It is not to be imagined that all were alike cruel or unprincipled; but the perpetual supremacy of one man and one family had become so offensive to the jealousy of those who felt themselves to be his equals, and to the general feeling of the people, that repression and severity were inevitable, whether originally intended or not. And even if an usurper, having once entered upon this career of violence, grew sick and averse to its continuance, abdication only left him in imminent peril, exposed to the vengeance[30] of those whom he had injured,—unless, indeed, he could clothe himself with the mantle of religion, and stipulate with the people to become priest of some temple and deity; in which case his new function protected him, just as the tonsure and the monastery sheltered a dethroned prince in the Middle Ages.[31] Several of the despots were patrons of music and poetry, and courted the good-will of contemporary intellectual men by invitation as well as by reward; and there were some cases, such as that of Peisistratus and his sons at Athens, in which an attempt was made (analogous to that of Augustus at Rome) to reconcile the reality of personal omnipotence with a certain respect for preëxisting forms.[32] In such instances the administration, though not unstained by guilt, never otherwise than unpopular, and carried on by means of foreign mercenaries, was doubtless practically milder. But cases of this character were rare, and the maxims usual with Grecian despots were personified in Periander, the Kypselid of Corinth,—a harsh and brutal person, but not destitute either of vigor or intelligence. [30] Thucyd. ii, 63. Compare again the speech of Kleon, iii, 37-40,—ὡς τυραννίδα γὰρ ἔχετε αὐτὴν, ἣν λαβεῖν μὲν ἄδικον δοκεῖ εἶναι, ἀφεῖναι δὲ ἐπικίνδυνον. The bitter sentiment against despots seems to be as old as Alkæus, and we find traces of it in Solon and Theognis (Theognis, 38-50; Solon, Fragm. vii, p. 32, ed. Schneidewin). Phanias of Eresus had collected in a book the “Assassinations of Despots from revenge.” (Τυράννων ἀναιρέσεις ἐκ τιμωρίας,—Athenæus, iii, p. 90; x, p. 438.) [31] See the story of Mæandrius, minister and successor of Polykratês of Samos, in Herodotus, iii, 142, 143. [32] Thucyd. vi, 54. The epitaph of Archedikê, the daughter of Hippias (which was inscribed at Lampsakus, where she died), though written by a great friend of Hippias, conveys the sharpest implied invective against the usual proceedings of the despots:— Ἡ πατρός τε καὶ ἀνδρὸς ἀδελφῶν τ᾽ οὖσα τυράννων Παιδῶν τ᾽, οὐχ ᾕρθη νοῦν ἐς ἀτασθαλίην (Thuc. vi, 59). The position of Augustus at Rome, and of Peisistratus at Athens, may be illustrated by a passage in Sismondi, Républiques Italiennes, vol. iv, ch. 26, p. 208:—