118 THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS.

this moment intriguing with. Persia, not without suc- cess, for their restoration. The feelings of the citizens towards these powerful absentees and their Asiatic friends were much the same as those of the French of 1792 towards the Emigration and its abettors. The two great ruling families were now the rival houses of Alcmaeon and Isagoras. Cleisthenes the Alcmaeonid, grandson of the tyrant of Sicyon, might not have thought it worth his while to court the people, had he not been determined to put down the rival faction which was led by Isagoras, brother of his father's rival Hippocleides, of dancing notoriety. As it was, he brought about a complete democratic revolution. He broke up the four old tribes, which were bound by family ties and sacred rites, and made ten new geo- graphical divisions. This was as radical a change as the substitution of departments for provinces in France ; and the introduction of the decimal system, in nearly every department of state at Athens, anticipated by more than two thousand years the work of the French Eevolution. The Isagorids for a time turned the tables on the Alcmseonids, by calling in the assistance of the Spartans, and Cleisthenes had only just defeated a dangerous confederacy against Athens. The Spartans had invaded Attica from Megara, when the Boeotians and Chalcidians broke in upon their northern frontier. But the usual jealousy between the two Spartan kings, and the defection of their Corinthian allies, dissolved the Spartan army, and left the Athenians at leisure to deal with their other enemies. They defeated the Boeotians with great slaughter, taking seven hun- dred prisoners ; and crossing on the same day to Euboea, there obtained a second victory over the Chalcidians, in