Note 206 — Chapter XXX · GRECIAN AFFAIRS DURING THE GOVERNMENT OF PEISISTRATUS AND HIS SONS AT ATHENS.

Hermippus (ap. Marcellin. Vit. Thucyd. p. ix,) and the Scholiast on Thucyd. i, 20, affirm that Thucydidês was connected by relationship with the Peisistratidæ. His manner of speaking of them certainly lends countenance to the assertion; not merely as he twice notices their history, once briefly (i, 20) and again at considerable length (vi, 54-59), though it does not lie within the direct compass of his period,—but also as he so emphatically announces his own personal knowledge of their family relations,—Ὅτι δὲ πρεσβύτατος ὢν Ἱππίας ἦρξεν, εἰδὼς μὲν καὶ ἀκοῇ ἀκριβέστερον ἄλλων ἰσχυρίζομαι (vi, 55).

Aristotle (Politic. v, 9, 21) mentions it as a report (φασι) that Peisistratus obeyed the summons to appear before the Areopagus; Plutarch adds that the person who had summoned him did not appear to bring the cause to trial (Vit. Solon, 31), which is not at all surprising: compare Thucyd. vi, 56, 57.