Had it been so, why strike at Hippias at all ?--why attempt to make him the first and principal victim ?--why assail Hipparchus (against whom only they had a private revenge) suddenly, by accident, and from the impulse of the moment, after the failure of their design on the tyrant himself, with whom they had no quarrel?
It is most probable that, as in other attempts at revolution, that of Masaniello--that of Rienzi--public patriotism was not created--it was stimulated and made passion by private resentment.
[240] Mr.Mitford has most curiously translated this passage thus: "Aristogiton escaped the attending guards, but, being taken by the people (!!!) was not mildly treated.

So Thucydides has expressed himself." Now Thucydides says quite the reverse: he says that, owing to the crowd of the people, the guard could not at first seize him.
How did Mr.Mitford make this strange blunder?
The most charitable supposition is, that, not reading the Greek, he was misled by an error of punctuation in the Latin version.
[241] "Qui cum per tormenta conscios caedis nominare cogeretur," etc.
(Justin., lib.ii., chap.

ix.) This author differs from the elder writers as to the precise cause of the conspiracy.
[242] Herodotus says they were both Gephyraeans by descent; a race, according to him, originally Phoenician .-- Herod.

b.v., c.

57.
[243] Mr.Mitford too hastily and broadly asserts the whole story of Leaena to be a fable: if, as we may gather from Pausanias, the statue of the lioness existed in his time, we may pause before we deny all authenticity to a tradition far from inconsonant with the manners of the time or the heroism of the sex.
[244] Thucyd., b.vi., c.