being intimate with the wife of Isagoras. First then Cleomenes sent
a herald to Athens demanding the expulsion of Cleisthenes and with him
many others of the Athenians, calling them the men who were under the
curse: 62 this message he sent by instruction of Isagoras, for the
Alcmaionidai and their party were accused of the murder to which
reference was thus made, while he and his friends had no part in it.

71. Now the men of the Athenians who were "under the curse" got this
name as follows:--there was one Kylon among the Athenians, a man who
had gained the victory at the Olympic games: this man behaved with
arrogance, wishing to make himself despot; and having formed for himself
an association of men of his own age, he endeavoured to seize the
Acropolis: but not being able to get possession of it, he sat down as a
suppliant before the image of the goddess. 63 These men were taken from
their place as suppliants by the presidents of the naucraries, who then
administered affairs at Athens, on the condition that they should be
liable to any penalty short of death; and the Alcmaionidai are accused
of having put them to death. This had occurred before the time of
Peisistratos.

72. Now when Cleomenes sent demanding the expulsion of Cleisthenes and
of those under the curse, Cleisthenes himself retired secretly; but
after that nevertheless Cleomenes appeared in Athens with no very
large force, and having arrived he proceeded to expel as accursed seven
hundred Athenian families, of which Isagoras had suggested to him the
names. Having done this he next endeavoured to dissolve the Senate, and
he put the offices of the State into the hands of three hundred, who
were the partisans of Isagoras. The Senate however making opposition,
and not being willing to submit, Cleomenes with Isagoras and his
partisans seized the Acropolis. Then the rest of the Athenians joined
together by common consent and besieged them for two days; and on the
third day so many of them as were Lacedemonians departed out of the
country under a truce. Thus was accomplished for Cleomenes the ominous
saying which was uttered to him: for when he had ascended the Acropolis
with the design of taking possession of it, he was going to the
sanctuary of the goddess, as to address her in prayer; but the priestess
stood up from her seat before he had passed through the door, and said,
"Lacedemonian stranger, go back and enter not into the temple, for it is
not lawful for