this system,
in the archonship of Hermocreon, they first imposed upon the Council of
Five Hundred the oath which they take to the present day. Next they
began to elect the generals by tribes, one from each tribe, while the
Polemarch was the commander of the whole army. Then, eleven years
later, in the archonship of Phaenippus they won the battle of Marathon;
and two years after this victory, when the people had now gained
self-confidence, they for the first time made use of the law of
ostracism. This had originally been passed as a precaution against men
in high office, because Pisistratus took advantage of his position as a
popular leader and general to make himself tyrant; and the first person
ostracized was one of his relatives, Hipparchus son of Charmus, of the
deme of Collytus, the very person on whose account especially
Cleisthenes had enacted the law, as he wished to get rid of him.
Hitherto, however, he had escaped; for the Athenians, with the usual
leniency of the democracy, allowed all the partisans of the tyrants,
who had not joined in their evil deeds in the time of the troubles to
remain in the city; and the chief and leader of these was Hipparchus.
Then in the very next year, in the archonship of Telesinus, they for
the first time since the tyranny elected, tribe by tribe, the nine
Archons by lot out of the five hundred candidates selected by the
demes, all the earlier ones having been elected by vote; and in the
same year Megacles son of Hippocrates, of the deme of Alopece, was
ostracized. Thus for three years they continued to ostracize the
friends of the tyrants, on whose account the law had been passed; but
in the following year they began to remove others as well, including
any one who seemed to be more powerful than was expedient. The first
person unconnected with the tyrants who was ostracized was Xanthippus
son of Ariphron. Two years later, in the archonship of Nicodemus, the
mines of Maroneia were discovered, and the state made a profit of a
hundred talents from the working of them. Some persons advised the
people to make a distribution of the money among themselves, but this
was prevented by Themistocles. He refused to say on what he proposed to
spend the money, but he bade them lend it to the hundred richest men in
Athens, one talent to each, and then, if the manner in which it was
employed pleased the people, the expenditure should be charged to the
state, but otherwise the state should recei