The story tells that the Athenians believed that Phya was indeed the goddess, and they hastened to obey her behests. Pisistratus was allowed to enter the city and rule it as before. For six years all went well, then the tyrant quarrelled with Megacles, who again joined the Plain, and Pisistratus was expelled for the second time. But the tyrant was a patient and a persistent man. For ten years he lived in a province called Thrace, keeping in touch all the time with the Hill. In 535 B.C. he was back again in Attica, with no goddess to help him, but with a band of hired soldiers to strengthen his party. The Athenian army was sent against the invaders, but Pisistratus pretended that he did not mean to fight. So the Athenians, thinking themselves safe, sat down to their midday meal. Then, while they were eating and drinking, the tyrant fell upon them, scattering them with but little loss on either side. As the Athenians fled, the sons of Pisistratus, Hippias and Hipparchus, rode after them, crying aloud that all who went quietly home would be pardoned. The citizens saw that it was useless to resist, so Pisistratus entered Athens as tyrant for the third time. During the next eight years Pisistratus devoted himself to making Athens the most beautiful city of the world. He ordered that a new feast should be held in honour of the gods, and he began to build a magnificent temple to Zeus, which he did not live to finish. Many learned men were invited to Athens, and poets and historians were encouraged to write and to read their works to the people. It is even said that Pisistratus collected a library, which he urged the citizens to use, but of this we cannot be sure. Then, thinking perhaps that Athens was strong enough to defy her enemies, the tyrant ordered the walls of the city to be pulled down. So that for half a century Athens, like Sparta, was an unwalled town. In many of the States where tyrants ruled, Pisistratus had formed allies, and he even offered his friendship to Sparta, the State that despised tyrants and would not allow them to rule in Peloponnesus. Pisistratus died in 527 B.C., and was succeeded by his two sons, Hippias and Hipparchus. CHAPTER XXXIII HARMODIUS AND ARISTOGITON Hippias and Hipparchus were as eager as their father Pisistratus had been to govern Athens well. Nor did they quarrel as to the way in which they could best do this, as brother-tyrants might have done. But one day Hipparchus quarrelled with a citizen named Harmodius, and to quarrel with Harmodius meant to make an enemy of his great friend Aristogiton. Harmodius showed that he was angry with Hipparchus, who then used his power as tyrant to punish the citizen. This was unfair, as the quarrel was a private one.