On the other side of Corinth, almost opposite Argolis, we find the petty state of Sicyon.

This was the most ancient of the Grecian states, and was conjoined to the kingdom of Agamemnon at the Trojan war.

At first it was possessed by Ionians, expelled subsequently by the Dorians, and not long after seems to have lapsed into a democratic republic.

A man of low birth, Orthagoras, obtained the tyranny, and it continued in his family for a century, the longest tyranny in Greece, because the gentlest.

Sicyon was of no marked influence at the period we are about to enter, though governed by an able tyrant, Clisthenes, whose policy it was to break the Dorian nobility, while uniting, as in a common interest, popular laws and regal authority.
XVI.