After a long row with the Megarians over the Island of Salamis Solon decided to sail out to nearby island Kolias. When he arrived the women were performing a sacrifice to Ceres. Solon sent a spy to nearby Salamis to tell the Megarians that the festival in Kolias was the perfect opportunity to capture the women of the Athenian first families. The Megarians packed up a ship and decided to set sail for Kolias.
As soon as Solon saw this ship set sail away from the island, he ordered the women out of the way, dressed all the young men who were still beardless in their (the women's) clothes, headresses, and shoes, gave them daggers, and ordered them to dance and disport themselves near the seashore until the enemy had landed, and their ship was certain to be captured. So the Megarians imagining them to be women, fell upon them, struggling which should first seize them, but they were cut off to a man by the Athenians, who at once sailed to the Salamis and captured it.
Plutarch's Lives: Life of Solon: Section X
No comments, yet...