The first requisition addressed by the Lacedæmonians to Athens was a political manœuvre aimed at Periklês, their chief opponent in that city. His mother, Agaristê, belonged to the great family of the Alkmæônids, who were supposed to be under an inexpiable hereditary taint, in consequence of the sacrilege committed by their ancestor Megaklês, nearly two centuries before, in the slaughter of the Kylonian suppliants near the altar of the Venerable Goddesses.[165] Ancient as this transaction was, it still had sufficient hold on the mind of the Athenians to serve as the basis of a political manœuvre: about seventy-seven years before, shortly after the expulsion of Hippias from Athens, it had been so employed by the Spartan king Kleomenês, who at that time exacted from the Athenians a clearance of the ancient sacrilege, to be effected by the banishment of Kleisthenês, the founder of the democracy, and his chief partisans. This demand, addressed by Kleomenês to the Athenians, at the instance of Isagoras, the rival of Kleisthenês,[166] had been then obeyed, and had served well the purposes of those who sent it; a similar blow was now aimed by the Lacedæmonians at Periklês, the grand nephew of Kleisthenês, and doubtless at the instance of his political enemies: religion required, it was pretended, that “the abomination of the goddess should be driven out.”[167] If the Athenians complied with this demand, they would deprive themselves, at this critical moment, of their ablest leader; but the Lacedæmonians, not expecting compliance, reckoned at all events upon discrediting Periklês with the people, as being partly the cause of the war through family taint of impiety,[168]—and this impression would doubtless be loudly proclaimed by his political opponents in the assembly. [165] See the account of the Kylonian troubles, and the sacrilege which followed, in vol. iii, of this History, ch. x, p. 110. [166] See Herodot. v, 70: compare vi, 131; Thucyd. i, 126; and vol. iv, ch. xxxi, p. 163 of this History. [167] Thucyd. i, 126. ἐκέλευον τοὺς Ἀθηναίους τὸ ἄγος ἐλαύνειν τῆς θεοῦ. [168] Thucyd. i, 127.