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The town did not, however, surrender altogether without fighting; for the Peloponnesians, Megarians, and Boeotians who were in it drove the Athenians back into their ships with loss, and when they heard that the land forces had entered the town they formed in line and engaged them.
Of such stratagems and frauds we have an instance in the case of Pisistratus the Athenian, who after defeating the Megarians and thereby gaining the favour of his fellow-citizens, showed himself to them one morning covered with wounds and blood, declaring that he had been thus outraged through the jealousy of the nobles, and asking that he might have an armed guard assigned for his protection.
After this, Solon is said to have sailed by night, unnoticed by the Megarians, and to have sacrificed to the heroes Periphemus and Kychreus. His next act was to raise five hundred Athenian volunteers, who by a public decree were to be absolute masters of the island if they could conquer it.
This decree of Pericles is worded in a candid and reasonable manner; but the herald, Anthemocritus, was thought to have met his death at the hands of the Megarians, and Charinus passed a decree to the effect that Athens should wage war against them to the death, without truce or armistice; that any Megarian found in Attica should be punished with death, and that the generals, when taking the usual oath for each year, should swear in addition that they would invade the Megarian territory twice every year; and that Anthemocritus should be buried near the city gate leading into the Thriasian plain, which is now called the Double Gate.
Still we may be reminded that Solon stirred up the Athenians to capture Salamis, which they had given up to the Megarians, while Poplicola withdrew the Romans from a country which they had conquered. We must, however, consider the circumstances under which these events took place.
Things being thus ordered, the Megarians were allured with the appearance, and, coming to the shore, jumped out, eager who should first seize a prize, so that not one of them escaped; and the Athenians set sail for the island and took it.
In the second passage we find the Athenians stationed next to the Boeotians and Ionians, but the Athenians, too, had neighbours on either side. The texts must have seemed favourable to the fraudulent Athenian interpolator denounced by the Megarians, or he would have altered them. Mr. The Megarians do not seem to have seen it, or they would have cited these passages.
Success against the Megarians in the Struggle for Salamis. Cirrhaean War. Epimenides. Political State of Athens. Character of Solon. His Legislation. General View of the Athenian Constitution. Undue severity in the legislature is the ordinary proof of a general discontent: its success is rarely lasting enough to confirm a government its failure, when confessed, invariably strengthens a people.
The Argives were now completely surrounded; from the plain the Lacedaemonians and their allies shut them off from their city; above them were the Corinthians, Phliasians, and Pellenians; and on the side of Nemea the Boeotians, Sicyonians, and Megarians. Meanwhile their army was without cavalry, the Athenians alone among the allies not having yet arrived.
For, in the first place, the Euboeans revolted, against whom he passed over with forces; and then, immediately after, news came that the Megarians were turned their enemies, and a hostile army was upon the borders of Attica, under the conduct of Plistoanax, king of the Lacedaemonians.
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