After this, Solon is said to have sailed by night, unnoticed by the Megarians, and to have sacrificed to the heroes Periphemus and Kychreus.  His next act was to raise five hundred Athenian volunteers, who by a public decree were to be absolute masters of the island if they could conquer it.  With these he set sail in a number of fishing-boats, with a triaconter or ship of war of thirty oars, sailing in company, and anchored off a certain cape which stretches towards Euboea.  The Megarians in Euboea heard an indistinct rumour of this, and at once ran to arms, and sent a ship to reconnoitre the enemy.  This ship, when it came near Solon’s fleet, was captured and its crew taken prisoners.  On board of it Solon placed some picked men, and ordered them to make sail for the city of Salamis, and to conceal themselves as far as they could.  Meanwhile he with the remaining Athenians attacked the Megarian forces by land; and while the battle was at its hottest, the men in the ship succeeded in surprising the city.

This story appears to be borne out by the proceedings which were instituted in memory of the capture.  In this ceremony an Athenian ship used to sail to Salamis, at first in silence, and then as they neared the shore with warlike shouts.  Then a man completely armed used to leap out and run, shouting as he went, up to the top of the hill called Skiradion, where he met those who came by land.  Close by this place stands the temple of Ares, which Solon built; for he conquered the Megarians in the battle, and sent away the survivors with a flag of truce.

X. However, as the Megarians still continued the war, to the great misery of both sides, they agreed to make the Lacedaemonians arbitrators and judges between them.  Most writers say that Solon brought the great authority of Homer’s ‘Iliad’ to his aid, by interpolating in the catologue of ships the two verses—­

    “Ajax from Salamis twelve vessels good
    Brought, and he placed them where the Athenians stood,”

which he had read as evidence before the court.

The Athenians, however, say that all this is nonsense, but that Solon proved to the arbitrators that Philaeus and Eurysakes, the sons of Ajax, when they were enrolled as Athenian citizens, made over the island to Athens, and dwelt, one at Brauron, in Attica, and the other at Melite; moreover, there is an Athenian tribe which claims descent from Philaeus, to which Peisistratus belonged.  Wishing, however, yet more thoroughly to prove his case against the Megarians, he based an argument on the tombs in the island, in which the corpses were buried, not in the Megarian, but in the Athenian manner.  For the Megarians bury their dead looking towards the east, and the Athenians towards the west.  But Hereas of Megara denies this, and says that the Megarians also bury their dead looking towards the west, and moreover, that each Athenian had a coffin to himself, while the Megarians place two or three bodies in one coffin.  However, Solon supported his case by quoting certain oracles from Delphi, in which the god addresses Salamis as Ionian.  The Spartan arbitrators were five in number, their names being Kritolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsichidas, Anaxilos, and Kleomenes.