[254] Herodot. i, 59. I record this allusion to Nisæa and the Megarian war, because I find it distinctly stated in Herodotus; and because it _may_ possibly refer to some other _later_ war between Athens and Megara than that which is mentioned in Plutarch’s Life of Solon as having taken place before the Solonian legislation (that is, before 594 B. C.), and therefore nearly forty years before this movement of Peisistratus to acquire the despotism. Peisistratus must then have been so young that he could not with any propriety be said to have “captured Nisæa” (Νισαιάν τε ἑλών): moreover, the public reputation, which was found useful to the ambition of Peisistratus in 560 B. C., must have rested upon something more recent than his bravery displayed about 597 B. C.; just as the celebrity which enabled Napoleon to play the game of successful ambition on the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 1799) was obtained by victories gained within the preceding five years, and could not have been represented by any historian as resting upon victories gained in the Seven Years’ war, between 1756-1763. At the same time, my belief is that the words of Herodotus respecting Peisistratus do really refer to the Megarian war mentioned in Plutarch’s Life of Solon, and that Herodotus supposed that Megarian war to have been much more near to the despotism of Peisistratus than it really was. In the conception of Herodotus, and by what (after Niebuhr) I venture to call a mistake in his chronology, the interval between 600-560 B. C. shrinks from forty years to little or nothing. Such mistake appears, not only on the present occasion, but also upon two others: first, in regard to the alleged dialogue between Solon and Crœsus, described and commented upon a few pages above; next, in regard to the poet Alkæus and his inglorious retreat before the Athenian troops at Sigeium and Achilleium, where he lost his shield, when the Mityleneans were defeated. The reality of this incident is indisputable, since it was mentioned by Alkæus himself in one of his songs; but Herodotus represents it to have occurred in an Athenian expedition _directed by Peisistratus_. Now the war in which Alkæus incurred this misfortune, and which was brought to a close by the mediation of Periander of Corinth, must have taken place earlier than 584 B. C., and probably took place before the legislation of Solon; long before the time when Peisistratus had the direction of Athenian affairs,—though the latter may have carried on, and probably did carry on, _another and a later war_ against the Mityleneans in those regions, which led to the introduction of his illegitimate son, Hegesistratus, as despot of Sigeium (Herod. v. 94-95).