Such was the desire for exclusivity of some aristocratic clans that they even turned their noses up at what was commonly an Athenian’s proudest boast, and would trace exotic foreign lineages for themselves from the assorted stars of the Trojan War. One family, the Pisistratids, claimed descent from a Messenian king; another, the Philaids, from Ajax, the tallest warrior to have fought on either side at Troy, and a king of Salamis, an island just off the Attic coast. Well might the Athenian nobility have awarded themselves the title “Eupatrids,” or “Well-bred.” There was no other aristocracy in
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