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Excerpt from Pictures From Greek Life and Story His first step was to assure himself of divine favour. He consulted the oracle of Delphi, and was told that he must propitiate the heroes of the island. This he did by landing at night, and performing the customary sacrifices in secrecy. The attack which followed was, as may be seen, skilfully contrived, though it may be doubtful whether the story of Solon's stratagem is authentic. Accordingto this, he dressed up a number of Athenians as women, provid ing them at the same time with arms, which they concealed under their feminine apparel. This done, he sent a messenger, in the guise of a deserter, to the Megarian garrison in Salamis, with information that they might find a number of Athenian women celebrating a festival on the Shore at a time and place specified. The garrison fell into the trap, and suffered so disastrous a loss that the island was left without defence. According to another account he had recourse to a more ordinary kind of Strategy. The result was that Athens acquired possession of the island, though, as Megara was not disposed to accept its defeat, not till after an arbitration which Sparta decided in favour of the Athenians. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.