually accursed and banished from ATHENS for slaughtering the followers of CYLON (c. 636) after his abortive coup failed (5.70.2–71; cf. Thuc. 1.126.2–127.1). Yet they managed to return: MEGACLES (II), son of Alcmaeon, wielded king‐making political power at Athens from c. 570 until PEISISTRATUS’ final establishment of his tyranny in 546 (Hdt. 1.59–61). Herodotus claims that the Alcmaeonidae were inveterate enemies to tyranny and were exiled after Peisistratus’ victory at PALLENE (1.64.3; 6.123.1), but CLEISTHENES SON OF MEGACLES was archon for 525/4 during the tyranny. Cleisthenes’ brother HIPPOCRATES (3) bore the name of Peisistratus’ father (6.131.2), and Alcibiades the Younger proudly proclaimed his Peisistratid affinity in the fourth century BCE (Isoc. 16.25). Expelled again after the MURDER of HIPPARCHUS, then defeated at LEIPSYDRIUM attempting to return, the Alcmaeonidae subsequently enlisted Spartan aid with BRIBERY and help from DELPHI (Hdt. 5.62.2–63.1, 90.1). With Spartan help, they ousted the PEISISTRATIDAE from Athens in 511/10. Cleisthenes subsequently “took the demos into partnership” in 508/7, trumping his opponent ISAGORAS (5.66, 69–70.2; cf. [Arist.] Ath. pol. 19.3–22.2). His invention of DEMOCRACY notwithstanding, Cleisthenes drops suddenly from sight: the implication that the Alcmaeonidae invited PERSIA into Athens’ affairs—very unwelcome to the Athenians—is enhanced by treason charges leveled at them at or after MARATHON. Alcmaeonids were ostracized in the early 480s, but the clan recovered such that PERICLES became Athens’ undisputed leader by the mid‐fifth century. Herodotus vigorously defends the Alcmaeonidae from treason charges, notably the accusation of “shield‐signaling” to the Persians after Marathon (6.115, 121–24): Alcmaeonids were among Herodotus’ primary SOURCES for Athens’ archaic history.
SEE ALSO: Alcmaeonides; Athens and Herodotus; Curses; Exile; Megacles (I) father of Alcmaeon; Megacles (IV) son of Hippocrates; Treachery; Tyrants
FURTHER READING
1 Davies, J. K. 1971. Athenian Propertied Families, 600–300 B.C., 368–85. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
2 Hornblower, Simon, ed. 2013. Herodotus: Histories Book V, 182–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ALCMAEONIDES (Ἀλκμεωνίδης, ὁ)
CAMERON G. PEARSON
University of Warsaw
An Alcmaeonides is known from two inscribed athletic DEDICATIONS dated to the middle of the sixth century BCE (IG I3 597 and 1469), making him the brother of MEGACLES (II) SON OF ALCMAEON (Davies 1971, 372–73). In the best manuscript readings of Herodotus’ Histories at 1.64.3, Alcmaeonides is named as the leader of the fleeing Athenians after the Battle of Pallene in 546/5. However, he lacks an introduction or even a patronymic. All modern editors and translators, except for Rosén (1987), follow the suggestion (though not emendation) of Wesseling (1763, 31 n. 11) to change μετ’ Ἀλκμεωνίδεω (“with Alcmaeonides”) to μετ’ Ἀλκμεωνιδέων (“with [the] ALCMAEONIDAE”). Either the earliest editors misunderstood the name Alcmaeonides to be equivalent to the family name, Alcmaeonidae, or we are missing a section of Herodotus which introduced him. Wilson (2015a, 1: 36) is the first to cite one late manuscript that reads “Alcmaeonidae” (possibly a late alteration).
SEE ALSO: Editions; Manuscripts; Pallene (Deme)
REFERENCES
1 Davies, J. K. 1971. Athenian Propertied Families, 600–300 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
2 Rosén, Haiim B., ed. 1987. Herodoti Historiae. Vol. I. Leipzig: Teubner.
3 Wesseling, P., and L. C. Valckenaer, eds. 1763. Herodoti Halicarnassei Historiarum Libri IX. Amsterdam: Peter Schouten.
4 Wilson, N. G., ed. 2015a. Herodoti Historiae. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READING
1 Dillon, Matthew P. J. 2014. “Hdt. 1.64.3: Ἀλκμεωνίδεω or Ἀλκμεωνιδέων. Did Alkmeonides Lead the Exiles from the Battle of Pallene (546 b.c.)?” Hermes 142.2: 129–42.
2 Fortunato, Gaetana. 2008. “L’esilio di Alcmeonide (Erodoto, 1,64,3).” Athenaeum 96.1: 327–33.
3 Wilson, N. G. 2015b. Herodotea. Studies on the Text of Herodotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ALCMENE (Ἀλκμήνη, ἡ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Mythical, mother of HERACLES (2.145.4). In most traditions, ZEUS fathers Heracles on Alcmene by seduction or DECEPTION (Gantz, EGM 374–78), but Herodotus refers to Heracles only as the son of AMPHITRYON, Alcmene’s mortal husband
