REVOLUTION EFFECTED BY KLEISTHENES. 127 aelves, without any foreign interference to constrain them in their political ai rangements. It has been mentioned in the preceding chapter, that the Pei- sistratids had for the most part respected the forms of the Solo nian constitution : the nine archons, and the probouleutic or preconsidering Senate of Four Hundred (both annually changed), still continued to subsist, together with occasional meetings of the people, or rather of such portion of the people as was com- prised in the gentes, phratries, and four Ionic tribes. The timocratic classification of Solon (or quadruple scale of income and admeasurement of political franchises according to it) also continued to subsist, but all within the tether and subservient to the purposes of the ruling family, who always kept one of their number as real master, among the chief administrators, and always retained possession of the acropolis as well as of the mercenary force. That overawing pressure being ROW removed by the expulsion of Hippias, the enslaved forms became at once endued with freedom and reality. There appeared again, what Attica had not known for thirty years, declared political parties, and pro- nounced opposition between two men as leaders, on one side, Isagoras son of Tisander, a person of illustrious descent, on the other, Kleisthenes the Alkmasonid, not less illustrious, and possessing at this moment a claim on the gratitude of his coun- trymen as the most persevering as well as the most effective foe of the dethroned despots. In what manner such opposition was carried on we are not told. It would seem to have been not altogether pacific ; but at any rate, Kleisthenes had the worst of it, and in consequence of this defeat, says the historian, " he took into partnership the people, who had been before excluded from everything." 1 His partnership with the people gave birth to the Athenian democracy : it was a real and important revolu- tion. The political franchise, or the character of an Athenian citizen, both before and since Solon, had been confined to the primitive 1 Hcrodot. v, G6-6f iaaovfievof <5e u Kl.eia&evris rbv d>/uov Trpoaeraipl(,t' rat o>f yup <5?) rbv A.'&ijvaiuv <5>)//ov, irpoTepov unua^evov ritvruv, rori irpo? rr,i tu'-irov uolprjv TrpoaedfjuaTO, etc.
