Meanwhile at Athens--the tranquillity of the state was still disturbed by the mortal feud between the party of Cylon and the adherents of the Alcmaeonidae--time only served to exasperate the desire of vengeance in the one, and increase the indisposition to justice in the other.

Fortunately, however, the affairs of the state were in that crisis which is ever favourable to the authority of an individual.

There are periods in all constitutions when, amid the excesses of factions, every one submits willingly to an arbiter.

With the genius that might have made him the destroyer of the liberties of his country, Solon had the virtue to constitute himself their saviour.
He persuaded the families stigmatized with the crime of sacrilege, and the epithet of "execrable," to submit to the forms of trial; they were impeached, judged, and condemned to exile; the bodies of those whom death had already summoned to a sterner tribunal were disinterred, and removed beyond the borders of Attica.

Nevertheless, the superstitions of the people were unappeased.