Phye

Around 555 BCE, the tyrant Pisistratus was exiled from the city of Athens. During this exile, he formed an alliance with Megakles, and together they devised a plan to reinstate Pisistratus as tyrant of Athens. In 546/5 BCE, Peisistratos recruited Phye, a beautiful young woman from either the ancient deme of Paeania or that of Kollytos, to accompany him as he proceeded from Brauron to Mount Hymettus, through Marathon, and finally to Athens where they entered via the eastern gate of the city.[1] The chariot in which Phye stood was preceded by heralds who announced that Athena was bringing Pisistratus back to Athens. Seltman paints a vivid - although not historically supported – image of their arrival, complete with the invention that the party (which was expected by the Megakles) arrived later than the appointed hour, and he suggests that Pisistratus was hailed as a "New Erechtheus", a reincarnation of the legendary king and founder of Athens.[1] Lavelle claims that Megakles himself was the architect of this scheme and the mastermind behind the entire hoax.[2]

The name Phye itself derives from the noun φυή (from the verb φύω), which can be translated variously as good growth or stature, or the flower or prime of age; it is fitting that a tall, beautiful, young woman should be named thus.[3]

The ancient authors present the story of Phye as a historical event, and Herodotus himself seems to have believed it.[8] Scholars including Grote,[9] Curtius,[10] Busolt,[11] and Connor[12] accept the veracity of the narrative, whereas Stein,[13] Beloch,[14] and later Meyer[15] instead believe the story was a ‘poetic variation of the historic tradition of the victory at Pallene’ (Herodotus 1.62.3ff); these latter scholars believe that it evolved from a historical victory at the temple of Athena at Pallene that transformed within two generations into a legendary story involving Phye. Against this theory, How and Wells argue that it takes "...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".[8] Lavelle, echoing Block, accepts the authenticity of the Phye incident based on its unique nature, Herodotus' accounts, and the plausibility of the story itself; the same author stresses that the Athenians did not believe that Phye actually was Athena, but that they accepted what she ('Athena') and Peisistratos himself represented together for the city of Athens.[2] The connection between Peisistratos, the citizens of Athens, and their patron goddess is strengthened in this episode.[12]

Amphora depicting Athena mounting chariot with Herakles and other gods, c. 520 BCE.

Approximately 170 ancient Greek vases (and at least one relief sculpted on a marble base[1][16]), dating from the 560s through the 480s BCE, boast imagery of Herakles and Athena in a chariot, a scene commonly described as representing the apotheosis of Herakles. Boardman originally argued that these scenes departed from typical Heraklean apotheosis scenes (with Herakles and Athena on foot) because of a conscious desire to evoke the story of Pisistratus and Phye.[17] In later works, Boardman rephrased his interpretation of these scenes, and said that they served as a point of reference for the historical Phye episode: "...familiarity with such scenes would have guaranteed the ordinary Athenian's recognition of what was implied by the procession."[18] Ferrari, following Osborne and Connor, acknowledges the similarities between the iconography of Herakles/Peisistraots and Athena/Phye, but argues that it was Peisistratos who was intentionally evoking Herakles in his decision to appear with 'Athena' in a chariot upon entering the city.[4][12]

One vase in particular by the Priam Painter offers further evidence for the link between the iconography of Herakles & Athena and the historical event of Pisistratus & Phye. On a belly amphora currently in the Ashmolean Museum[19] (Oxford 212), a typical scene of Herakles and Athena is accompanied by the inscription "Ηρακλἐους κὀρη (Herakleous Kore)". Boardman, like Beazley before him, reads this as 'Herakles' daughter' rather than Herakles' girl, and connects the mythological to the historical in that Phye (Athena) was the daughter (in law) of Pisistratus (Herakles).[20] Ferrari believes these words are the beginning of a metrical hymn and connects the mythological scene and historical event to the larger theme of the Panathenaic festival.[4]