Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/63

 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF THE DESPOTS. 47 nls suffered, and the new despot whom he indicates as either actually installed or nearly impending, must have come consider- ably after the despotism of Theagenes ; for the life of the poet seems to fall between 570-490 B. c., while Theagenes must have ruled about G30-GOO B. c. From the unfavorable picture, there- fore, which the poet gives as his own early experience of the condition of the rural cultivators, it is evident that the despot Theagenes had neither conferred upon them any permanent benefit, nor given them access to the judicial protection of the city. It is thus that the despots of Corinth, Sikyon, and Megara serve as samples of those revolutionary influences, which towards the beginning of the sixth century B. c., seem to have shaken or overturned the oligarchical governments in very many cities throughout the Grecian world. There existed a certain sympathy and alliance between the despots of Corinth and Sikyon : L how far such feeling was farther extended to Megara, we do not know. The latter city seems evidently to have been more popu- lous and powerful during the seventh and sixth centuries B. c., than we shall afterwards find her throughout the two brilliant centuries of Grecian history : her colonies, found as far distant as Bithynia and the Thracian Bosphorus on one side, and as Sicily on the other, argue an extent of trade as well as naval force once not inferior to Athens : so that we shall be the less surprised when we approach the life of Solon, to find her in pos- session of the island of Salamis, and long maintaining it, at one time with every promise of triumph, against the entire force of the Athenians. 1 Herod. TI. 128.