Peisistratos
6th century BC tyrant of ancient Athens · Politicians · Lived 550 BC to 527 BC · aged 23
He called himself tyrant and meant it as a compliment. Peisistratos seized Athens three separate times in the sixth century BC, stripped the aristocracy of their estates, handed the land to the poor, and funded festivals and Homer editions with the savings.
Peisistratos is read about 316 times a day, in 45 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 11 November 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 113 days, one point a day.
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Photos 8
Statue of Peisistratos
Ingres - MI.867.1037, Pisistrate
Ingres - MI.867.1038, Pisistrate
Ingres - MI.867.1476, Divers personnages
Ingres - MI.867.1477, Raphaël, Pisistrate, Lycurgue
Ingres - Pisistratus head and left hand of Alcibiades, 1824-1834
Peisistratos by A Yakovlev 1911
Return of Peisistratus to Athens with the false MinervaAwards
About this person
Born around 600 BC, Peisistratos ruled Athens in broken stretches - the late 560s, the early 550s, then continuously from 546 until his death in 527. His power rested on confronting the old families: he confiscated aristocratic lands and redistributed them, an early play for the lower classes that prefigures later populism. He unified Attica, the triangle of Greece that holds Athens, and poured money into religious and artistic programs to spread wealth and employ citizens. In 566 he founded the Panathenaic Games, and under his watch came the first organized attempt to fix a standard text of Homer's epics. His sons Hipparchus and Hippias inherited the rule and held it until 510, the three together known as the Pisistratids. What he left behind was an Athens richer, more cohesive, and positioned for the pre-eminence it would claim in the century after his death.
