areopagus, received their death-wounds in spite of that inviolable protection.[137] [137] The narrative is given in Thucyd. i, 126; Herod. v, 71; Plutarch, Solon, 12. Though the conspiracy was thus put down, and the government upheld, these deplorable incidents left behind them a long train of calamity,—profound religious remorse mingled with exasperated political antipathies. There still remained, if not a considerable Kylonian party, at least a large body of persons who resented the way in which the Kylonians had been put to death, and who became in consequence bitter enemies of Megaklês the archon, and of the great family of the Alkmæônidæ, to which he belonged. Not only Megaklês himself and his personal assistants were denounced as smitten with a curse, but the taint was supposed to be transmitted to his descendants, and we shall hereafter find the wound reopened, not only in the second and third generation, but also two centuries after the original event.[138] When we see that the impression left by the proceeding was so very serious, even after the length of time which had elapsed, we may well believe that it was sufficient, immediately afterwards, to poison altogether the tranquillity of the state. The Alkmæônids and their partisans long defied their opponents, resisting any public trial,—and the dissensions continued without hope of termination, until Solon, then enjoying a lofty reputation for sagacity and patriotism, as well as for bravery, persuaded them to submit to judicial cognizance,—at a moment so far distant from the event, that several of the actors were dead. They were accordingly tried before a special judicature of three hundred eupatrids, Myrôn, of the deme Phlyeis, being their accuser. In defending themselves against the charge that they had sinned against the reverence due to the gods and the consecrated right of asylum, they alleged that the Kylonian suppliants, when persuaded to quit the holy ground, had tied a cord round the statue of the goddess and clung to it for protection in their march; but on approaching the altar of the eumenides, the cord accidentally broke,—and this critical event, so the accused persons argued, proved that the goddess had herself withdrawn from them her protecting hand and abandoned them to their fate.[139] Their argument, remarkable as an illustration of the feelings of the time, was not, however, accepted as an excuse: they were found guilty, and while such of them as were alive retired into banishment, those who had already died were disinterred and cast beyond the borders. Yet their exile, continuing as it did only for a time, was not held sufficient to expiate the impiety for which they had been condemned. The Alkmæônids, one of the most powerful families in Attica, long continued to be looked upon as a tainted race,[140] and in cases of public calamity were liable to be singled out as having by their sacrilege drawn down the judgment of the gods upon their countrymen.[141]