PITTACUS of Mytilene in Lesbos, one of the seven sages of Greece, was born in 651 b.c. His father Hyrradius (or Caicus) was a Thracian, his mother was a Lesbian. About 611 b.c. Pittacus, along with the brothers of the poet Alcaeus, overthrew Melanchrus, tyrant of Lesbos. In a war between the Mytilenians and Athenians for the possession of the town of Sigeum on the Hellespont, Pittacus, as general of the Mytilenians, slew the Athenian commander Phrynon in single combat, having entangled him in a net (606 B.C.). In 589 his fellowcitizens entrusted Pittacus with despotic power for the purpose of protecting them against the exiled nobles, at the head of whom were Alcaeus and Antimenides. Pittacus effected this object, and, without introducing a new constitution, contrived by legislation to restore the existing constitution to regular working order. One of his laws enacted that offences committed during intoxication should be punished with double severity. For the historian of the law of inheritance some interest attaches to the enactment of Pittacus that father and mother should succeed, in equal shares, to the property of a deceased child. He resigned the government after holding it for ten years, and died ten years later (569 B.C.)....