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γένος ... Ἀθηναῖοι. Herodotus seems to have regarded the Alcmaeonids as of true Attic descent (cf. vi. 125 τὰ ἀνέκαθεν), neither Ionian (ch. 66. 2, 69. 1) nor, like the Pisistratidae, immigrants from Pylos (ch. 65. 3 n.). Pausanias (ii. 18. 8, 9), on the other hand, derives them along with the royal house of Melanthus (Medontidae), the Paeonidae, and perhaps the Pisistratidae, from Neleus, king of Pylos. Thus the Alcmaeonidae would be connected with the royal house (a tradition perhaps borne out by the occurrence of the names Alcmaeon and Megacles in the list of life-archons) and with the Pisistratidae, as alleged by Isocrates (περὶ ζεύγους, 25). It has been ingeniously suggested by Toepffer (Att. Gen. 225 f.), that the Messenian origin of the royal and noble houses may be a fiction intended to support the claim of Athens to be the mother-city of the Ionian colonies, since the great families of Ionia (e. g. the royal house at Miletus) professed to be descended from Neleus of Pylos; but cf. i. 147 n.

φεύγοντες: exules (cf. i. 64 ad fin.), with acc. ii. 152. 1, vi. 103. 1, 123. 1, elsewhere with ὑπὸ τινός.

Λειψύδριον: identified by Milchöfer with an ancient fort on a spur of Mount Parnes (Karagoufolesa), 2 1/2 miles north of Menidi, the cemetery of Acharnae (Frazer, Paus. v. p. 526). Paeonia (more properly Paeonidae) must have been at the foot of the mountain. There is therefore no need to alter the text to ὑπὲρ Πάρνηθος (cf. Ath. Pol. 19) as the fort would be above Paeonidae as well as upon Parnes. An interesting skolion (Ath. Pol. l. c., Athen. xv. p. 695) αἰαῖ Λειψύδριον προδωσέταιρον κτλ. records this defeat of the Alcmaeonids.

παρ᾽ Ἀμφικτυόνων. The Amphictyonic council controlled the finance and undertook the care of the temple at Delphi. When the temple was burnt down in 548 B. C. (Chron. cf. i. 50) the estimate for rebuilding it was 300 talents and subscriptions were solicited from all parts of Greece, and even from Amasis of Egypt (ii. 180 n.). [For a similar national subscription to rebuild the temple destroyed in the fourth century cf. Xen. Hell. vi. 4. 2; Frazer, Paus. v. p. 634.] The collection, as might be expected, was a long business. It was going on before the death of Amasis (526 B. C.), but the Alcmaeonidae did not begin their contract till 514 B. C., after their defeat at Lipsydrium (Ath. Pol. 19), and in all probability did not complete the work till after their return to Athens (510 B. C.) (Philochorus, fr. 70; F. H. G. i. 395; Schol. Pind. Pyth. vii. 9). Grote (iv. 48), however, and Wilamowitz-Möllendorff (Arist. i. 34 n.) think that the Alcmaeonid contract must have been earlier.

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