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The story of the sham Athene is one of the most curious in H.; he is shocked by it, and introduces sarcastic touches (e.g. σχῆμα οἷόν τι ἔμελλε) into it; but he completely believes it. Grote has an excellent note (iv. 32) on the contrast between the views of the sixth and of the fifth century, implied in H.'s criticism here; he compares the contrast of views as to a combat of champions in H. i. 82 and Thuc. v. 41. As H. had met possibly the sons and certainly the grandsons of men who had seen the restoration, and as he carefully sifted his traditions as to the Pisistratidae (cf. v. 55. 1 n.), it is safer to accept the story, as e. g. Grote, Curtius, Busolt (ii. 321), and others do. Cf. vi. 105. 3 for Athenian acceptance of the supernatural (Pan and Philippides). Somewhat similar acts are that of Telines (vii. 153) and the share of St. Catherine in the return of Gregory XI to Rome in 1376. Beloch, however (Rh. Mus. 45, 1890, whom Meyer, F. ii. 248, follows), rejects the whole story as a ‘poetic variation of the historic tradition of the victory at Pallene’. The argument is as follows: the victory was gained at the temple of Athene Pallenis (c. 62. 3); hence Athene was metaphorically said to have restored Pisistratus. The metaphorical version grew into a myth, perhaps with the assistance of a commemorative monument—this suggestion had been made by Stein before Beloch—and then the fiction found a place in history, side by side with the real fact. Beloch concludes that Pisistratus was only restored once and expelled once, and that the intrigue with Megacles belongs to the first usurpation.

It argues almost greater credulity to suppose that history and myth could become thus inextricably mixed in the course of two generations than to accept the story of Phya. It may be noted that there is independent fourth-century evidence for the story in A. P. 14. 4 and in Cleidemus (Athen. 609 C; F. H. G. i. 364), who makes Phya wife of Hipparchus.

This passage is very significant for Greek stature: this ‘daughter of the gods divinely tall and most divinely fair’, was only about 5 feet 10 inches.

πανοπλίῃ: i. e. with helmet, breastplate, spear, and shield, as in the familiar Athene statues; cf. iv. 180. 3 for the investing of a mortal with these attributes of Athene.

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