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Kallias and HipponicusKALLIAS and HIPPONICUS, were a noble Athenian family, celebrated for their wealth. The heads of which, from the son of Phaenippus downwards, received these names alternately in successive generations. They enjoyed the hereditary dignity of torch-bearer at the Eleusinian mysteries, and claimed descent from Triptolemus.[1] Ηipponicus Ι, the first of the family on record, is mentioned by Plutarch as one of the three to whom Solon, shortly before the introduction of his laws c. 594 B.C, told them of his intention of cancelling public debt. With this information they are said to have used to their advantage, but purchasing large estates with borrowed money. It may be that this story against him may have originated in the envy of his countrymen. Kallias I., son of Phaenippus and maybe nephew of the above, is mentioned by Herodotus as a strong opponent of Peisistratus [2], and as the only man in Athens who ventured to buy the tyrant's property on each occasion of his expulsion. On the same authority, if indeed the chapter be not an interpolation, we learn, that he spent, much money in keeping horses, was a conqueror at the Olympic and Pythian games, at the former in 564 B.C., and gave large dowries to his daughters, allowing them—a good and wise departure from the usual practice—to marry any of the Athenians they pleased. Hipponicus II., surnamed Ammon, son of Kallias I, is said to have increased his wealth considerably by the treasures of a Persian general, which had been entrusted to Diomnestus, a man of Eretria, on the first invasion of that place by the Persians. The invading army being all destroyed Diomnestus kept the money; but his heirs, on the second Persian invasion, transmitted it to Hipponicus at Athens, and with him it ultimately remained, as all the captive Eretrians [3] were sent to Asia. This story is given by Athenaeus [4] on the authority of Heracleides of Pontus; but it is open to much suspicion from its inconsistency with the account of Herodotus, who mentions only one invasion of Eretria, and that a successful one 490 B.C [5]. Possibly the anecdote, like that of Kallias λακκομλουτος below, was one of the modes in which the gossips of Athens accounted for the large fortune of the family. Kallias II, son of Hipponicus II, was present in his priestly dress at the Battle of Marathon; and the story runs that, on the rout of the enemy, a Persian, claiming his protection, pointed out to him a treasure buried in a pit, and that he slew the man and appropriated the money. Hence the surname λακκομλουτος [6], which, however, we may perhaps rather regard as having itself suggested the tale, and as having been originally, like βαθυμλουτος, expressive of the extent of the family's wealth. His enemies certainly were sufficiently malignant, if not powerful; for Plutarch [7], on the authority of Aeschines the Socratic, speaks of a capital prosecution instituted against him on extremely weak grounds. Aristeides, who was his cousin, was a witness on the trial, which must therefore have taken place before 468 B.C., the probable date of Aristeides' death. In Herodotus [8] Kallias is mentioned as ambassador from Athens to Artaxerxes; and this statement we might identify with that of Diodorus, who ascribes to the victories of Κimon, through the negotiation of Κallias, 449 B.C., a peace with Persia. Be this as it may, he did not escape impeachment after his return on the charge of having taken bribes, and was condemned to a fine of 50 talents, being about a fourth of his whole property. Hipponicus III., was the son of Kallias II., and with Eurymedon commanded the Athenians in their successful incursion into the territory of Tanagra, 426 B.C, [9] He was killed at the Battle of Delium, 424 B.C, where he was one of the generals [11]. It must therefore have been his divorced wife, and not his widow, whom. Pericles married [12]. His daughter Hipparete became the wife of Alcibiades, with a dowry of ten talents, the largest, according to Andocides, that had ever before been given [13]. Another daughter of Hipponicus was married to Theodoras, and became the mother of Isocrates the orator [14]. Hermogenes is mentioned as a son of Hipponicus and brother of Kallias; but, as in p. 391 he is spoken of as not sharing his father's property, and his poverty is further alluded to by Xenophon [15], he must have been illegitimate [16]. For Hipponicus [17], who tells an anecdote of him with reference to Polycletus the sculptor. Kallias III., son of Hipponicus III. by the lady who married Pericles [18] , was notorious for his extravagance and profligacy. We have seen, that he must have succeeded to his fortune in 424 B.C, which is not perhaps irreconcileable with the mention of him in the "Flatterers" of Eupolis, the comic poet, 421 B.C, as having recently entered on the inheritance [19]. In 400 B.C., he was engaged in the attempt to crush Andocides by a charge of profanation, in having placed a supplicatory bough on the altar of the temple at Eleusis during the celebration of the mysteries [20] and, if we may believe the statement of the accused, the bough was placed there by Kallias himself, who was provoked at having been thwarted by Andocides in a very disgraceful and profligate attempt. In 392 B.C, we find him in command of the Athenian heavy armed troops at Corinth on the occasion of the famous defeat of the Spartan Mora by Iphicrates [21]. He was hereditary proxenus of Sparta, and, as such, was chosen as one of the envoys empowered to negotiate peace with that state in 371 B.C., on which occasion Xenophon reports an extremely absurd and self-glorifying speech of his [22]. A vain and silly dilettante, an extravagant and reckless profligate, he dissipated all his ancestral wealth on sophists, flatterers, and women; and so early did these propensities appear in him, that he was commonly spoken of, before his father's death, as the "evil genius" (αλιτηριος) of his family [23]. The scene of Xenophon's "Banquet", and also that of Plato's " Protagoras," is laid at his house; and in the latter especially his character is drawn with some vivid sketches as a trifling dilettante, highly amused with the intellectual fencing of Protagoras and Socrates [24]. He is said to have ultimately reduced himself to absolute beggary, to which the sarcasm of Iphicrates [25] in calling him μητραγυρτης instead of δαδουχος obviously refers; and he died at last in actual want of the common necessaries of life [26]. Aelian's erroneous account of his committing suicide is clearly nothing but gossip from Athenaeus by memory [27]. He left a legitimate son. named Hipponicus [28]. [E. E.] References:
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