[252] Xenoph. Memorab. ii, 1, 21. Πρόδικος ὁ σοφὸς ἐν τῷ συγγράμματι τῷ περὶ Ἡρακλέους, ὅπερ δὴ καὶ πλείστοις ἐπιδείκνυται, etc.
[253] Herodot. vii, 10. φιλέει γὰρ ὁ θεὸς τὰ ὑπερέχοντα πάντα κολούειν.... οὐ γὰρ ἐᾷ φρονέειν μέγα ὁ θεὸς ἄλλον ἢ ἑωϋτόν.
[254] Herodot. i, 59. I record this allusion to Nisæa and the Megarian war, because I find it distinctly stated in Herodotus; and because it may possibly refer to some other later war between Athens and Megara than that which is mentioned in Plutarch’s Life of Solon as having taken place before the Solonian legislation (that is, before 594 B. C.), and therefore nearly forty years before this movement of Peisistratus to acquire the despotism. Peisistratus must then have been so young that he could not with any propriety be said to have “captured Nisæa” (Νισαιάν τε ἑλών): moreover, the public reputation, which was found useful to the ambition of Peisistratus in 560 B. C., must have rested upon something more recent than his bravery displayed about 597 B. C.; just as the celebrity which enabled Napoleon to play the game of successful ambition on the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 1799) was obtained by victories gained within the preceding five years, and could not have been represented by any historian as resting upon victories gained in the Seven Years’ war, between 1756-1763.
At the same time, my belief is that the words of Herodotus respecting Peisistratus do really refer to the Megarian war mentioned in Plutarch’s Life of Solon, and that Herodotus supposed that Megarian war to have been much more near to the despotism of Peisistratus than it really was. In the conception of Herodotus, and by what (after Niebuhr) I venture to call a mistake in his chronology, the interval between 600-560 B. C. shrinks from forty years to little or nothing. Such mistake appears, not only on the present occasion, but also upon two others: first, in regard to the alleged dialogue between Solon and Crœsus, described and commented upon a few pages above; next, in regard to the poet Alkæus and his inglorious retreat before the Athenian troops at Sigeium and Achilleium, where he lost his shield, when the Mityleneans were defeated. The reality of this incident is indisputable, since it was mentioned by Alkæus himself in one of his songs; but Herodotus represents it to have occurred in an Athenian expedition directed by Peisistratus. Now the war in which Alkæus incurred this misfortune, and which was brought to a close by the mediation of Periander of Corinth, must have taken place earlier than 584 B. C., and probably took place before the legislation of Solon; long before the time when Peisistratus had the direction of Athenian affairs,—though the latter may have carried on, and probably did carry on, another and a later war against the Mityleneans in those regions, which led to the introduction of his illegitimate son, Hegesistratus, as despot of Sigeium (Herod. v. 94-95).
If we follow the representation given by Herodotus of these three different strings of events, we shall see that the same chronological mistake pervades all of them,—he jumps over nearly ten olympiads, or forty years. Alkæus is the contemporary of Pittakus and Solon.
I have already remarked, in the previous chapter respecting the despots of Sikyôn (ch. ix.), another instance of confused chronology in Herodotus respecting the events of this period,—respecting Crœsus, Megaklês, Alkmæôn and Kleisthenês of Sikyôn.
[255] Aristot. Politic. v, 4, 5; Plutarch, Solon, 29.
[256] Plato, Republic, viii, p. 565. τὸ τυραννικὸν αἴτημα τὸ πολυθρυλλητὸν ... αἰτεῖν τὸν δῆμον φύλακάς τινας τοῦ σώματος, ἵνα σῶς αὐτοῖς ᾖ ὁ τοῦ δήμου βοηθός.
[257] Diog. Laërt. i, 49. ἡ βουλὴ, Πεισιστατίδαι ὄντες, etc.
[258] Plutarch, Solon, 29-30; Diog. Laërt. i, 50-51.