The foreign war in which the Mityleneans were engaged, and in which Pittakus commanded them, was against the Athenians on the continental coast opposite to Lesbos, in the Troad, near Sigeium. The Mityleneans had already established various settlements along the Troad, the northernmost of which was Achilleium: they laid claim to the possession of this line of coast, and when Athens (about the 43d Olympiad, as it is said[363]) attempted to plant a settlement at Sigeium, they resisted the establishment by force. At the head of the Mitylenean troops, Pittakus engaged in single combat with the Athenian commander Phrynôn, and had the good fortune to kill him. The general struggle was, however, carried on with no very decisive result. On one memorable occasion the Mityleneans fled, and Alkæus the poet, serving as an hoplite in their ranks, commemorated in one of his odes both his flight and the humiliating loss of his shield, which the victorious Athenians suspended as a trophy in the temple of Athênê at Sigeium. His predecessor Archilochus, and his imitator Horace, have both been frank enough to confess a similar misfortune, which Tyrtæus perhaps would not have endured to survive.[364] It was at length agreed by Mitylênê and Athens to refer the dispute to Periander of Corinth. While the Mityleneans laid claim to the whole line of coast, the Athenians alleged that inasmuch as a contingent from Athens had served in the host of Agamemnôn against Troy, their descendants had as good a right as any other Greeks to share in the conquered ground. It appears that Periander felt unwilling to decide this delicate question of legendary law. He directed that each party should retain what they possessed, and his verdict[365] was still remembered and appealed to even in the time of Aristotle, by the inhabitants of Tenedos against those of Sigeium. [363] In regard to the chronology of this war, see a note near the end of my previous chapter on the Solonian legislation. I have there noticed what I believe to be a chronological mistake of Herodotus in regard to the period between 600-560 B. C. Herodotus considers this war between the Mityleneans and Athenians, in which Pittakus and Alkæus were concerned, to have been directed by Peisistratus, whose government did not commence until 560 B. C. (Herod. v, 94, 95). My suspicion is, that there were two Athenian expeditions to these regions—one in the time of Alkæus and Pittakus; a second, much afterwards, undertaken by order of Peisistratus, whose illegitimate son Hegesistratus became, in consequence, despot of Sigeium. Herodotus appears to me to have merged the two into one.