[234] Herodot. v, 62. The unfortunate struggle at Leipsydrion became afterwards the theme of a popular song (Athenæus, xv, p. 695): see Hesychius, v. Λειψύδριον, and Aristotle, Fragm. Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία, 37, ed. Neumann.
If it be true that Alkibiadês, grandfather of the celebrated Alkibiadês, took part with Kleisthenês and the Alkmæonid exiles in this struggle (see Isokratês, De Bigis, Or. xvi, p. 351), he must have been a mere youth.
[235] Pausan. x, 5, 5.
[236] Herodot. i, 50, ii, 180. I have taken the three hundred talents of Herodotus as being Æginæan talents, which are to Attic talents in the ratio of 5 : 3. The Inscriptions prove that the accounts of the temple were kept by the Amphiktyons on the Æginæan scale of money: see Corpus Inscrip. Boeckh, No. 1688, and Boeckh, Metrologie, vii, 4.
[237] Herodot. vi, 62. The words of the historian would seem to imply that they only began to think of this scheme of building the temple after the defeat of Leipsydrion, and a year or two before the expulsion of Hippias; a supposition quite inadmissible, since the temple must have taken some years in building.
The loose and prejudiced statement in Philochorus, affirming that the Peisistratids caused the Delphian temple to be burnt, and also that they were at last deposed by the victorious arm of the Alkmæônids (Philochori Fragment. 70, ed. Didot) makes us feel the value of Herodotus and Thucydidês as authorities.
[238] Herodot. vi, 128; Cicero, De Legg. ii, 16. The deposit here mentioned by Cicero, which may very probably have been recorded in an inscription in the temple, must have been made before the time of the Persian conquest of Samos,—indeed, before the death of Polykratês in 522 B. C., after which period the island fell at once into a precarious situation, and very soon afterwards into the greatest calamities.
[239] Herodot. v, 62, 63.
[240] Herodot. v, 64, 65.
[241] Thucyd. vi, 56, 57.