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Updated: May 28, 2025
"I must contrive some way to remove all those who, by their talents, their influence, or their power, rise above the general level of the citizens." Periander began immediately to act on this recommendation. Whoever, among the people of Corinth, distinguished himself above the rest, was marked for destruction.
So Periander, at last growing furious at such behavior, banished his son from his house. The younger son gone, he turned to the elder and asked him what it was that their grandfather had said to them.
And at Syracuse, the victory in their war with the Athenians being owing to the common people, they changed their free state into a democracy: and at Chalcis, the people having taken off the tyrant Phocis, together with the nobles, immediately seized the government: and at Ambracia also the people, having expelled the tyrant Periander, with his party, placed the supreme power in themselves.
In three years after the death of Periander, 585 B.C., the oligarchal power was restored, and Corinth allied herself with Sparta in her schemes of aggrandizement. As a result of commercial opulence, the people succeeded in overthrowing the government, an oligarchy of Dorian conquerors, and elevating a demagogue, Theagenes, to the supreme power, B.C. 630.
The account adds, that when this was done, a second messenger was dispatched to the oracle of the dead, and the spirit, now clothed and comfortable in its grave, answered the inquiry, informing Periander where the lost article might be found.
There happening here a short silence, Periander, observing Niloxenus willing but not daring to speak, said: I cannot but commend the civility of those magistrates who give audience first to strangers and afterwards to their own citizens; wherefore I judge it convenient that we inhabitants and neighbors should proceed no farther at present in our discourse, and that now attention be given to those royal propositions sent us from Egypt, which the worthy Niloxenus is commissioned to deliver to Bias, who wishes that he and we may scan and examine them together.
Whereupon Periander commanded Gorgias's discretion and zeal, desiring him to proceed and lose no time, but immediately to clap them in close prison, and to suffer none to come at them to give the least notice of Arion's miraculous escape. Gentlemen, quoth Aesop, I remember you derided my dialogue of the daws and rooks; and now you can admire and believe as improbable a story of dolphins.
Arion hastened from the shore, and soon saw before him the towers of Corinth. He journeyed on, harp in hand, singing as he went, full of love and happiness, forgetting his losses, and mindful only of what remained, his friend and his lyre. He entered the hospitable halls, and was soon clasped in the embrace of Periander. "I come back to thee, my friend," he said.
Mnesiphilus the Athenian, a friend and favorite of Solon's, said: O Periander, our discourse, as our wine, ought to be distributed not according to our power or priority, but freely and equally, as in a popular state; for what hath been already discoursed concerning kingdoms and empires signifies little to us who live in a democracy.
Among other things he taught them the song and dance of the Lesbians in honor of Dionysus and the vine; it afterwards became one of the most famous songs of Greece. Many years Arion stayed with Periander, who held him in high honor and loaded him with costly presents. His fame spread as far as Italy and Sicily, and he had many requests that he would go over and sing to the people there.
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