[223] Ἡ γὰρ δειλία φονικώτατόν ἐστιν ἐν ταῖς τυραννίσιν—observes Plutarch, (Artaxerxês, c. 25). [224] Pausan. i, 23, 2: Plutarch, De Garrulitate, p. 897; Polyæn. viii, 45; Athenæus, xiii. p. 596. [225] We can hardly be mistaken in putting this interpretation on the words of Thucydidês—Ἀθηναῖος ὢν, Λαμψακηνῷ ἔδωκε (vi, 59). Some financial tricks and frauds are ascribed to Hippias by the author of the Pseudo-Aristotelian second book of the Œconomica (ii, 4). I place little reliance on the statements in this treatise respecting persons of early date, such as Kypselus or Hippias; in respect to facts of the subsequent period of Greece, between 450-300 B. C., the author’s means of information will doubtless render him a better witness. It has already been mentioned that the Athenians, even so far back as the days of the poet Alkæus, had occupied Sigeium in the Troad, and had there carried on war with the Mityleneans; so that their acquisitions in these regions date much before the time of Peisistratus. Owing probably to this circumstance, an application was made to them in the early part of his reign from the Dolonkian Thracians, inhabitants of the Chersonese on the opposite side of the Hellespont, for aid against their powerful neighbors the Absinthian tribe of Thracians; and opportunity was thus offered for sending out a colony to acquire this valuable peninsula for Athens. Peisistratus willingly entered into the scheme, and Miltiadês son of Kypselus, a noble Athenian, living impatiently under his despotism, was no less pleased to take the lead in executing it: his departure and that of other malcontents as founders of a colony suited the purpose of all parties. According to the narrative of Herodotus,—alike pious and picturesque,—and doubtless circulating as authentic at the annual games which the Chersonesites, even in his time, celebrated to the honor of their œkist,—it is the Delphian god who directs the scheme and singles out the individual. The chiefs of the distressed Dolonkians went to Delphi to crave assistance towards procuring Grecian colonists, and were directed to choose for their œkist the individual who should first show them hospitality on their quitting the temple. They departed and marched all along what was called the Sacred Road, through Phocis and Bœotia to Athens, without receiving a single hospitable invitation; at length they entered Athens, and passed by the house of Miltiadês, while he himself was sitting in front of it. Seeing men whose costume and arms marked them out as strangers, he invited them into his house and treated them kindly: they then apprized him that he was the man fixed upon by the oracle, and abjured him not to refuse his concurrence. After asking for himself personally the opinion of the oracle, and receiving an affirmative answer, he consented; sailing as œkist, at the head of a body of Athenian emigrants, to the Chersonese.[226] [226] Herodot. vi, 36-37.