After the overthrow of the tyranny, the rival leaders in the state were
Isagoras son of Tisander, a partisan of the tyrants, and Cleisthenes,
who belonged to the family of the Alcmeonidae. Cleisthenes, being
beaten in the political clubs, called in the people by giving the
franchise to the masses. Thereupon Isagoras, finding himself left
inferior in power, invited Cleomenes, who was united to him by ties of
hospitality, to return to Athens, and persuaded him to 'drive out the
pollution', a plea derived from the fact that the Alcmeonidae were
suppposed to be under the curse of pollution. On this Cleisthenes
retired from the country, and Cleomenes, entering Attica with a small
force, expelled, as polluted, seven hundred Athenian families. Having
effected this, he next attempted to dissolve the Council, and to set up
Isagoras and three hundred of his partisans as the supreme power in the
state. The Council, however, resisted, the populace flocked together,
and Cleomenes and Isagoras, with their adherents, took refuge in the
Acropolis. Here the people sat down and besieged them for two days; and
on the third they agreed to let Cleomenes and all his followers depart,
while they summoned Cleisthenes and the other exiles back to Athens.
When the people had thus obtained the command of affairs, Cleisthenes
was their chief and popular leader. And this was natural; for the
Alcmeonidae were perhaps the chief cause of the expulsion of the
tyrants, and for the greater part of their rule were at perpetual war
with them. But even earlier than the attempts of the Alcmeonidae, one
Cedon made an attack on the tyrants; when there came another popular
drinking song, addressed to him:
Pour a health yet again, boy, to Cedon; forget not this duty to do,
If a health is an honour befitting the name of a good man and true.