o the hands of
the one next to him, and he gave it to the next, and thus it passed
through the hands of all the ten. No one was found stern and
determined enough to murder it, and at last they gave the babe back to
its mother and went away.

The sequel of this story was, that the conspirators, when they reached
the gate, stopped to consult together, and after many mutual
criminations and recriminations, each impugning the courage and
resolution of the rest, and all joining in special condemnation of the
man to whom the child had at first been given, they went back again,
determined, in some way or other, to accomplish their purpose. But
Labda had, in the mean time, been alarmed at their extraordinary
behavior, and had listened, when they stopped at the gate, to hear
their conversation. She hastily hid the babe in a corn measure; and
the conspirators, after looking in every part of the house in vain,
gave up the search, supposing that their intended victim had been
hastily sent away. They went home, and not being willing to
acknowledge that their resolution had failed at the time of trial,
they agreed to say that their undertaking had succeeded, and that the
child had been destroyed. The babe lived, however, and grew up to
manhood, and then, in fulfillment of the prediction announced by the
oracle, he headed a rebellion against the nobles, deposed them from
their power, and reigned in their stead.

One of the worst and most reckless of the Greek tyrants of whom we
have been speaking was Hippias of Athens. His father, Pisistratus, had
been hated all his life for his cruelties and his crimes; and when he
died, leaving two sons, Hippias and Hipparchus, a conspiracy was
formed to kill the sons, and thus put an end to the dynasty.
Hipparchus was killed, but Hippias escaped the danger, and seized the
government himself alone. He began to exercise his power in the most
cruel and wanton manner, partly under the influence of resentment and
passion, and partly because he thought his proper policy was to strike
terror into the hearts of the people as a means of retaining his
dominion. One of the conspirators by whom his brother had been slain,
accused Hippias's warmest and best friends as his accomplices in that
deed, in order to revenge himself on Hippias by inducing him to
destroy his own adherents and supporters. Hippias fell into the snare;
he condemned to death all whom the conspirator accused, and his
reckless soldiers exe