Latest / Ancient Greece: Philosophy, Democracy, and Endless War — Fexingo History / The Priest Who Absolved Athens: The Kylon Curse
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Athens' political innovations — Cleisthenes, democracy, the Agora, all that. But there's this dark thread running through Athenian history that we haven't touched yet, and it involves a curse. A religious pollution so serious it haunted the city for over two hundred years. Luna: A curse? Like, a literal supernatural curse? Lucas: The Greeks called it miasma — a kind of spiritual stain that could be passed down through generations. And Athens had one tied to a family called the Alcmaeonids. You've heard that name before — Cleisthenes was an Alcmaeonid, so was Pericles. But their family carried a stain from an event that happened around 632 BCE, before democracy even existed. Luna: What happened in 632? Lucas: A guy named Kylon. He was an Athenian nobleman, an Olympic champion, and he had a plan to make himself tyrant. He and his followers seized the Acropolis, hoping to spark a revolt. But the people didn't rise up. Instead, the archon at the time — a man named Megacles, from the Alcmaeonid family — surrounded them. Kylon managed to escape, but his followers were trapped. They took refuge at the altar of Athena Polias on the Acropolis. Under Greek custom, anyone who reached a temple was under the god's protection — you couldn't kill them. Luna: But Megacles did anyway? Lucas: Not exactly on the altar. According to the historian Thucydides, the supporters were persuaded to leave the altar on a promise of safety, but as soon as they did, they were slaughtered. Some were killed even as they clung to the altars of the Eumenides — the Furies, goddesses of vengeance. That was the worst kind of sacrilege: violating suppliants. The city was horrified. Megacles and the Alcmaeonids were exiled, and their family was cursed with what the Greeks called the Kylonian Agos — the curse of Kylon. Luna: Wait — the Alcmaeonids were cursed? But they came back to power. Lucas: That's the amazing part. They did come back, but the curse never went away. It was used against them politically for centuries. About thirty years after Kylon, around 600 BCE, Athens was still suffering from the pollution. There was a plague, or maybe just a period of civil strife — the sources aren't clear. But they believed the curse was the cause. So they brought in a famous religious expert from Crete named Epimenides. Luna: I've heard of Epimenides — the philosopher who said 'all Cretans are liars.' Lucas: That's the same guy, though the paradox is probably a later addition. Epimenides was a seer, a poet, and a purifier. He came to Athens and performed a ritual purification called a katharmos. He brought black and white sheep to the Areopagus and let them wander freely; wherever they lay down, he sacrificed them to the appropriate god. He also established new cults and built shrines to appease the spirits that were angered. According to Diogenes Laertius, the Athenians were so grateful they offered him a talent of silver, but he refused — he asked only for a branch from the sacred olive tree on the Acropolis. Luna: Did it work? Lucas: The Athenians thought so. The city calmed down. But the curse wasn't forgotten. A few decades later, when Cleisthenes was trying to push through his democratic reforms, his rival Isagoras used the curse against him. He accused Cleisthenes and the Alcmaeonids of being 'the accursed' — the one tainted by the Kylon affair. That's actually why Cleisthenes had to temporarily leave Athens; the religious charge was that powerful. And it wasn't the last time. In the 440s BCE, when Pericles was at the height of his power, his political enemies tried to destroy him by targeting his inner circle. They accused his friends — the sculptor Pheidias, his teacher Anaxagoras, and his partner Aspasia — of impiety. And they kept whispering about the old curse on his family. Luna: So Pericles' enemies were using a 200-year-old curse to attack him? Lucas: Exactly. Plutarch tells us that Pericles' popularity was so great that his enemies couldn't attack him directly. So they went after his friends, hoping the stain would spread. And they constantly reminded people: 'Pericles is an Alcmaeonid, the accursed family.' It didn't help that Pericles himself avoided appearing in public too often, which made him seem aloof — but maybe he was also wary of the religious stigma. The curse was a political weapon that never rusted. Luna: That's fascinating and awful. But was there any truth to it? I mean, did the Alcmaeonids actually commit sacrilege, or was it just propaganda? Lucas: That's a great question. The ancient sources — Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, and the Athenian Constitution — all agree that the Alcmaeonids were involved in the murder of the suppliants. But modern historians debate whether the curse was genuinely believed or cynically exploited. Probably both. For the average Athenian, the idea of miasma was real. But for politicians, it was a handy smear. And here's where archaeology comes in. In 2016, during excavations for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in the Phaleron Delta, archaeologists uncovered a mass grave containing the skeletons of 80 people, all executed, many with their hands bound. They were buried in a pit, not cremated — unusual for Athenians. The remains date to the 7th century BCE, around the time of Kylon. Some scholars think this could be the mass grave of Kylon's followers. If so, it suggests the event was even more brutal than the texts say. Luna: So the curse might have a physical basis — a real mass grave that haunted the city's memory. Lucas: Exactly. The Athenians knew where the bodies were buried, literally. And that physical reminder kept the story alive. Even after the curse was supposedly purified by Epimenides, the memory lingered. It's a reminder that for the Greeks, religion and politics were inseparable. A family's relationship with the gods could determine its political fate — and by extension, the fate of the entire city. Luna: I wonder if Epimenides knew his purification would only work for so long. Lucas: He probably knew that purification was never permanent. That's why the Greeks had so many rituals for cleansing — they understood that miasma could always return. In a way, the curse of the Alcmaeonids is a perfect lens for understanding how the ancient Greeks thought about guilt, pollution, and justice: it wasn't just about the individual, but about the community and its relationship with the divine. And that shaped everything from their laws to their wars.