PISISTRATUS, citizen and afterwards tyrant of Athens, was the son of Hippocrates, through whom he traced his pedigree to Neleus and Nestor, princes of Messene in the Heroic Age. A branch of the family had reigned at Athens in the persons of Codrus and his descendants. Pisistratus was second cousin to Solon, their mothers having been cousins, and the early friendship between the two men was not entirely broken off even by the wide political differences which separated them in later life. Pisistratus, who was much junior to Solon, was born about 605 b.c. In his youth there was a keen rivalry between Athens and Megara, and Pisistratus as general of Athens contrived by stratagem to defeat the Megarians and capture their port Nisaea (perhaps 570 or a little later). But Pisistratus was ambitious of more than military triumphs, and in the internal condition of Attica he discerned the road to power. The constitution which Solon had given to Athens a few years before (594 b.c. ) was too moderate to satisfy either of the extreme parties. The wealthy nobles chafed at the political rights granted to the lower classes, while the poor were dissatisfied with what they regarded as merely a half measure of relief. The nobles themselves were divided into the parties known as the Plain (Pedieis) and the Coast (Paraloi), the former inhabiting the western lowlands of Attica, the latter the level districts on the southern and eastern coasts. The former were led by the noble Lycurgus, the latter by Megacles, of the proud house of the Alcmaeonidae. Pisistratus took advantage of their dissensions to form a third political party out of the men of the Mountain (Diacreis or Diacrioι), the poor cottars and shepherds of the eastern and northern hills, among whom his own estates lay. He easily won ...