1. Son of Aristonymus and tyrant of Sicyon. He was descended from Orthagoras, who founded
the dynasty about 100 years before his time, and succeeded his grandfather Myron in the
tyranny, though probably not without some opposition. (Hdt. 6.126
; Aristot. Pol. 5.12, ed Bekk.; Paus. 2.8; Müller, Dor. 1.8.2.) In B. C.
595, he aided the Amphictyons in the sacred war against Cirrha, which ended, after ten
years, in the destruction of the guilty city, and in which Solon too is said to have assisted
with his counsel the avengers of the god. (Paus. 10.37; Aesch.
c. Ctes. § 107, &c. ; Clinton, F. H. sub
anno, 595.) We find Cieisthenes also engaged in war with Argos, his enmity to which is said by
Herodotus to have been so great, that he prohibited the recitation at Sicyon of Homer's poems,
because Argos was celebrated in them, and restored to the worship of Dionysus what the
historian calls, by a prolepsis, the tragic choruses in which Adrastus, the Argive hero, was
commemorated. (Hdt. 5.67; see Nitzsch, Meletem. i. p. 153, &c.) Müller (l.c.) connects this
hostility of Cleisthenes towards Argos, the chief Dorian city of the district, with his
systematic endeavour to depress and dishonour the Dorian tribes at Sicyon. The old names of
these he altered, calling them by new ones derived from the sow, the ass, and the pig
(Ὑᾶται, Ὀνεᾶται, Χ̓οιρεᾶται), while to his own
tribe he gave the title of
Ἀρχέλαοι (lords of the people).
The explanation of his motive for this given by Müller (Dor. 3.4.3)
seems even less satisfactory than the one of Herodotus which he sets aside; and the
historian's statement, that Cleisthenes of Athens imitated his grandfather in his political
changes, may justify the inference, that the measures adopted at Sicyon with respect to the
tribes extended to more than a mere alteration of their names. (Hdt.
5.67, 68.) From Aristotle (Aristot. Pol. 5.12) we learn, that Cleisthenes maintained his power partly through
the respect inspired by his military exploits, and partly by the popular and moderate course
which he adopted in his general government. His administration also appears to have been
characterized by much magnificence, and Pausanias mentions a colonnade (στοὰ Κλεισθένειος) which he built with the spoils taken in the
sacred war. (Paus. 2.9.) We have no means of ascertaining the exact
date of the death of Cleisthenes, or the conclusion of his tyranny, but we know that it cannot
be placed earlier than B. C. 582, in which year he won the victory
in the chariot-race at the Pythian games. (See Clinton and Müller on the year.) His
daughter Agarista, whom so many suitors sought, was given in marriage to Megacles the
Alcmaeonid. [AGARISTA.]