i5-i8] OVERTHROW OF THE TYRANTS 13 considerable was ever effected by them ; except in wars with their neighbours, as in Sicily, where their power attained its greatest height. Thus for a long time every- thing conspired to prevent Hellas from uniting in any great action and to paralyse enterprise in the individual states. ALiength the tyrants both at Athens and in the rest of 18 Hellas (which had been under their They were at kngih ^ C. 510. dominion long before Athens), at least overiinvivn by Sparta, O'- 67, 3- ,, . , c .^ 1-1 'ti'lnch/or four hundred the greater number of them, and with y^^,.^ ,^^^ ^,,^^^ ^^.^^ the exception of the Sicilian the last who governed. i^ ever ruled, vvere-^put down by the Lacedaemonians. For although Lacedaemon, after the conquest* of the country JDy the Dorians who now inhabit it, remained long unsettled, i ^and in deed longer than any country which we know, I nevertheless she obtained good laws at an earlier period '-than any other, and has never been subject to tyrants; she has preserved the same form of government for rather more than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of the B.ip. 804- Peloponnesian War. It was the excellence of her con- qJI' stitution which gave her power, and thus enabled her to regulate the affairs of other states. Not long after the overthrow of the tyrants by the Lacedaemonians, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Athenians and the B|6. 490. Persians ; ten years later, the Barbarian returned with the gV.'^^^^' vast armament which was to enslave Hellas. In the great- Ol| 75. ness of the impending danger, the Lacedaemonians, who were the most powerful state in Hellas, assumed the lead of the confederates, while the Athenians, as the Persian host advanced, resolved to forsake their The Hellenes, ivho city, broke up their homes, and, taking ^'^{ ^^'" ;""/^'^'"."^- -" ^ ^ ststing the Ferstan, to their ships, became seamen. 1 he ,^^,j ^^o/te up into two Barbarian was repelled by a common confederacies. effort; but soon the Hellenes, ^'as Vv^ell those who had » Reading kt9,civ, not kt'kjlv. "^ Or, 'as well those who had revolted from the King, as those who had joined with him.'
