C., when he caused the majority of the poorer citizens to be excluded altogether from the political franchise.[196] [194] Ἀγροῖκος ὀργὴν, κυαμοτρὼξ, ἀκράχολος Δῆμος Πνυκίτης, δύσκολον γερόντιον. Aristoph. Equit. 41. I need hardly mention that the Pnyx was the place in which the Athenian public assemblies were held. [195] Plutarch (De Herodot. Malign. c. 15, p. 858) is angry with Herodotus for imparting so petty and personal a character to the dissensions between the Alkmæônids and Peisistratus; his severe remarks in that treatise, however, tend almost always to strengthen rather than to weaken the credibility of the historian. [196] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 27, ἀπεκρίνατο φιλίαν ἔσεσθαι τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις καὶ ξυμμαχίαν, ἐκδοῦσι μὲν τοὺς περὶ Δημοσθένην καὶ Ὑπερείδην, πολιτευομένοις δὲ τὴν ~πάτριον~ ἀπὸ τιμήματος πολιτείαν, δεξαμένοις δὲ φρουρὰν εἰς τὴν Μουνυχίαν, ἔτι δὲ χρήματα τοῦ πολέμου καὶ ζημίαν προσεκτίσασιν. Compare Diodor. xviii, 18. Twelve thousand of the poorer citizens were disfranchised by this change (Plutarch, Phokion, c. 28). By the stratagem recounted in a former chapter,[197] Peisistratus had obtained from the public assembly a guard which he had employed to acquire forcible possession of the acropolis. He thus became master of the administration; but he employed his power honorably and well, not disturbing the existing forms farther than was necessary to insure to himself full mastery. Nevertheless, we may see by the verses of Solon[198] (the only contemporary evidence which we possess), that the prevalent sentiment was by no means favorable to his recent proceeding, and that there was in many minds a strong feeling both of terror and aversion, which presently manifested itself in the armed coalition of his two rivals,—Megaklês at the head of the Parali, or inhabitants of the sea-board, and Lykurgus at the head of those in the neighboring plain. As the conjunction of the two formed a force too powerful for Peisistratus to withstand, he was driven into exile, after no long possession of his despotism. [197] See the preceding volume, ch. xi, p. 155. [198] Solon. Fragm. 10, ed. Bergk.— Εἰ δὲ πεπόνθατε λυγρὰ δι᾽ ὑμετέρην κακότητα, Μήτι θεοῖς τούτων μοῖραν ἐπαμφέρετε, etc.