alliances. He retained many auxiliary troops, and provided large
pecuniary resources [233]. He spared the persons of his opponents,
but sent their children as hostages to Naxos, which he first reduced
and consigned to the tyranny of his auxiliary, Lygdamis. Many of his
inveterate enemies had perished on the field--many fled from the fear
of his revenge. He was undisturbed in the renewal of his sway, and
having no motive for violence, pursued the natural bent of a mild and
generous disposition, ruling as one who wishes men to forget the means
by which his power has been attained. Pisistratus had that passion
for letters which distinguished most of the more brilliant Athenians.
Although the poems of Homer were widely known and deeply venerated
long before his time, yet he appears, by a more accurate collection
and arrangement of them, and probably by bringing them into a more
general and active circulation in Athens, to have largely added to the
wonderful impetus to poetical emulation, which those immortal writings
were calculated to give.

When we consider how much, even in our own times, and with all the
advantages of the press, the diffused fame and intellectual influence
of Shakspeare and Milton have owed to the praise and criticism of
individuals, we may readily understand the kind of service rendered by
Pisistratus to Homer. The very example of so eminent a man would have
drawn upon the poet a less vague and more inquiring species of
admiration; the increased circulation of copies--the more frequent
public recitals--were advantages timed at that happy season when the
people who enjoyed them had grown up from wondering childhood to
imitative and studious youth. And certain it is, that from this
period we must date the marked and pervading influence of Homer upon
Athenian poetry; for the renown of a poet often precedes by many
generations the visible influence of his peculiar genius. It is