connect a man to the world, and which by some have been considered incompatible with a life de voted to wisdom and sublime philosophy: strict in his morals as Draco, he was not like him disposed to put criminals to death, whilst there was any hope of conducting them by gentle measures to repentance his modesty was natural and unaffected, and though he was generally silent in company, his silence threw no damp upon festivity, for it did not savour of sullenness, and he was known to be a friend to the use of wine with freedom, but without excess: at the meeting of the seven celebrated sages (his contemporaries and colleagues in wisdom) when they were entertained by Periander at Corinth, the golden salver, which the Milesian fishermen had dragged out of the sea in their net, and which the Delphic oracle, upon reference of the controversy, had decreed to the wisest man of the age, was by general suffrage given to Solon; each person with becoming deference to the others, had severally declined the prize, but Solon was at length constrained to receive it by concurrent vote of the whole assembly. Historians are not agreed upon the exact time of Solon's departure from Athens, and some maintain that he continued there till his death; this is not probable; but the result of the accounts puts it out of doubt that he remained there, whilst there was any hope of composing the disturbances of the state, and of restoring its tranquillity and freedom, under the prudent regulations he had established when he was archon. But no sooner had this excellent citizen turned his back upon Athens, than all these hopes perished, and universal despair took place; the degeneracy of the people became incurable, and no one was found with authority or zeal to oppose the approaching revolu tion: though Solon was far in the decline of life, yet if there had been any public virtue subsisting, the liberty of Athens had not been lost without a struggle; but, although ncutrality in civil commotions had been declared infamous and criminal by the laws of Solon, the populace through despair or indolence declined the contest, and held themselves in readiness to receive a master in either of the contending partisans, who should prevail over his competitors. Fortune and superior address at length decided the prize of ambition to Pisistratus and his party, for he possessed every qualification that could recommend him to the public; of insinuating manners, with a beautiful and commanding person, he was gallant, eloquent, and munificent; no man acquitted himself more gracefully as a public speaker, and when Pericles in aftertimes alarmed the jealousy of the Athenians, the resemblance he bore to Pisistratus in eloquence as well as in features was so striking, that he was universally called the Second Pisistratus, and the comic poets in their satirical allusions exhibited him on the stage by that name and character. Whilst these party struggles were in suspense, Pisistratus used an artifice for recommending himself to the people, which was decisive in his favour: one day on a sudden he rushed into the forum, where the citizens were assembled, as if he had been flying from assassins, who were in pursuit of him, and presented himself to public view defaced with wounds, and covered with blood; he was mounted in his chariot, and the mules that drew him were streaming with blood as well as himself: the crowd flocked around him, and in this situation, without wiping his wounds or dismounting from his chariot, he harangued the forum; he told them he had that instant escaped from the assassinating swords of the nobles, who had cruelly attempted to destroy the man of the people for his activity in opposing the exactions of sordid creditors and usurious tyrants: his tears, his sufferings, the beauty of his person now streaming with blood, which he had spilt in their cause, his military services at Megara, and his protestations of affection to the people, in whose defence he solemnly protested a determination to persist or perish, all together formed such an address to the passions, and presented such a picture to the eye, that were irresistibly affecting. Though it soon appeared in proof, that the whole was artifice, and that all these wounds about himself and his mules were of his own giving for the impression of the moment; still the moment served his purpose, and in the heat of popular tumult he obtained a decree for granting him a body-guard, not armed as soldiers, but with sticks and clubs: at the head of this desperate rabble he lost no time in forcing his way into the citadel, and took possession of it and the commonwealth in the same moment: he next proceeded to exile the most powerful and obnoxious of his opponents. Megacles and Lycur gus, with their immediate adherents, either fled from the city or were forcibly driven out of it; the revolution was complete. The tumult having subsided, Pisistratus began to look around him, and to take his measures for securing himself in the authority he had seized: for this purpose he augmented his body-guard, which, as they were first voted to him, consisting only of fifty; these he endeavoured to attach to his person by liberal payments, and whilst he equipt them at all points like soldiers, he put a cunning stratagem in practice, by which he contrived to seize all the private arms of the citizens and totally dismantled Athens: he used less ceremony with the nobles, for he stripped them of all weapons of offence openly and by force; and now he found himself, as he be lieved, in safe possession of the sovereign power and throne of Athens. This passed in the fifty-first Olympiad, when Comias was archon. It rarely happens that dominion, rapidly obtained, proves firmly established. The factions of Megacles and Lycurgus were broken by this revolution, but not extinguished, and Pisistratus either could not prevent their re-uniting, or perhaps oversecurity made him inattentive to their movements: he enjoyed his power for a short time, and was in his turn driven out of Athens by those he had exiled, and his effects were put up to public sale, as the property of an outlaw. : Megacles and Lycurgus now divided the government between them; this was a system that soon wrought its own overthrow and Megacles, finding his party the weaker, invited Pisistratus to return to Athens, vainly imagining he could full his ambition, and secure him to his interest by giving him his daughter Cæsyra in marriage. Pisistratus accepted the terms, and obeyed the welcome recal, but it was in such a manner, as might have put the weakest man upon his guard, for his return and entrance into Athens were accompanied by one of the most barefaced attacks upon public credulity and superstition, that is to be found in the history of man. He had already succeeded in several hardy stratagems, and all had been discovered after they had served his purposes. His pretended assassination, his contrivances for arming his body-guard and for disarming the citizens at large, were all well known to the people, so that he must have taken a very nice measure of their folly and blindness, when, upon his entering the city, he undertook to bring in his train a woman, named Plæa, whom he dressed in the habit of the goddess Minerva, and imposed her on the vulgar for their tutelar deity in person: he had instructed her how to address the people in his behalf, commanding them to reinstrate him in his power, and open the gates of the citadel at his approach: the lady was sufficiently personable for the character she assumed, and, as a proof of her divinity, was of colossal stature: extravagant as the experiment may seem, it succeeded in all points; the human deity was obeyed, and the ingenious demagogue carried all before him: this Grecian Joan of Arc received the adoration of the superstitious vulgar in public, and the grateful caresses of the exulting tyrant in private: the lady was not of very distinguished birth and fortune, for before she took upon her the character of a goddess she condescended to the mortal occupation of a flower-girl, and made garlands after the custom of the Greeks for feasts and merrymakings: Pisistratus rewarded her liberally, by giving her in marriage to his son Hipparchus; a commodious resource for disposing of a cast-off goddess; as for himself, he was engaged to Cæsyra: Phæa's marriage with Hipparchus soon convinced the world that she was a mortal, but Pisistratus gave himself no concern to prevent the discovery; in process of time it came to pass, upon Pisistratus's second expulsion, that Phæa was publicly impeached and condemned upon the charge of lasa Majestatis. |