Charmus

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Charmus of Kolyttus, whose floruit was the middle of the sixth century BCE, was an Athenian polemarch (557/6) and intimate of the Pisistratid dynasty.

He was the syngenes and eromenos of Peisistratus, and later the erastes of Hippias, one of Peisistratus' sons.

As his daughter, Myrrhina, was exceptionally beautiful, Pisistratus chose her to be wife to Hippias, in 557/6, according to Kleidemos.

In his honor, a statue of Eros was erected, either by Pisistratus or Hippias, before the entrance of the Akademia, where the runners in the sacred torch race lit their torches. The inscription claimed that Charmus had been the first to dedicate to love,

Eros of many devices, Charmus built you this altar
Among the shady boundaries of the gymnasium.[1]

Clement, however, asserts it was Charmus who invented the cult of Eros and had the statue erected, to thank the god for the satisfactions he gained from having "carried off a young lad."[2]

His son, Hipparchus of the deme Cholargos, archon of 496/5,[3] was the very first Athenian to be ostracized, in 487, once the law was passed by Kleisthenes, who did so expressly to get him banished. Hipparchus was the leader and representative of the friends of the tyrants, and was agitating for the return of his brother-in-law, Hippias, exiled in 511/10, and for the appeasement of the Persians.[4][5]

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[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Plutarch,Solon 1.7; Pausanias, 1.30.1; Athen., xiii. 609D
  2. ^ Clement of Alexandria "Exhortation to the Greeks", >Chap. 3, 38P
  3. ^ Dionysios of Halikarnassos, 5.77.6
  4. ^ Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens, trans. Thomas J. Dymes (London: Seeley and Co., 1891)
  5. ^ Michael F. Arnush, "The Career of Peisistratos Son of Hippias" in Hesperia, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1995), pp. 135-162