26
And during the forty yearsRoughly speaking the period of the rule of Pisistratus and his sons, 560-510 B.C. of civic discord the Alcmeonidae were hated so much more bitterly than all other Athenians by the tyrants that whenever the tyrants had the upper hand they not only razed their dwellings, but even dug up their tombsCf. Hdt. 5.71.; and so completely were the Alcmeonidae trusted by their fellow-exiles that they continued during all that time to be leaders of the people. At last, Alcibiades and CleisthenesCleisthenes was the reformer of the Athenian constitution and founder of the democracy.—the former my great-grandfather on my father’s side, the latter my father’s maternal great-grandfather—assuming the leadership of those in exile, restored the people to their country, and drove out the tyrants.
27
And they established that democratic form of government which so effectively trained the citizens in bravery that single-handed they conquered in battleMarathon, 490 B.C. the barbarians who had attacked all Greece and they won so great renown for justice that the Greeks voluntarily put in their hands the dominion of the sea; and they made Athens so great in her power and her other resources that those who allege that she is the capital of GreeceCf. Isoc. 15.299. and habitually apply to her similar exaggerated expressions appear to be speaking the truth.
