ifficulty; he realized that Athens
would not tolerate a new tyranny, nor were the other nobles willing to
accept him as leader of a constitutional oligarchy. It was left for him
to "take the people into partnership" as Peisistratus had in a different
way done before him. Solon's reforms had failed, primarily because they
left unimpaired the power of the great landed nobles, who, in their
several districts, doubled the roles of landlord, priest and patriarch.
This evil of local influence Peisistratus had concealed by satisfying
the nominally sovereign people that in him they had a sufficient
representative. It was left to Cleisthenes to adopt the remaining remedy
of giving substance to the form of the Solonian constitution. His first
attempts roused the aristocrats to a last effort; Isagoras appealed to
the Spartans (who, though they disliked tyranny, had no love for
democracy) to come to his aid. Cleisthenes retired on the arrival of a
herald from Cleomenes, reviving the old question of the curse; Isagoras
thus became all-powerful[1] and expelled seven hundred families. The
democrats, however, rose, and after besieging Cleomenes and Isagoras in
the Acropolis, let them go under a safe-conduct, and brought back the
exiles.

Apart from the reforms which Cleisthenes was now able to establish, the
period of his ascendancy is a blank, nor are we told when and how it
came to an end. It is clear, however--and it is impossible in connexion
with the Pan-hellenic patriotism to which Athens laid claim, to overrate
the importance of the fact--that Cleisthenes, hard pressed in the war
with Boeotia, Euboea and Sparta (Herod, v. 73 and foll.), sent
ambassadors to ask the help of Persia. The story, as told by Herodotus,
that the ambassadors of their own accord agreed to give "earth and
water" (i.e. submission) in return for Persian assistance, and that the
Ecclesia subsequently disavowed their action as unauthorized, is
scarcely credible. Cleisthenes (1) was in full control and must have
instructed the ambassadors; (2) he knew that any help from Persia meant
submission. It is practically certain, therefore, that he (cf. the
Alcmaeonids and the story of the shield at Marathon) was the first to
"medize" (see Curtius, _History of Greece_). Probably he had hoped to
persuade the Ecclesia that the agreement was a mere form. Aelian says
that he himself was a victim to his own device of ostracism (q.v.);
this, though apparently inconsistent wit