Kleisthenês and his new constitution carried with them so completely the popular favor, that Isagoras had no other way of opposing it except by calling in the interference of Kleomenês and the Lacedæmonians. Kleomenês listened the more readily to this call, as he was reported to have been on an intimate footing with the wife of Isagoras. He prepared to come to Athens; but his first aim was to deprive the democracy of its great leader Kleisthenês, who, as belonging to the Alkmæônid family, was supposed to be tainted with the inherited sin of his great-grandfather Megaklês, the destroyer of the usurper Kylôn. Kleomenês sent a herald to Athens, demanding the expulsion “of the accursed,”—so this family were called by their enemies, and so they continued to be called eighty years afterwards, when the same manœuvre was practised by the Lacedæmonians of that day against Periklês. This requisition had been recommended by Isagoras, and was so well-timed that Kleisthenês, not venturing to disobey it, retired voluntarily, so that Kleomenês, though arriving at Athens only with a small force, found himself master of the city. At the instigation of Isagoras, he sent into exile seven hundred families, selected from the chief partisans of Kleisthenês: his next attempt was to dissolve the new Senate of Five Hundred and place the whole government in the hands of three hundred adherents of the chief whose cause he espoused. But now was seen the spirit infused into the people by their new constitution. At the time of the first usurpation of Peisistratus, the Senate of that day had not only not resisted, but even lent themselves to the scheme. But the new Senate of Kleisthenês resolutely refused to submit to dissolution, and the citizens manifested themselves in a way at once so hostile and so determined, that Kleomenês and Isagoras were altogether baffled. They were compelled to retire into the acropolis and stand upon the defensive; and this symptom of weakness was the signal for a general rising of the Athenians, who besieged the Spartan king on the holy rock. He had evidently come without any expectation of finding, or any means of overpowering, resistance; for at the end of two days his provisions were exhausted, and he was forced to capitulate. He and his Lacedæmonians, as well as Isagoras, were allowed to retire to Sparta; but the Athenians of the party captured along with him were imprisoned, condemned,[291] and executed by the people. [291] Herodot. v, 70-72; compare Schol. ad Aristophan. Lysistr. 274.