of the town. At that time there was no fortification except around the acropolis, into which Hippias retired with his mercenaries and the citizens most faithful to him; having taken care to provision it well beforehand, so that it was not less secure against famine than against assault. He might have defied the besieging force, which was noway prepared for a long blockade; but, not altogether confiding in his position, he tried to send his children by stealth out of the country; and in this proceeding the children were taken prisoners. To procure their restoration, Hippias consented to all that was demanded of him, and withdrew from Attica to Sigeium in the Troad within the space of five days. [239] Herodot. v, 62, 63. Thus fell the Peisistratid dynasty in 510 B. C., fifty years after the first usurpation of its founder.[240] It was put down through the aid of foreigners,[241] and those foreigners, too, wishing well to it in their hearts, though hostile from a mistaken feeling of divine injunction. Yet both the circumstances of its fall, and the course of events which followed, conspire to show that it possessed few attached friends in the country, and that the expulsion of Hippias was welcomed unanimously by the vast majority of Athenians. His family and chief partisans would accompany him into exile,—probably as a matter of course, without requiring any formal sentence of condemnation; and an altar was erected in the acropolis, with a column hard by, commemorating both the past iniquity of the dethroned dynasty, and the names of all its members.[242] [240] Herodot. v, 64, 65. [241] Thucyd. vi, 56, 57. [242] Thucyd. vi, 55. ὡς ὅ τε βωμὸς σημαίνει, καὶ ἡ στήλη περὶ τῆς τῶν τυράννων ἀδικίας, ἡ ἐν τῇ Ἀθηναίων ἀκροπόλει σταθεῖσα. Dr. Thirlwall, after mentioning the departure of Hippias, proceeds as follows: “After his departure many severe measures were taken against his adherents, who appear to have been for a long time afterwards a formidable party. They were punished or repressed, some by death, others by exile or by the loss of their political privileges. The family of the tyrants was condemned to perpetual banishment, and appears to have been excepted from the most comprehensive decrees of amnesty passed in later times.” (Hist. of Gr. ch. xi, vol. ii, p. 81.)