Archaeologists Speculate Shackled Skeletons Were Slain Comrades of Greek Coup Leader Cylon

Archaeologists are speculating that 36 skeletons bound in irons and buried ignominiously in a mass grave were comrades of Cylon, who tried but failed to become the tyrant of Athens in a 632 BC coup.

The mass grave dates to between 650 and 625 BC, according to the style of two small vases found among the 80 skeletons in the grave in a large, ancient cemetery near Athens.

The Greek culture ministry called the time “a period of great political turmoil in the region.”

Cylon was a nobleman and Olympic champion who consulted the oracle at Delphi, who he thought had told him to seize the Acropolis of Athens in 632 BC. As the ancient Greek historian Thucydides wrote:

In the days of old there was an Athenian named Cylon, who had been an Olympic victor; he was powerful and of noble birth; and he had married the daughter of Theagenes, a Megarian who was at that time tyrant of Megara. In answer to an enquiry which Cylon made at Delphi, the God told him to seize the Acropolis of Athens at the greatest festival of Zeus. Thereupon he obtained forces from Theagenes, and, persuading his friends to join him, when the time of the Olympic festival in Peloponnesus came round, he took possession of the Acropolis, intending to make himself tyrant. He thought that this was the greatest festival of Zeus, and, having been an Olympic victor, he seemed to have a special interest in it. But whether the greatest festival spoken of was in Attica or in some other part of Hellas was a question which never entered into his mind, and the oracle said nothing about it.