Book V

Thus was this brought to an end: and Hippias being dismissed from thence had Anthemus offered to him by Amyntas king of the Macedonians and Iolcos by the Thessalians. He however accepted neither of these, but retired again to Sigeion; which city Peisistratos had taken by force of arms from the Mytilenians, and having got possession of it, had appointed his own natural son Hegesistratos, born of an Argive woman, to be despot of it: he however did not without a struggle keep possession of that which he received from Peisistratos; for the Mytilenians and Athenians carried on war for a long time, having their strongholds respectively at Achilleion and at Sigeion, the one side demanding that the place be restored to them, and the Athenians on the other hand not admitting this demand, but proving by argument that the Aeolians had no better claim to the territory of Ilion than they and the rest of the Hellenes, as many as joined with Menelaus in exacting vengeance for the rape of Helen. 95. Now while these carried on the war, besides many other things of various kinds which occurred in the battles, once when a fight took place and the Athenians were conquering, Alcaios the poet, taking to flight, escaped indeed himself, but the Athenians retained possession of his arms and hung them up on the walls of the temple of Athene which is at Sigeion. About this matter Alcaios composed a song and sent it to Mytilene,

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