History of the Peloponnesian War

So having received a force from Theagenes, and persuaded his friends to it, when the Olympic festival in the Peloponnese came on, he seized the Acropolis with a view to establishing a tyranny;

thinking that that was the greatest festival of Jupiter, and that it was a very proper time for him, as he had conquered at the Olympic games. But whether it was the greatest festival in Attica, or elsewhere, that had been alluded to, lie neither stopped to consider, nor did the oracle express. For the Athenians also have a Diasian festival, which is called the greatest festival of Jupiter Milichius, held outside the city, in which all the people offer [something, though] many of them not victims, but country-offerings. [*]( i. e. little figures of dough or paste made into the shape of the swine, or other animals, which they were too poor to offer.)

Thinking, however, that he understood it rightly, he took the business in hand.

The Athenians, on perceiving it, ran in a body from the fields to resist them, and sitting down before the place besieged them. But as time went on, being tired out by the blockade, most of them went away, having commissioned the nine Archons to keep guard, and to arrange every thing with full powers, as they should consider best:

for at that time the nine Archons transacted most of the state affairs.