Peisistratus and Mid-6th Century Athens

Peisistratus was the first tyrant of Athens and the founder of the Peisistratid line. At a time when the state faced 1. factional dispute based on regionalism and 2. continuing economic problems based on debt, he gained control of the state in the third of three coup attempts (560, several years later, when he attempted a coup with a women dressed as the goddess Athena, 546). Before that, he had allied temporarily with the regional leader Megacles but they had fallen out over a marital issue; P. had married Megacles' daughter but wanted no more children. He had spent multiple years in exile and seized power through Theban and Argolid support, defeating the loyalist forces at the Battle of Pallenis.

Peisistratus' rule included:
-Consistently keeping at least one supporter in an archonship to retain a power base in legitimate government
-Exacting a 5% tax policy on all citizens, as opposed to taxing only the higher classes
-Patronage of poets, decorating the acropolis with a temple of Athena
-Panathenaea celebrated annually, with ritual recitation of Homer and rhapsodic competitions
-institution of traveling judges called dicasts, which enabled people without means to travel to city easily to seek access to legal system
-may have performed some land redistribution
-settled citizens in the Chersonese

After the death of Peisistratus in 528, his sons Hippias and Hipparchus shared power until the assassination of Hipparchus by Harmodius and Aristogeiton in an abortive coup attempt in 514. The aftermath involved a more severe rule on his part and an alliance with the tyrant of Lampsacus.

Athenian tradition held that the Alcmaeonidae were associated with the overthrow of Hippias in 510, although the real initiative was a supporting force from Sparta under Cleomenes. Hippias surrendered and fled into exile into, eventually, Persia.

After the change in government, the next large political development was the rivalry between the pro-Spartan Isagoras and the anti-Spartan Alcamaeonid Cleisthenes, who led a successful defense against a Spartan-orchestrated alliance c.510.