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The nobles naturally aspired to the predominance at their head was the Eupatrid Isagoras; the strife of party always tends to produce popular results, even from elements apparently the most hostile. Clisthenes, the head of the Alcmaeonidae, was by birth even yet more illustrious than Isagoras; for, among the nobles, the Alcmaeonid family stood pre-eminent.

Such was the rival of Aristides, and such the rising leader of the popular party at Athens. III. History is silent as to the part taken by Aristides in the impeachment of Miltiades, but there is no reason to believe that he opposed the measure of the Alcmaeonid party with which he acted, and which seems to have obtained the ascendency after the death of Miltiades.

Without a legitimate heir, the house of Pericles, one branch of the great Alcmaeonid gens by his mother's side, would be left deserted, and the continuity of the family sacred rites would be broken a misfortune painfully felt by every Athenian family, as calculated to wrong all the deceased members, and provoke their posthumous displeasure toward the city.

Then he gave the rein to revengeful passion, and laid upon the people burdensome taxes. He fled to Asia Minor in order to secure Persian help. THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY. Clisthenes, a brilliant man, the head of the Alcmaeonid family, connected himself with the popular party, and introduced such changes in the constitution as to render him the founder of the Athenian Democracy.

During his absence the old dissensions between the Plain, the Shore, and the Mountain broke out afresh with more violence than ever. The first was headed by Lycurgus, the second by Megacles, an Alcmaeonid, and the third by Pisistratus, the cousin of Solon. Of these leaders, Pisistratus was the ablest and the most dangerous.