Megaklês was the son of that Alkmæon who had assisted the deputies sent by Crœsus of Lydia into Greece to consult the different oracles, and whom Crœsus rewarded so liberally as to make his fortune (compare Herod. i, 46; vi, 125): and the marriage of Megaklês was in the next generation after this enrichment of Alkmæon,—μετὰ δὲ, γενεῇ δευτέρῃ ὕστερον (Herod. vi, 126). Now the reign of Crœsus extended from 560-546 B. C. and his deputation to the oracles in Greece appears to have taken place about 556 B. C.; and if this chronology be admitted, the marriage of Megaklês with the daughter of the Sikyonian Kleisthenês cannot have taken place until considerably after 556 B. C. See the long, but not very satisfactory, note of Larcher, ad Herodot. v, 66. But I shall show grounds for believing, when I recount the interview between Solon and Crœsus, that Herodotus in his conception of events misdates very considerably the reign and proceedings of Crœsus as well as of Peisistratus: this is a conjecture of Niebuhr which I think very just, and which is rendered still more probable by what we find here stated about the succession of the Alkmæonidæ. For it is evident that Herodotus here conceives the adventure between Alkmæon and Crœsus as having occurred one generation (about twenty-five or thirty years) anterior to the marriage between Megaklês and the daughter of Kleisthenês. That adventure will thus stand about 590-585 B. C., which would be about the time of the supposed interview (if real) between Solon and Crœsus, describing the maximum of the power and prosperity of the latter. [51] Müller, Dorians, book i, 8, 2; Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol. i, ch. x, p. 486, 2d ed. [52] Herod. vi, 127-131. The locution explained is,—Οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ: compare the allusions to it in the Parœmiographi, Zenob. v, 31; Diogenian. vii, 21; Suidas, xi, 45, ed. Schott. The convocation of the suitors at the invitation of Kleisthenês from all parts of Greece, and the distinctive mark and character of each, is prettily told, as well as the drunken freak whereby Hippokleidês forfeits both the favor of Kleisthenês, and the hand of Agaristê, which he was on the point of obtaining. It seems to be a story framed upon the model of various incidents in the old epic, especially the suitors of Helen.