ra was at that time able to
contest with Athens, and for some time to contest with success, the
occupation of this important island--a remarkable fact, which perhaps
may be explained by supposing that the inhabitants of Athens and its
neighborhood carried on the struggle with only partial aid from the rest
of Attica. However this may be, it appears that the Megarians had
actually established themselves in Salamis, at the time when Solon began
his political career, and that the Athenians had experienced so much
loss in the struggle as to have formally prohibited any citizen from
ever submitting a proposition for its reconquest. Stung with this
dishonorable abnegation, Solon counterfeited a state of ecstatic
excitement, rushed into the agora, and there on the stone usually
occupied by the official herald, pronounced to the surrounding crowd a
short elegiac poem which he had previously composed on the subject of
Salamis. Enforcing upon them the disgrace of abandoning the island, he
wrought so powerfully upon their feelings that they rescinded the
prohibitory law. "Rather (he exclaimed) would I forfeit my native city
and become a citizen of Pholegandrus, than be still named an Athenian,
branded with the shame of surrendered Salamis!" The Athenians again
entered into the war, and conferred upon him the command of it--partly,
as we are told, at the instigation of Pisistratus, though the latter
must have been at this time (B.C. 600-594) a very young man, or rather a
boy.

The stories in Plutarch, as to the way in which Salamis was recovered,
are contradictory as well as apocryphal, ascribing to Solon various
stratagems to deceive the Megarian occupiers. Unfortunately no authority
is given for any of them. According to that which seems the most
plausible, he was directed by the Delphian god first to propitiate the
local heroes of the island; and he accordingly crossed over to it by
night, for the purpose of sacrificing to the heroes Periphemus and
Cychreus on the Salaminian shore. Five hundred Athenian volunteers were
then levied for the attack of the island, under the stipulation that if
they were victorious they should hold it in property and citizenship.
They were safely landed on an outlying promontory, while Solon, having
been fortunate enough to seize a ship which the Megarians had sent to
watch the proceedings, manned it with Athenians and sailed straight
toward the city of Salamis, to which the Athenians who had landed