[69] These were the reforms of Cleisthenes of Sicyon. As for his daughter’s son and namesake, Cleisthenes of Athens, I think he was another person with a low opinion of others—in his case the Ionians—and that is why, in imitation of the other Cleisthenes, he wanted the Athenians not to have the same tribes as the Ionians. So when he had won over to his side the ordinary people of Athens, who had previously been discounted, he changed the names of the tribes and increased their number. He created ten tribal leaders, then, where there had formerly been four, and divided the whole population between these ten tribes. And once he had won the ordinary people over, he was far more powerful than his political opponents. [70] So now it was Isagoras’ turn to lose in the power struggle. His response was to ask Cleomenes of Lacedaemon to help; Cleomenes had been his guest-friend and ally ever since the blockade of the Pisistratidae (and Cleomenes had been accused of having an affair with Isagoras’ wife). At first, Cleomenes sent a messenger to Athens to try to get Cleisthenes and a number of other Athenians banished, on the grounds that they were under a curse. It was Isagoras who told him to say this in the message he sent. For although the Alcmaeonidae and their supporters had been accused of murder (as I shall explain), Isagoras and his allies had not had anything to do with it. [71] Here is how the ‘accursed’ Athenians came to get their name. An Athenian called Cylon, an Olympic victor, saw himself as the tyrant of Athens. He made himself the leader of a band of young men his own age and tried to seize the Acropolis. When this attempt failed, he and his men took refuge as suppliants at the base of the statue of Athena. The presidents of the naucraries, who constituted the governing body of Athens in those days, persuaded them to leave with assurances that, whatever punishment they faced, they would not be put to death. The Alcmaeonidae were accused of murdering them, however. All this happened before the time of Pisistratus. [72] When Cleomenes made his attempt, through his representative, to banish Cleisthenes and the Athenians who were under a curse, Cleisthenes slipped out of Athens. Nevertheless, Cleomenes subsequently came to Athens with a small force and, on the advice of Isagoras, expelled seven hundred Athenian families. He next tried to dissolve the Council and to transfer its functions to three hundred of Isagoras’ supporters. When the.