We now arrive at what may be called the second period of Grecian history, beginning with the rule of Peisistratus at Athens and of Crœsus in Lydia.

It has been already stated that Peisistratus made himself despot of Athens in 560 b.c.: he died in 527 b.c., and was succeeded by his son Hippias, who was deposed and expelled in 510 b.c., thus making an entire space of fifty years between the first exaltation of the father and the final expulsion of the son. These chronological points are settled on good evidence: but the thirty-three years covered by the reign of Peisistratus are interrupted by two periods of exile, one of them lasting not less than ten years, the other, five years; and the exact place of the years of exile, being nowhere laid down upon authority, has been differently determined by the conjectures of chronologers. Partly from this half-known chronology, partly from a very scanty collection of facts, the history of the half-century now before us can only be given very imperfectly: nor can we wonder at our ignorance, when we find that even among the Athenians themselves, only a century afterwards, statements the most incorrect and contradictory respecting the Peisistratids were in circulation, as Thucydidês distinctly, and somewhat reproachfully, acquaints us.