By the event it does not appear, however, that he selected the proper occasion.

Taking advantage of an Olympic year, when many of the citizens were gone to the games, and assisted with troops by his father-in-law, he seized the citadel.

Whatever might have been his hopes of popular support--and there is reason to believe that he in some measure calculated upon it--the time was evidently unripe for the convulsion, and the attempt was unskilfully planned.
The Athenians, under Megacles and the other archons, took the alarm, and in a general body blockaded the citadel.

But they grew weary of the length of the siege; many of them fell away, and the contest was abandoned to the archons, with full power to act according to their judgment.

So supine in defence of the liberties of the state are a people who have not yet obtained liberty for themselves! II.