families, as inculpated in the pretended pollution of Clisthenes--
dissolved the senate--and committed all the offices of the state to an
oligarchy of three hundred (a number and a council founded upon the
Dorian habits), each of whom was the creature of Isagoras. But the
noble assembly he had thus violently dissolved refused obedience to
his commands; they appealed to the people, whom the valour of liberty
simultaneously aroused, and the citadel, of which Isagoras and the
Spartans instantly possessed themselves, was besieged by the whole
power of Athens. The conspirators held out only two days; on the
third, they accepted the conditions of the besiegers, and departed
peaceably from the city. Some of the Athenians, who had shared the
treason without participating in the flight, were justly executed.
Clisthenes, with the families expelled by Cleomenes, was recalled, and
the republic of Athens was thus happily re-established.

VII. But the iron vengeance of that nation of soldiers, thus far
successfully braved, was not to be foreboded without alarm by the
Athenians. They felt that Cleomenes had only abandoned his designs to
return to them more prepared for contest; and Athens was not yet in a
condition to brave the determined and never-sparing energies of
Sparta. The Athenians looked around the states of Greece--many in
alliance with Lacedaemon--some governed by tyrants--others distracted
with their own civil dissensions; there were none from whom the new
commonwealth could hope for a sufficient assistance against the
revenge of Cleomenes. In this dilemma, they resorted to the only aid
which suggested itself, and sought, across the boundaries of Greece,
the alliance of the barbarians. They adventured a formal embassy to
Artaphernes, satrap of Sardis, to engage the succour of Darius, king
of Persia.