[39]
Those too, I fancy, who gave the people the surest token of their mutual friendship, Harmodius and Aristogiton,1 do not regard . . . as Leosthenes and his comrades in arms; nor are there any with whom they would rather hold converse in the lower world than these. We need not wonder; for what these men did was no less a task than theirs; it was indeed, if judgement must be passed, a greater service still. Those two brought low the tyrants of their country, these the masters of the whole of Greece.
1 The sense appears to be that they regard no one as so suitable to rank with themselves as Leosthenes and his comrades. Harmodius and Aristogiton, who in 514 B.C. plotted to assassinate the two sons of Pisistratus, and after killing one, Hipparchus, were captured and put to death, were later looked upon as liberators of the city. They and their descendants, who enjoyed special privileges, are not infrequently referred to by the orators. Compare Din. 1.63 and Din. 1.101; Hyp. 2.3.
Hyperides. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes, 2, with an English translation by J. O. Burtt, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1962.
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