maratus by
persuading the Spartans to depose him upon the ground of illegitimacy.
The exiled king took refuge at the Persian court.

The unexpected retreat of the Peloponnesian army delivered the
Athenians from their most formidable enemy, and they lost no time in
turning their arms against their other foes. Marching into Boeotia,
they defeated the Thebans and then crossed over into Euboea, where they
gained a decisive victory over the Chalcidians. In order to secure
their dominion in Euboea, and at the same time to provide for their
poorer citizens, the Athenians distributed the estates of the wealthy
Chalcidian landowners among 4000 of their citizens, who settled in the
country under the name of CLERUCI.

The successes of Athens excited the jealousy of the Spartans, and they
now resolved to make a third attempt to overthrow the Athenian
democracy. They had meantime discovered the deception which had been
practised upon them by the Delphic oracle; And they invited Hippias to
come from Sigeum to Sparta, in order to restore him to Athens. The
experience of the last campaign had taught them that they could not
calculate upon the co-operation of their allies without first obtaining
their approval of the project; and they therefore summoned deputies
from all their allies to meet at Sparta, in order to determine
respecting the restoration of Hippias. But the proposal was received
with universal repugnance; and the Spartans found it necessary to
abandon their project. Hippias returned to Sigeum, and afterwards
proceeded to the court of Darius.

Athens had now entered upon her glorious career. The institutions of
Clisthenes had given her citizens a personal interest in the welfare
and the grandeur of their country. A spirit of the warmest patriotism
rapidly sprang up among them; and the history of the Persian wars,
which followed almost immediately, exhibits a striking proof of the
heroic sacrifices which they were prepared to make for the liberty and
independence of their state.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GREEK COLONIES.

The vast number of the Greek colonies, their wide-spread diffusion over
all parts of the Mediterranean, which thus became a kind of Grecian
lake, and their rapid growth in wealth, power, and intelligence, afford
the most striking proofs of the greatness of this wonderful people.
Civil dissensions and a redundant population were the chief causes of
the origin of most of the Greek colonies. They we