Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/123

i EISISTKATUS DISPOSSESSED AND EESTORLD. 1^5 tLat Athene had appeared in person to restore Peisistratus who thus found himself, without even a show of resistance, in possession of the acropolis and of the government. His own party, united with that of Megakles, were powerful enough to maintain him, when he had once acquired possession ; and prob- ably all, except the leaders, sincerely believed in the epiphany of the goddess, which came to be divulged as having been a deception, only after Peisistratus and Megakles had quarrelled. 1 1 Herodot. i, 63, KCU EVTCiuarel xetdo/itvoi Ttjv yvvaiKa elrai aiiTTjv TTJV debv, xpoaev%ovT6 re TTJV uv&puirov KOI edeKovro TOV Heiaiarparov. A latcl statement (Athcnasus, xiii, p. 609) represents Phyj to have become after wards the wife of Hipparchtis. Of this remarkable story, not the least remarkable part is the criticism with which Herodotus himself accompanies it. He treats it as a proceed- ing infinitely silly (Trp^y/za etTj-diaraTov, ug eyu evpiaKu, //a/cpw) ; he can- not conceive, how Greeks, so much superior to barbarians, and even Athenians, the cleverest of all the Greeks, could have fallen into such a trap. To him the story was told as a deception from the beginning, and be did not perhaps take pains to put himself into the state of feeling of those original spectators who saw the chariot approach, without any warn- ing or preconceived suspicion. But even allowing for this, his criticism brings to our view the alteration and enlargement which had taken place in the Greek mind during the century between Peisistratus and Perikles. Doubtless, neither the latter nor any of his contemporaries could have suc- ceeded in a similar trick. The fact, and the criticism upon it, now before us, are remarkably illus trated by an analogous case recounted in a previous chapter, (vol. ii, p. 421 chap, viii.) Nearly at the same period as this stratagem of Peisistratus. the Lacedaemonians and the Argeians agreed to decide, by a combat of three hundred select champions, the dispute between them as to the territory of Kynnria. The combat actually took place, and the heroism of Othryades, sole Spartan survivor, has been already recounted. In the eleventh year of the Peloponnesian war, shortly after or near upon the period when we may conceive the history of Herodotus to have been finished, the Argeians concluded a treaty with Lacedaemon, and introduced as a clause into it the liberty of reviving their pretensions to Kynuria, and of again deciding the dispute by a combat of select champions. To the Lacedaemonians of that time this appeared extreme folly, the very proceeding which had been actually resorted to a century before. Here is another case, in whic-h the change in the point of view, and the increased positive tendencies in lie Greek mind, are brought to our notice not less forcibly than by th criticism of H* rodotus upon Phyu-Athene. 5*