My suspicion is, that there were two Athenian expeditions to these regions—one in the time of Alkæus and Pittakus; a second, much afterwards, undertaken by order of Peisistratus, whose illegitimate son Hegesistratus became, in consequence, despot of Sigeium. Herodotus appears to me to have merged the two into one.
[364] See the difficult fragment of Alkæus (Fr. 24, ed. Schneidewin), preserved in Strabo, xiii, p. 600; Herodot. v, 94, 95; Archilochus, Eleg. Fr. i, 5, ed. Schneidewin; Horat. Carm. ii, 7, 9; perhaps also Anakreon, but not certainly (see Fr. 81, ed. Schneidewin), is to be regarded as having thrown away his shield.
[365] Aristot. Rhetoric. i, 16, 2, where ἔναγχος marks the date.
[366] Aristot. Polit. iii, 9, 5, 6; Dionys. Halik. Ant. Rom. v, 73: Plehn, Lesbiaca, pp. 46-50.
[367] Diogen. Laërt. i, 81.
[368] Strabo, xiii, p. 617; Diogen. Laërt. i, 75; Valer. Maxim. vi, 5, 1.
[369] Aristot. Polit. ii, 9, 9; Rhetoric ii, 27, 2.
A ditty is said to have been sung by the female grinding-slaves in Lesbos, when the mill went heavily: Ἄλει, μύλα, ἄλει· καὶ γὰρ Πιττακὸς ἀλεῖ, Τᾶς μεγάλας Μιτυλάνας βασιλεύων,—“Grind, mill, grind; for Pittakus also grinds, the master of great Mitylênê.” This has the air of a genuine composition of the time, set forth by the enemies of Pittakus, and imputing to him (through a very intelligible metaphor) tyrannical conduct; though both Plutarch (Sept. Sap. Conv. c. 14, p. 157) and Diogenes Laërt. (i, 81) construe it literally, as if Pittakus had been accustomed to take bodily exercise at the hand-mill.
[370] Aristot. Polit. ii, 9, 9. ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ Πιττακὸς νόμων δημιουργὸς, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πολιτείας.
[371] See the Inscriptions in Boeckh’s collection, 2483-2671: the latter is an Iasian Inscription, reciting a Doric decree by the inhabitants of Kalymnæ; also Ahrens, De Dialecto Doricâ, pp. 15, 553; Diodor. v, 53-54.