But the time came, how soon we cannot tell, when the two rivals who had expelled him quarrelled, and Megaklês made propositions to Peisistratus, inviting him to resume the sovereignty, promising his own aid, and stipulating that Peisistratus should marry his daughter. The conditions being accepted, a plan was laid between the two new allies for carrying them into effect, by a novel stratagem,—since the simulated wounds and pretence of personal danger were not likely to be played off a second time with success. The two conspirators clothed a stately woman, six feet high, named Phyê, in the panoply and costume of Athênê,—surrounded her with the processional accompaniments belonging to the goddess,—and placed her in a chariot with Peisistratus by her side. In this guise the exiled despot and his adherents approached the city and drove up to the acropolis, preceded by heralds, who cried aloud to the people: “Athenians, receive ye cordially Peisistratus, whom Athênê has honored above all other men, and is now bringing back into her own acropolis.” The people in the city received the reputed goddess with implicit belief and demonstrations of worship, while among the country cantons the report quickly spread that Athênê had appeared in person to restore Peisistratus, who thus found himself, without even a show of resistance, in possession of the acropolis and of the government. His own party, united with that of Megaklês, were powerful enough to maintain him, when he had once acquired possession; and probably all, except the leaders, sincerely believed in the epiphany of the goddess, which came to be divulged as having been a deception, only after Peisistratus and Megaklês had quarrelled.[199] [199] Herodot. i, 60, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἄστεϊ πειθόμενοι τὴν γυναῖκα εἶναι ~αὐτὴν τὴν θεὸν~, προσεύχοντό τε τὴν ἄνθρωπον καὶ ἐδέκοντο τὸν Πεισίστρατον. A later statement (Athenæus, xiii, p. 609) represents Phyê to have become afterwards the wife of Hipparchus. Of this remarkable story, not the least remarkable part is the criticism with which Herodotus himself accompanies it. He treats it as a proceeding infinitely silly (πρῆγμα εὐηθέστατον, ὡς ἐγὼ εὐρίσκω, μακρῷ); he cannot conceive, how Greeks, so much superior to barbarians,—and even Athenians, the cleverest of all the Greeks,—could have fallen into such a trap. To him the story was told as a deception from the beginning, and he did not perhaps take pains to put himself into the state of feeling of those original spectators who saw the chariot approach, without any warning or preconceived suspicion. But even allowing for this, his criticism brings to our view the alteration and enlargement which had taken place in the Greek mind during the century between Peisistratus and Periklês. Doubtless, neither the latter nor any of his contemporaries could have succeeded in a similar trick.