Hagnon
Ἅγνων, (sometimes written
̀̓αγνων), son of Nicias. was the Athenian founder of Amphipolis, on the Strymon.
A previous attempt had been crushed twenty-nine years before, by a defeat in Drabescus. Hagnon succeeded in driving out the Edonians, and established his colony securely, giving the name Amphipolis to what had hitherto been called "the Nine Ways." (Thue. 4.102.)
The date is fixed to the archonship of Euthymenes, B. C. 437, by Diodorns (12.32), and the Scholiast on Aeschines (p. 755, Reiske), and in this the account of Thueydides agrees There were buildings erected in his honour as founder.
But when the Athenian part of the colonists had been ejected, and the town had revolted, and by the victory won over Cleon by Brasidas, B. C. 422, had had its independence secured, the Amphipolitans destroyed every memorial of the kind, and gave the name of founder, and paid the founder's honours to Brasidas. (
Thuc. 5.11.)
It is probably this same Hagnon who in the Samian war, B. C. 440, led, with Thuevdides and Phormion, a reinforcement of forty ships to Pericles; and, without question, it is he who in the second year of the Peloponnesian war, B. C. 430, was on the board of generals, and succeeding, with Cleopompus, to the command of the force which Pericles had used on the coast of Peloponnesus, conveyed it, and with it the infection of the plague to the lines of Potidaea.
After losing by its ravages 1500 out of 4000 men, Hagnon returned. (Thuc 2.58.) We hear of him again in the same quarter, as accompanying Odryses in his great invasion. (
Thuc. 2.95.)
It may be a question whether or not it is the same Hagnon again, who is named as the father of Theramenes. (
Thuc. 8.68.)
According to Lysias (p. 426 Reiske), he was one of the
πρόξουλοι chosen front the elder citizens, after the news of the Sicilian defeat, to form a sort of executive council. (
Thuc. 8.1.) Lysias accuses him of having in this capacity paved the way for the revolution of the 400. Xenophon, in the mouth of Critias (
Hellen. 2.3.30), speaks of Theramenes as having at first received respect for the sake of his father Hagnon, whom he thus seems to imply was a man of note. The Scholia on the Frogs of Aristophanes (ll. 546 and 1002) say that [Hagnon only adopted him, and refer in the latter place to Eupolis for confirmation. Of the founder of Amphipolis, Polyaenus relates a story.
In accordance with an oracle, he dug up from the plain of Troy the bones of Rhesus, took them, and buried them on the site of his new settlement.
He made a truce of three days with the opposing Thracians; and, using an equivocation parallel to that of Paches (
Thuc. 3.34), laboured hard at his fortifications during the three
nights, and on the return of the enemy was strong enough to maintain himself. (l'olyaen. 6.53.)
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A.H.C]
