If we follow the representation given by Herodotus of these three different strings of events, we shall see that the same chronological mistake pervades all of them,—he jumps over nearly ten olympiads, or forty years. Alkæus is the contemporary of Pittakus and Solon. I have already remarked, in the previous chapter respecting the despots of Sikyôn (ch. ix.), another instance of confused chronology in Herodotus respecting the events of this period,—respecting Crœsus, Megaklês, Alkmæôn and Kleisthenês of Sikyôn. [255] Aristot. Politic. v, 4, 5; Plutarch, Solon, 29. [256] Plato, Republic, viii, p. 565. τὸ τυραννικὸν αἴτημα τὸ πολυθρυλλητὸν ... αἰτεῖν τὸν δῆμον φύλακάς τινας τοῦ σώματος, ἵνα σῶς αὐτοῖς ᾖ ὁ τοῦ δήμου βοηθός. [257] Diog. Laërt. i, 49. ἡ βουλὴ, Πεισιστατίδαι ὄντες, etc. [258] Plutarch, Solon, 29-30; Diog. Laërt. i, 50-51. The unbounded popular favor which had procured the passing of this grant, was still farther manifested by the absence of all precautions to prevent the limits of the grant from being exceeded. The number of the body-guard was not long confined to fifty, and probably their clubs were soon exchanged for sharper weapons. Peisistratus thus found himself strong enough to throw off the mask and seize the acropolis. His leading opponents, Megaklês and the Alkmæônids, immediately fled the city, and it was left to the venerable age and undaunted patriotism of Solon to stand forward almost alone in a vain attempt to resist the usurpation. He publicly presented himself in the market-place, employing encouragement, remonstrance, and reproach, in order to rouse the spirit of the people. To prevent this despotism from coming, he told them would have been easy; to shake it off now was more difficult, yet at the same time more glorious.[259] But he spoke in vain; for all who were not actually favorable to Peisistratus listened only to their fears, and remained passive; nor did any one join Solon, when, as a last appeal, he put on his armor and planted himself in military posture before the door of his house. “I have done my duty, he exclaimed at length; I have sustained to the best of my power my country and the laws:” and he then renounced all farther hope of opposition,—though resisting the instances of his friends that he should flee, and returning for answer, when they asked him on what he relied for protection, “On my old age.” Nor did he even think it necessary to repress the inspirations of his Muse: some verses yet remain, composed seemingly at a moment when the strong hand of the new despot had begun to make itself sorely felt, in which he tells his countrymen: “If ye have endured sorrow from your own baseness of soul, impute not the fault of this to the gods. Ye have yourselves put force and dominion into the hands of these men, and have thus drawn upon yourselves wretched slavery.”