Now those who were besieged with Cylon were in a wretched condition for want of food and water. Cylon therefore and his brother made their escape, but when the rest were pressed hard, and some were even dying of famine, they seated themselves as suppliants on the altar of the Acropolis.

And those of the Athenians who had been commissioned to keep guard, when they saw them dying in the temple, raised them up on condition of doing them no harm, and led them away and killed them; while some who were seated before the Awful Goddesses A title of the Furies peculiarly given to them at Athens, according to Pausanias as that of εὐμένιδες was at Sicyon—each 'per euphemismum.' they despatched on the altars at the side entrance. And from this both they and their descendants after them were called accursed of, and offenders against, the goddess.

The Athenians therefore expelled these accursed ones, and Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian also expelled them subsequently, in conjunction with some Athenian partisans, both driving out the living, and taking up and casting out the bones of the dead. They returned, however, afterwards, and their descendants are still in the city.