with a view to the Mycenean throne.

The general method of historical criticism pursued by Thucydides
having been thus indicated, it remains to proceed more into detail
as regards those particular points where he claims for himself a
more rational method of estimating evidence than either the public
or his predecessors possessed.

'So little pains,' he remarks, 'do the vulgar take in the
investigation of truth, satisfied with their preconceived
opinions,' that the majority of the Greeks believe in a Pitanate
cohort of the Spartan army and in a double vote being the
prerogative of the Spartan kings, neither of which opinions has any
foundation in fact. But the chief point on which he lays stress as
evincing the 'uncritical way with which men receive legends, even
the legends of their own country,' is the entire baselessness of
the common Athenian tradition in which Harmodios and Aristogeiton
were represented as the patriotic liberators of Athens from the
Peisistratid tyranny. So far, he points out, from the love of
freedom being their motive, both of them were influenced by merely
personal considerations, Aristogeiton being jealous of Hipparchos'
attention to Harmodios, then a beautiful boy in the flower of Greek
loveliness, while the latter's indignation was aroused by an insult
offered to his sister by the prince.

Their motives, then, were personal revenge, while the result of
their conspiracy served only to rivet more tightly the chains of
servitude which bound Athens to the Peisistratid house, for
Hipparchos, whom they killed, was only the tyrant's younger
brother, and not the tyrant himself.