Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/99

TIIIAL OF THE ALKM.KONIDS. $$ even after the length of time which had elapsed, we may well believe that it was sufficient, immediately afterwards, to poison altogether the tranquillity of the state. The Alkoujeonids and their partisans long defied their opponents, resisting any public trial, and the dissensions continued without hope of termination, until Solon, then enjoying a lofty reputation for sagacity and patriotism, as well as for bravery, persuaded them to submit to judicial cognizance, at a moment so far distant from the event, that several of the actors were dead. They were accordingly tried before a special judicature of three hundred eupatrids, My- ron, of the deme Phlyeis, being their accuser. In defending themselves against the charge that they had sinned against the reverence due to the gods and the consecrated right of asylum, they alleged that the Kylonian suppliants, when persuaded to quit the holy ground, had tied a cord round the statue of the god- dess and clung to it for protection in their march ; but on ap- proaching the altar of the eumenides, the cord accidentally broke, and this critical event, so the accused persons argued, proved that the goddess had herself withdrawn from them her protect- ing hand and abandoned them to their fate. 1 Their argument, remarkable as an illustration of the feelings of the time, was not, however, accepted as an excuse : they were found guilty, and while such of them as were alive retired into banishment, those who had already died were disinterred and cast beyond the borders. Yet their exile, continuing as it did only for a time, was not held sufficient to expiate the impiety for which they had been con- demned. The Alkmaionids, one of the most powerful families in Attica, long continued to be looked upon as a tainted race, 2 and in 1 Plutarch, Solon, c. 12. If the story of the breaking of the cord had been true, Thucydides could hardly have failed to notice it ; but there is no reason to doubt that it was the real defence urged by the AlkmrcGnids. When Ephcsus was besieged by Croesus, the inhabitants sought protection fc, tkc'ir town by dedicating it to Artemis : they carried a cord from the walls of the town to the shrine of the goddess, which was situated without the walls (Herod, i, 2G). The Samian despot Polykrates, when he consecrated to the Delian Apollo the neighboring island of Rheneia, connected it with the island of Dclos by means of a chain (Thucyd. iii, 104). These analogies illustrate the powerful effect of visible or material uity on the Grecian imagination. '* Herodot. i Gl