580 B.C.;(699) nor was the ancient state of things restored at Sicyon till 60 years afterwards,(700) during which interval another tyrant named Æschines reigned, belonging however to a different family. 3. The CORINTHIAN tyrants(701) were nearly allied with those of Sicyon; since the former, not belonging to the Doric nobility, were placed in the same situation as the latter with regard to this class. In Corinth, before the commencement of the dynasty of tyrants, the ruling power was held by the numerous(702) Heraclide clan of the Bacchiadæ, which had changed the original constitution into an oligarchy, by keeping itself distinct, in the manner of a caste, from all other families, and alone furnished the city with the annual prytanes, the chief magistrates. Cypselus the son of Aëtion, the grandson of Echecrates, from a Corinthian borough named Petra,(703) and not of Doric descent, although connected on his mother’s side with the Bacchiadæ, overcame, with the assistance again of the lower classes,(704) the oligarchs, now become odious through their luxury(705) and insolence, the larger part of whom, either voluntarily or by compulsion, quitted Corinth;(706) and Cypselus became tyrant about the 30th Olympiad (660 B.C.),(707) from the inability of the people to govern itself independently. However violently the Corinthian orator in Herodotus accuses this prince, the judgment of antiquity in general was widely different. Cypselus was of a peaceable disposition, reigned without a body-guard,(708) and never forgot that he rose from a demagogue to the throne. He also undertook works of building, either from a taste for the arts, or for the purpose of employing the people. The treasury at Delphi, together with the plane-tree, was his work.(709) To him succeeded his son Periander, who was at first equally or more mild than his father.(710) Soon, however, his conduct became sensibly more violent, and, according to Herodotus, he was instigated by his correspondence with Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus, who counselled him by every method to weaken, or even to exterminate, the nobility of his city.(711) Many of his actions were evidently prompted by the wish of utterly eradicating the peculiarities of the Doric race, which were closely connected with an aristocratic spirit. For this reason he abolished the public tables, and prohibited the ancient education.(712) He awed the people by his military splendour, and maintained triremes on both coasts of the Isthmus;(713) his person he protected by three hundred body-guards.(714) To maintain the city at peace, and to avoid all violent commotions, was a principle, on the observance of which the security of his dominion depended, and upon which a complete system of regulations was founded. With this view he abolished a criminal court(715) for the condemnation of such as wasted their patrimony, inasmuch as persons in this situation were likely to become innovators.