In due time the princess became the mother of a boy, of whom the oracle
at Delphi prophesied that he should be a formidable opponent of the
ruling dynasty. Whenever the oracle made such a prophecy about a child,
it was customary for the ruler to try to make away with it, and that
the ruler of Corinth did in this case. All efforts were unsuccessful,
however, because his homely mother hid him in a chest when the spies
came to the house. Now the Greek word for chest is _kupsele_, and
therefore this boy was called Cypselus. He grew up to be a fine young
man, and entered political life as champion of the people--the
_demos_, as the Greeks would say, and was therefore a _democratic_
politician. [Footnote: A politician is a person versed in the science
of government, from the Greek words _polis_, a city, _polites_, a
citizen. Though a very honorable title, it has been debased in familiar
usage until it has come to mean in turn a partisan, a dabbler in public
affairs, and even an artful trickster.]
He opposed the aristocratic rulers, and at last succeeded in
overturning their government and getting into the position of supreme
ruler himself. He ruled thirty years in peace, and was so much loved by
the Corinthians that he went about among them in safety without any
body-guard.
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