Athenian coup of 411 BC state of Athens remained an anomaly, however, as the rest of the Greek city states were run either as tyrannies or, most often, by oligarchies. Both Thucydides and Aristotle wrote that "the revolution was provoked by defeat in Sicily." Despite the democracy in Athens, Greek tradition remained aristocratic, and the works of Homer celebrated an aristocratic world view, where the nobles made decisions and the commoners obeyed. The poems of Theognis of Megara (from the sixth century BC) and the Theban poet Pindar (of the fifth century BC) were popular among the Athenian nobles at this time, casting democracy as
The Sirens and Ulysses large paintings, and encouraged Etty to make such works. In 1834, he suggested the theme of Ulysses ("Odysseus" in the original Greek) encountering the Sirens, a scene from the "Odyssey" in which a ship's crew sails past the island home of the Sirens. The Sirens were famous for the beauty of their singing, which would lure sailors to their deaths. Ulysses wanted to hear their song, so had his crew lash him to the ship's mast under strict orders not to untie him, after which they blocked their ears until they were safely out of range of the island. The