Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/126

 108 HISTORY OF GREECE. oil the dead bodies which had been buried within sight of the temple of Apollo were exhumed and reinterred farther off. At this time the Delian festival, attended by the Asiatic lonians and the islanders, and with which Athens was of course pecu- liarly connected, must have been beginning to decline from its pristine magnificence; for the subjugation of the continental Ionic cities by Cyrus had been already achieved, and the power of Samos, though increased under the despot Polykrates, seems to have increased at the expense and to the ruin of the smaller Ionic islands. From the same feelings, in part, which led to the purification of Delos, partly as an act of party revenge, Peisistratus caused the houses of the Alkmseonids to be levelled with the ground, and the bodies of the deceased members of that family to be disinterred and cast out of the country. 1 This third and last period of the rule of Peisistratus lasted several years, until his death in 527 B.C : it is said to have been so mild in its character, that he once even suffered himself to be cited for trial before the Senate of Areopagus ; yet as we know that he had to maintain a large body of Thracian mercenaries out of the funds of the people, we shall be inclined to construe this eulogium comparatively rather than positively. Thucy- dides affirms that both he and his sons governed in a wise and virtuous spirit, levying from the people only an income-tax of five per cent. 2 This is high praise coming from such an au 1 Isokrates, Or. xvi, De Bigis, c. 351. 2 For the statement of Boeckh, Dr. Arnold, and Dr. Thirlwall, that Pei- sistratus had levied a tythe or tax of ten per cent., and that his sons re- duced it to the half, I find no sufficient warrant : certainly, the spurious letter of Peisistratus to Solon in Diogenes Laertius (i, 53) ought not to he considered as proving anything. Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, B. iii, c. 6 (i. 351 German); Dr. Arnold ad Thucyd. vi, 34; Dr. Tnirhvall Hist, of Gr. ch. xi, pp. 72-74. Idomeneus (ap. Athena?, xii, p. 533) consid- ers the sons of Peisistratus to have indulged in pleasures to nn extent more costly and oppressive to the people than their father. Nor do I think that there is sufficient authority to sustain the statement of Dr. Thirlwall (p. 68), " He (Peisistratus) possessed lands on the Strymon in Thrace, which yielded a large revenue." Herodotus (i, 64) tells us that Peisistratus brought mercenary soldiers from the Strymon, but that he levied the money to pay them in Attica lppiuoe TTJV rvpavviSa iwiKovpoiiri re 7roX- not XPWUTUV ovvodotai, ruv fiev aitTO'&ev, ruv <5e uxd ^ovucv ^