rarely lasting longer than three generations. They were usually violently overthrown, and the old oligarchies re-established, or democracies set up in their place. As a rule, the Dorian cities preferred oligarchical, and the Ionian cities democratical, government. The so-called Age of the Tyrants lasted from 650 to 500 B.C.
Among the most noted of the Tyrants were the Pisistratidæ, at Athens, of whom we shall speak hereafter; Periander at Corinth (625–585 B.C.), who was a most cruel ruler, yet so generous a patron of artists and literary men that he was thought worthy of a place among the Seven Sages; and Polycrates, Tyrant of Samos (535–522 B.C.), who, with that island as a stronghold, and with a fleet of a hundred war-galleys, built up a sort of maritime kingdom in the Ægean, and for the space of more than a decade enjoyed such astonishing and uninterrupted prosperity, that it was believed his sudden downfall and death—he was allured to the Asian shore by a Persian satrap, and crucified—were brought about by the envy of the gods,[1] who the Greeks thought were apt to be jealous of over-prosperous mortals.
The Founding of Colonies.—The Age of the Tyrants coincides very nearly with the era of greatest activity in the founding of new colonies. Thousands, driven from their homes, like the Puritans in the time of the Stuart tyranny in England, fled over the seas, and, under the direction of the Delphian Apollo, laid upon remote and widely separated shores the basis of "Dispersed Hellas."
The overcrowding of population and the Greek love of adventure also contributed to swell the number of emigrants. During this
- ↑ Herodotus tells how Amasis of Egypt, the friend and ally of the Tyrant, becoming alarmed at his extraordinary course of good fortune, wrote him, begging him to interrupt it and disarm the envy of the gods, by sacrificing his most valued possession. Polycrates, acting upon the advice, threw into the sea a precious ring, which he highly prized; but soon afterwards the jewel was found by his servants in a fish that a fisherman had brought to the palace as a present for Polycrates. When Amasis heard of this, he at once broke off his alliance with the Tyrant, feeling sure that he was fated to suffer some terrible reverse of fortune. The event justified his worst fears.
