in a period of upheaval in Athens. The tyrant Peisistratos had died in 527 BC, passing power to his sons, Hipparchus and Hippias. Hipparchus was murdered in 514 BC, and in response to this, Hippias became paranoid and started to rely increasingly on foreign mercenaries to keep a hold on power. The head of the powerful, but exiled (according to Herodotus only—the fragmentary Archon List for 525/4 shows a Cleisthenes, an Alcmaeonid, holding office in Athens during this period) Alcmaeonid family, Cleisthenes, began to scheme to overthrow Hippias and return to Athens. In 510 BC, he persuaded the Spartan king Cleomenes I to launch a full-scale attack on Athens, which succeeded in overthrowing Hippias. However, in the aftermath, the other noble ('eupatrid') families of Athens rejected Cleisthenes, electing Isagoras as archon, with the support of Cleomenes. On a personal level, Cleisthenes wanted to return to Athens; however, he also probably wanted to prevent Athens becoming a Spartan client state. Outmaneuvering the other nobles, he proposed to the Athenian people a radical program in which political power would be invested in the people—a "democracy". The Athenian people thus overthrew Isagoras, repelled a Spartan attack under Cleomenes, and invited Cleisthenes to return to Athens, to put his plan into action. The establishment of the democracy was to radically change Athens:"And so it was that the Athenians found themselves suddenly a great power... they gave vivid proof of what equality and freedom of speech might achieve" Early years of the democracy The new system of government in Athens opened up a wealth of opportunity for men like Themistocles, who previously would have had no access to power. Moreover, the new institutions of the democracy required skills that had previously been unimportant in government. Themistocles was to prove himself a master of the new system; "he could infight, he could network, he could spin... and crucially, he knew how to make himself visible." Themistocles moved to the Ceramicus, a down-market part of Athens. This move marked him out as a 'man of the people', and allowed him to interact more easily with ordinary citizens. He began building up a support base among these newly empowered citizens: "he wooed the poor; and they, not used to being courted, duly loved him back. Touring the taverns, the markets, the docks, canvassing where no politician had thought to canvas before, making sure never to forget a single