Peisistratus made himself tyrant by organizing the Attic “hill men” (Diakrioi, Epakrioi) against the two previously existing rival factions of the “plain” and the “coast.” The accepted explanations of these “hill men” are improbable. They cannot have been farmers or shepherds, who were always very conservative, are not recorded as having subsequently supported Peisistratus, and must have lived principally in the plain and very little in the forest-clad mountains where modern theories generally locate them. Nor were the “hill men” confined to the mountainous district of North Attica, the mistaken identification of which with the “hill country” is due to mistaken views as to the triple division of Attica into “hill,” “coast,” and “plain,” which wrongly assigns all South Attica to the “coast” and limits the “coast” to South Attica. These views on the triple division of Attica in the days of Peisistratus are based on the weakest of evidence and are made improbable by the subsequent topographical arrangements of Cleisthenes (502 B.C.), and by the later uses of the terms Diakria and Epakria. The Epakria contained a village named Semachidai which, as shown by a recently found inscription, lay in the hilly mining district of South Attica. Furthermore the Attic “akron” _par excellence_ was Cape Sunium, the Southern apex of the Attic mining district and of the whole Attic peninsula. In view of these facts it becomes probable that the Sunium and Laurium mining district was the “hill country” _par excellence_. The mines were almost certainly in full work at this period, and the miners, unlike those of later ages, free men, good material for a political faction. That Peisistratus based his power on silver mines is made very likely by what is known of his subsequent career. He finally “rooted his power” on money derived partly from home, partly from the Thracian mining district; he went to the Thracian mining district to prepare for his second restoration; his first restoration is attributed to the dressing up as Athena of a Thracian woman named Phye, who is very possibly to be explained away as the Athena who begins about this time to appear on Attic coins: for this interpretation of the Phye story compare the names “girl,” “virgin,” “Pallas” colloquially given to the Attic coins, and the jest about Agesilaus being driven out of Asia by the Great King’s archers, a colloquial name for Persian gold coins. The tyranny fell at Athens when the tyrants lost control of the Thracian mining district. Shortly afterwards the ambitious Histiaeus, the Greek friend of the Persian king into whose power the mines had passed, incurred the suspicions of the Persian sovereign through attempting to build up a political power on these very mines and miners. The history of the Alcmaeonid opposition to the house of Peisistratus likewise suggests that the government of Athens at this period depended first and foremost on the power of the purse. [Sidenote: Samos.]