Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/144

 126 HISTORY OF GREECE. remark that, in the decree of amnesty, there is no mention of them by name, nor any special exception made against them : among a list of vari- ous categories excepted, those are named " who have been condemned to death or exile either as murderers or as despots," (q G$a-/etaiv ?j rvpuvvoi^, Andokid. c. 13.) It is by no means certain that the descendants of Peisis- tratus would be comprised in this exception, which mentions only the per- eon himself condemned ; but even if this were otherwise, the exception is a mere continuance of similar words of exception in the old Solonian law. anterior to Pcisistratus ; and, therefore, affords no indication of particular feeling against the Peisistratids. Andokides is a useful authority for the politics of Athens in his own time (between 420-390 B.C.), but in regard to the previous history of Athens between 510-480 B.C., his assertions are so loose, confused, and unscrupu- lous, that he is a witness of no value. The mere circumstance noted by Valckenaer, that he has confounded together Marathon and Salamis, would be sufficient to show this ; but when we add to such genuine ignorance his mention of his two great-grandfathers in prominent and victorious leader ship, which it is hardly credible that they could ever have occupied, when we recollect that the facts which he alleges to have preceded and accompanied the expulsion of the Peisistratids are not only at variance with those stated by Herodotus, but so contrived as to found a factitious analogy for the cause which he is himself pleading, we shall hardly be ble to acquit him of something worse than ignorance in his deposition CHAPTER XXXI. URECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE ?EISISTRA- TIDS.- RE VOLUTION OF KLEISTHENES AND ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS WITH Hippias disappeared the mercenary Thracian garrison, upon which he and his father before him had leaned for defence as well as for enforcement of authority ; and Kleomenes with his Lacedaemonian forces retired also, after staying only long enough to establish a personal friendship, productive subsequently of important consequences, between the Spartan king and tha Athenian L-ajjoras. The Athenians were thus left to them