The ruse was successful. An assembly was at once convoked by his partisans, and the indignant crowd immediately voted him a guard of fifty citizens to protect his person, although Solon, who had returned to Athens and was present, warned them of the pernicious consequences of such a measure. Pisistratus soon took advantage of the favor he had gained, and, arming a large body of his adherents, he threw off the mask and seized the Acropolis. Solon alone, firm and undaunted, publicly presented himself in the market-place, and called upon the people to resist the usurpation. Solon, with swift indignant strides The assembled people seeks; proclaims aloud It was no time for counsel; in their spears Lay all their prudence now: the tyrant yet Was not so firmly seated on his throne, But that one shock of their united force Would dash him from the summit of his pride Headlong and grovelling in the dust. But his appeal was in vain, and Pisistratus, without opposition, made himself master of Athens. The usurper made no change in the Constitution, and suffered the laws to take their course. He left Solon undisturbed; and it is said that the aged patriot, rejecting all offers of favor, went into voluntary exile, and soon after died at Salamis. Twice was Pisistratus driven from Athens by a coalition of the opposing factions, but he regained the sovereignty and succeeded in holding it until his death (527 B.C.). Although he tightened the reins of government, he ruled with equity and mildness, and adorned Athens with many magnificent and useful works, among them the Lyceum, that subsequently became the famous resort of philosophers and poets. He is also said to have been the first person in Greece who collected a library, which he threw open to the public; and to him posterity is indebted for the collection of Homer's poems. THIRLWALL says: "On the whole, though we cannot approve of the steps by which Pisistratus mounted to power, we must own that he made a princely use of it; and may believe that, though under his dynasty Athens could never have risen to the greatness she afterward attained, she was indebted to his rule for a season of repose, during which she gained much of that strength which she finally unfolded." THE TYRANNY AND THE DEATH OF HIP'PIAS.