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Xanthippus (Greek: Ξάνθιππος) Fifth century Athenian statesman and father of the famous Ancient Greek leader Pericles. The exact dates of his birth and death are not known. He was eponymous archon of Athens in 479 BC.

Life

Of his early life almost nothing is known. The son of Ariphron, he married into the politically turbulent and influential circle of the Alcmaeonid clan by taking Agariste, granddaughter of Cleisthenes, as his wife. The product of this union was the great Athenian statesman Pericles.

In 490 BC, he prosecuted Miltiades, the commander in chief of the Battle of Marathon, after the latter's expensive, unsuc­cessful expedition against the island city-state of Paros. According to Herodotus: "The Athenians, upon the return of Miltiades from Paros, had much debate concerning him; and Xanthippus, the son of Ariphron, who spoke more freely against him than all the rest, impeached him before the people, and brought him to trial for his life, on the charge of having dealt deceitfully with the Athenians."

In this narrative Xanthippus is portrayed as ruthless, the wounded war hero Miltiades having to appear in a sick bed with a gangrenous thigh that would eventually kill him not long after his conviction.

Ostracism and return

In 484 BC the people of Athens chose Xanthippus for ostracism. In The Constitution of Athens, Aristotle emphasizes the fact that Xanthippus had nothing to do with the tyrant's party in Athens, but he fails to offer a satisfactory reason for the ostracism. Aristotle: "The first person unconnected with the tyrants who was ostracized was Xanthippus son of Ariphron."

In 480 BC with the Persian threat looming large, an amnesty was decreed at Athens, permitting ostracized persons and exiles (with certain exceptions) to return to their homeland. "The motive of this measure must have been (as Plutarch suggests) the fear that powerful citizens might medize and do serious hurt to Athens." Among those called home were the two ostracized statesmen: Aristides and Xanthippus. It must be assumed that the latter returned some weeks before the battle of Salamis as indicated by the anecdote in Plutarch:

Old Xanthippus (amongst many who buried the dogs they had bred up), entombed his which swam after his galley to Salamis, when the people fled from Athens, on the top of a cliff, which they call the Dog's Tomb to this day. - Plutarch

And thus arises a picture of the formerly ostracized patriot: his return to a city in the grips of a panic, with Xerxes army approaching rapidly, he arranging for the transportation of his family and their movable goods, and at the very last minute taking to the boats (with perhaps the 10 year old Pericles on board), his dogs swimming behind and sailing for the safe off-shore haven of the island of Salamis.

It didn't take long for the former exile to make his mark. By the following spring (479) Xanthippus had succeeded the ostracized hero Themistocles as supreme commander (ήγευίον δΓραΓηγός) of the Athenian forces.

Mycale and Sestos

He com­manded the Athenians at the decisive battle of Mycale, which was fought on the coast of Ionia on the same day as the battle of Plataea in September of 479. After a decisive victory, in which the surviving remnant of the Persian fleet was annihilated, he took the allied Grecian fleet to the Hellespont to destroy the bridge that Xerxes had built to bring the Asian army into Europe. Upon arrival they found that the bridge had been broken down, and shortly therafter Leotychides, the spartan general, considering his mission complete, led the Peloponnesians home.

Xanthip­pus, however, remained with the Athenian fleet in order to subdue the Thracian Chersonese, where several of the Athenians had previously held considerable property. The Persians threw themselves into the town of Sestos, to which Xanthippus laid siege, and which was obliged to surrender early in the following spring (478 BC). The Persian governor Artayctes escaped, but was overtaken and subsequently abandoned by Xanthippus to the vengeance of the inhabitants of Elaeus, who crucified him. Xanthippus then returned to Athens with his fleet. (Herod, vi. 131, 136 ; Plut. Them. 10 ; Herod, viii. 131, ix. 114—120.)

It is not known when Xanthippus died, nor at what time his statue was erected on the Athenian Acropolis. The statue was seen by the Greek traveler and geographer Pausanias still extant in his day (2nd century A.D.)

The Xanthippus Ostracon

File:Xanthippus Ostracon.jpg

Drawing of the Xanthippus Ostracon.

At Athens in 1940, amid ongoing excavations at the site of the ancient Agora, a hoard of ostraca (pottery shards inscribed with the names of candidates for ostracism) was found that contained an ostracon apparently referring to Xanthippus. The artifact is unusual in that it is written in the form of a couplet and also contains the reason for the ostracism. The candidate is identified as the "son of Ariphron" which makes the identification secure.

An early translation of the ostracon reads: "Xanthippus, Ariphron's son, is declacared by this ostracon to be the out-and-out winner among accursed sinners."

"It was found on May 2, 1940 on the lower part of the western slope of the Areopagus, near the road that skirts the west end of the hill, in Section NN, in early fifth-century fill, together with ostraka of Aristeides, Themistokles, and Hippokrates, son of Alkmeonides."

A more recent interpretation of the inscription identifies the Xanthippus description as "curse of the leaders," most likely referring to his role in the ostracism of Miltiades.

References

• Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution, translated by Frederic G. Kenyon. [2]
• J. B. Bury, Aristides at Salamis, The Classical Review, Vol. 10, No. 9 (Dec., 1896), pp. 414-418
• John Boardman, Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. IV, Cambridge University Press, 1982
• Herodotus, History, Rawlinson translation.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.
• Plutarch, Lives, Great Books of the Western World, 1952.
• A. E. Raubitschek, The Ostracism of Xanthippos, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 51, No. 3. (Jul. - Sep., 1947), pp. 257-262.
• Eugene Schweigert, The Xanthippos Ostracon, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 53, No. 3. (Jul. - Sep., 1949), pp. 266-268.
• William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, v. 3, 1870 [3]