The CDPD Public Domain Collection for CDTV 3/CDPDIII.bin/books/plutarch/solon

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                                      75 AD
                                     SOLON
                                  638-539 B.C.
                                  by Plutarch
                           translated by John Dryden
SOLON

  DIDYMUS, the grammarian, in his answer to Asclepiades concerning
Solon's Tables of Law, mentions a passage of one Philocles, who states
that Solon's father's name was Euphorion, contrary to the opinion of
all others who have written concerning him; for they generally agree
that he was the son of Execestides, a man of moderate wealth and power
in the city, but of a most noble stock, being descended from Codrus;
his mother, as Heraclides Ponticus affirms, was cousin to
Pisistratus's mother, and the two at first were great friends,
partly because they were akin, and partly because of Pisistratus's
noble qualities and beauty. And they say Solon loved him; and that
is the reason, I suppose, that when afterwards they differed about the
government, their enmity never produced any hot and violent passion,
they remembered their old kindnesses, and retained-

         "Still in its embers living the strong fire"

of their love and dear affection. For that Solon was not proof against
beauty, nor of courage to stand up to passion and meet it-

         "Hand to hand as in the ring,"

we may conjecture by his poems, and one of his laws, in which there
are practices forbidden to slaves, which he would appear, therefore,
to recommend to freemen. Pisistratus, it is stated, was similarly
attached to one Charmus; he it was who dedicated the future of Love in
the Academy, where the runners in the sacred torch race light their
torches. Solon, as Hermippus writes, when his father had ruined his
estate in doing benefits and kindnesses to other men, though he had
friends enough that were willing to contribute to his relief, yet
was ashamed to be beholden to others, since he was descended from a
family who were accustomed to do kindnesses rather than receive
them; and therefore applied himself to merchandise in his youth;
though others assure us that he travelled rather to get learning and
experience than to make money. It is certain that he was a lover of
knowledge, for when he was old he would say, that he-

         "Each day grew older, and learnt something new;"

and yet no admirer of riches, esteeming as equally wealthy the man-

         "Who hath both gold and silver in his hand,
         Horses and mules, and acres of wheat-land,
         And him whose all is decent food to eat,
         Clothes to his back and shoes upon his feet,
         And a young wife and child, since so 'twill be,
         And no more years than will with that agree;"

and in another place-

         "Wealth I would have, but wealth by wrong procure
         I would not; justice, e'en if slow, is sure."

And it is perfectly possible for a good man and a statesman, without
being solicitous for superfluities, to show some concern for competent
necessaries. In his time, as Hesiod says,- "Work was a shame to none,"
nor was distinction made with respect to trade, but merchandise was
a noble calling, which brought home the good things which the
barbarous nations enjoyed, was the occasion of friendship with their
kings, and a great source of experience. Some merchants have built
great cities, as Protis, the founder of Massilia, to whom the Gauls,
near the Rhone, were much attached. Some report also, that Thales
and Hippocrates the mathematician traded; and that Plato defrayed
the charges of his travels by selling oil in Egypt. Solon's softness
and profuseness, his popular rather than philosophical tone about
pleasure in his poems, have been ascribed to his trading life; for,
having suffered a thousand dangers, it was natural they should be
recompensed with some gratifications and enjoyments; but that he
accounted himself rather poor than rich is evident from the lines-

         "Some wicked men are rich, some good are poor,
         We will not change our virtue for their store:
         Virtue's a thing that none can take away;
         But money changes owners all the day."

  At first he used his poetry only in trifles, not for any serious
purpose, but simply to pass away his idle hours; but afterwards he
introduced moral sentences and state matters, which he did, not to
record them merely as an historian, but to justify his own actions,
and sometimes to correct, chastise, and stir up the Athenians to noble
performances. Some report that he designed to put his laws into heroic
verse, and that they began thus:-

         "We humbly beg a blessing on our laws
         From mighty jove, and honour, and applause."

  In philosophy, as most of the wise men then, he chiefly esteemed the
political part of morals; in physics, he was very plain and
antiquated, as appears by this:-

         "It is the clouds that make the snow and hail,
         And thunder comes from lightning without fail;
         The sea is stormy when the winds have blown,
         But it deals fairly when 'tis left alone."

And, indeed, it is probable that at that time Thales alone had
raised philosophy above mere practice into speculation; and the rest
of the wise men were so called from prudence in political concerns. It
is said, that they had an interview at Delphi, and another at Corinth,
by the procurement of Periander, who made a meeting for them, and a
supper. But their reputation was chiefly raised by sending the
tripod to them all, by their modest refusal, and complaisant
yielding to one another. For, as the story goes, some of the Coans
fishing with a net, some strangers, Milesians, bought the draught at a
venture; the net brought up a golden tripod, which, they say, Helen,
at her return from Troy, upon the remembrance of an old prophecy,
threw in there. Now, the strangers at first contesting with the
fishers about the tripod, and the cities espousing the quarrel so
far as to engage themselves in a war, Apollo decided the controversy
by commanding to present it to the wisest man; and first it was sent
to Miletus to Thales, the Coans freely presenting him with that for
which they fought against the whole body of the Milesians; but
Thales declaring Bias the wiser person, it was sent to him; from him
to another; and so, going round them all, it came to Thales a second
time; and, at last, being carried from Miletus to Thebes, was there
dedicated to Apollo Ismenius. Theophrastus writes that it was first
presented to Bias at Priene; and next to Thales at Miletus, and so
through all it returned to Bias, and was afterwards sent to Delphi.
This is the general report, only some, instead of a tripod, say this
present was a cup sent by Croesus; others, a piece of plate that one
Bathycles had left. It is stated, that Anacharsis and Solon, and Solon
and Thales, were familiarly acquainted and some have delivered parts
of their discourse; for, they say, Anacharsis, coming to Athens,
knocked at Solon's door, and told him, that he, being a stranger,
was come to be his guest, and contract a friendship with him; and
Solon replying, "It is better to make friends at home," Anacharsis
replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship with me." Solon,
somewhat surprised at the readiness of the repartee, received him
kindly, and kept him some time with him, being already engaged in
public business and the compilation of his laws; which, when
Anacharsis understood, he laughed at him for imagining the
dishonesty and covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by
written laws, which were like spiders' webs, and would catch, it is
true, the weak and poor, but easily be broken by the mighty and
rich. To this Solon rejoined that men keep their promises when neither
side can get anything by the breaking of them; and he would so fit his
laws to the citizens, that all should understand it was more
eligible to be just than to break the laws. But the event rather
agreed with the conjecture of Anacharsis than Solon's hope.
Anacharsis, being once at the Assembly, expressed his wonder at the
fact that in Greece wise men spoke and fools decided.
  Solon went, they say, to Thales, at Miletus, and wondered that
Thales took no care to get him a wife and children. To this, Thales
made no answer for the present; but a few days after procured a
stranger to pretend that he had left Athens ten days ago; and Solon
inquiring what news there, the man, according to his instructions,
replied, "None but a young man's funeral, which the whole city
attended; for he was the son, they said, of an honourable man, the
most virtuous of the citizens, who was not then at home, but had
been travelling a long time." Solon replied, "What a miserable man
is he! But what was his name?" "I have heard it," says the man, "but
have now forgotten it, only there was a great talk of his wisdom and
his justice." Thus Solon was drawn on by every answer, and his fears
heightened, till at last, being extremely concerned, he mentioned
his own name, and asked the stranger if that young man was called
Solon's son; and the stranger assenting, he began to beat his head,
and to do and say all that is usual with men in transports of grief.
But Thales took his hand, and, with a smile, said, "These things,
Solon, keep me from marriage and rearing children, which are too great
for even your constancy to support; however, be not concerned at the
report, for it is a fiction." This Hermippus relates, from Pataecus,
who boasted that he had Aesop's soul.
  However, it is irrational and poor-spirited not to seek conveniences
for fear of losing them, for upon the same account we should not allow
ourselves to like wealth, glory, or wisdom, since we may fear to be
deprived of all these; nay, even virtue itself, than which there is no
greater nor more desirable possession, is often suspended by
sickness or drugs. Now Thales, though unmarried, could not be free
from solicitude unless he likewise felt no care for his friends, his
kinsman, or his country; yet we are told be adopted Cybisthus, his
sister's son. For the soul, having a principle of kindness in
itself, and being born to love, as well as perceive, think, or
remember, inclines and fixes upon some stranger, when a man has none
of his own to embrace. And alien or illegitimate objects insinuate
themselves into his affections, as into some estate that lacks
lawful heirs; and with affection come anxiety and care; insomuch
that you may see men that use the strongest language against the
marriage-bed and the fruit of it, when some servant's or concubine's
child is sick or dies, almost killed with grief, and abjectly
lamenting. Some have given way to shameful and desperate sorrow at the
loss of a dog or horse; others have borne the death of virtuous
children without any extravagant or unbecoming grief, have passed
the rest of their lives like men, and according to the principles of
reason. It is not affection, it is weakness that brings men, unarmed
against fortune by reason, into these endless pains and terrors; and
they indeed have not even the present enjoyment of what they dote
upon, the possibility of the future loss causing them continual pangs,
tremors, and distresses. We must not provide against the loss of
wealth by poverty, or of friends by refusing all acquaintance, or of
children by having none, but by morality and reason. But of this too
much.
  Now, when the Athenians were tired with a tedious and difficult
war that they conducted against the Megarians for the island Salamis
and made a law that it should be death for any man, by writing or
speaking, to assert that the city ought to endeavour to recover it,
Solon, vexed at the disgrace, and perceiving thousands of the youth
wished for somebody to begin, but did not dare to stir first for
fear of the law, counterfeited a distraction, and by his own family it
was spread about the city that he was mad. He then secretly composed
some elegiac verses, and getting them by heart, that it might seem
extempore, ran out into the market-place with a cap upon his head,
and, the people gathering about him, got upon the herald's stand,
and sang that elegy which begins thus-

         "I am a herald come from Salamis the fair,
         My news from thence my verses shall declare."

The poem is called Salamis; it contains an hundred verses very
elegantly written; when it had been sung, his friends commended it,
and especially Pisistratus exhorted the citizens to obey his
directions; insomuch that they recalled the law, and renewed the war
under Solon's conduct. The popular tale is, that with Pisistratus he
sailed to Colias, and, finding the women, according to the custom of
the country there, sacrificing to Ceres, he sent a trusty friend to
Salamis, who should pretend himself a renegade, and advise them, if
they desired to seize the chief Athenian women, to come with him at
once to Colias; the Megarians presently sent off men in the vessel
with him; and Solon, seeing it put off from the island, commanded
the women to be gone, and some beardless youths, dressed in their
clothes, their shoes and caps, and privately armed with daggers, to
dance and play near the shore till the enemies had landed and the
vessel was in their power. Things being thus ordered, the Megarians
were lured with the appearance, and, coming to the shore, jumped
out, eager who should first seize a prize, so that not one of them
escaped; and the Athenians set sail for the island and took it.
  Others say that it was not taken this way, but that he first
received this oracle from Delphi:-

         "Those heroes that in fair Asopia rest,
         All buried with their faces to the west,
         Go and appease with offerings of the best;

and that Solon, sailing by night to the island, sacrificed to the
heroes Periphemus and Cychreus, and then taking five hundred
Athenian volunteers (a law having passed that those that took the
island should be highest in the government), with a number of
fisher-boats and one thirty-oared ship, anchored in a bay of Salamis
that looks towards Nisaea; and the Megarians that were then in the
island, hearing only an uncertain report, hurried to their arms, and
sent a ship to reconnoiter the enemies. This ship Solon took, and,
securing the Megarians, manned it with Athenians, and gave them orders
to sail to the island with as much privacy as possible; meantime he,
with the other soldiers, marched against the Megarians by land, and
whilst they were fighting, those from the ship took the city. And this
narrative is confirmed by the following solemnity, that was afterwards
observed: An Athenian ship used to sail silently at first to the
island, then, with noise and a great shout, one leapt out armed, and
with a loud cry ran to the promontory Sciradium to meet those that
approached upon the land. And just by there stands a temple which
Solon dedicated to Mars. For he beat the Megarians, and as many as
were not killed in the battle he sent away upon conditions.
  The Megarians, however, still contending, and both sides having
received considerable losses, they chose the Spartans for arbitrators.
Now, many affirm that Homer's authority did Solon a considerable
kindness, and that, introducing a line into the Catalogue of Ships,
when the matter was to be determined, he read the passage as follows:-

         "Twelve ships from Salamis stout Ajax brought,
         And ranked his men where the Athenians fought."

The Athenians, however, call this but an idle story, and report that
Solon made it appear to the judges, that Philaeus and Eurysaces, the
sons of Ajax, being made citizens of Athens, gave them the island, and
that one of them dwelt at Brauron in Attica, the other at Melite;
and they have a township of Philaidae, to which Pisistratus
belonged, deriving its name from this Philaeus. Solon took a farther
argument against the Megarians from the dead bodies, which, he said,
were not buried after their fashion, but according to the Athenian;
for the Megarians turn the corpse to the east, the Athenians to the
west. But Hereas the Megarian denies this, and affirms that they
likewise turn the body to the west, and also that the Athenians have a
separate tomb for everybody, but the Megarians put two or three into
one. However, some of Apollo's oracles, where he calls Salamis Ionian,
made much for Solon. This matter was determined by five Spartans,
Critolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsechidas, Anaxilas, and Cleomenes.
  For this, Solon grew famed and powerful; but his advice in favour of
defending the oracle at Delphi, to give aid, and not to suffer the
Cirrhaeans to profane it, but to maintain the honour of the god, got
him most repute among the Greeks; for upon his persuasion the
Amphictyons undertook the war, as amongst others, Aristotle affirms,
in his enumeration of the victors at the Pythian games, where he makes
Solon the author of this counsel. Solon, however, was not general in
that expedition, as Hermippus states, out of Evanthes the Samian;
for Aeschines the orator says no such thing, and, in the Delphian
register, Alcmaeon, not Solon, is named as commander of the Athenians.
  Now the Cylonian pollution had a long while disturbed the
commonwealth, ever since the time when Megacles the archon persuaded
the conspirators with Cylon that took sanctuary in Minerva's temple to
come down and stand to a fair trial. And they, tying a thread to the
image, and holding one end of it, went down to the tribunal; but
when they came to the temple of the Furies, the thread broke of its
own accord, upon which, as if the goddess had refused them protection,
they were seized by Megacles and the other magistrates as many as were
without the temples were stoned, these that fled for sanctuary were
butchered at the altar, and only those escaped who made supplication
to the wives of the magistrates. But they from that time were
considered under pollution, and regarded with hatred. The remainder of
the faction of Cylon grew strong again, and had continual quarrels
with the family of Megacles; and now the quarrel being at its
height, and the people divided, Solon, being in reputation, interposed
with the chiefest of the Athenians, and by entreaty and admonition
persuaded the polluted to submit to a trial and the decision of
three hundred noble citizens. And Myron of Phlya being their
accuser, they were found guilty, and as many as were then alive were
banished, and the bodies of the dead were dug up, and scattered beyond
the confines of the country. In the midst of these distractions, the
Megarians falling upon them, they lost Nisaea and Salamis again;
besides, the city was disturbed with superstitious fears and strange
appearances, and the priests declared that the sacrifices intimated
some villainies and pollutions that were to be expiated. Upon this,
they sent for Epimenides the Phaestian from Crete, who is counted
the seventh wise man by those that will not admit Periander into the
number. He seems to have been thought a favourite of heaven, possessed
of knowledge in all the supernatural and ritual parts of religion;
and, therefore, the men of his age called him a new Curies, and son of
a nymph named Balte. When he came to Athens, and grew acquainted
with Solon, he served him in many instances, and prepared the way
for his legislation. He made them moderate in their forms of
worship, and abated their mourning by ordering some sacrifices
presently after the funeral, and taking off those severe and barbarous
ceremonies which the women usually practised; but the greatest benefit
was his purifying and sanctifying the city, by certain propitiatory
and expiatory lustrations, and foundations of sacred buildings, by
that means making them more submissive to justice, and more inclined
to harmony. It is reported that, looking upon Munychia, and
considering a long while. he said to those that stood by, "How blind
is man in future things! for did the Athenians foresee what mischief
this would do their city, they would even eat it with their own
teeth to be rid of it." A similar anticipation is ascribed to
Thales; they say he commanded his friends to bury him in an obscure
and contemned quarter of the territory of Mileteus, saying that it
should some day be the market-place of the Milesians. Epimenides,
being much honoured, and receiving from the city rich offers of
large gifts and privileges, requested but one branch of the sacred
olive, and, on that being granted, returned.
  The Athenians, now the Cylonian sedition was over and the polluted
gone into banishment fell into their old quarrels about the
government, there being as many different parties as there were
diversities in the country. The Hill quarter favoured democracy, the
Plain, oligarchy, and those that lived by the Seaside stood for a
mixed sort of government, and so hindered either of the other
parties from prevailing. And the disparity of fortune between the rich
and the poor, at that time, also reached its height; so that the
city seemed to be in a truly dangerous condition, and no other means
for freeing it from disturbances and settling it to be possible but
a despotic power. All the people were indebted to the rich; and either
they tilled their land for their creditors, paying them a sixth part
of the increase, and were, therefore, called Hectemorii and Thetes, or
else they engaged their body for the debt, and might be seized, and
either sent into slavery at home, or sold to strangers; some (for no
law forbade it) were forced to sell their children, or fly their
country to avoid the cruelty of their creditors; but the most part and
the bravest of them began to combine together and encourage one
another to stand to it, to choose a leader, to liberate the
condemned debtors, divide the land, and change the government.
  Then the wisest of the Athenians, perceiving Solon was of all men
the only one not implicated in the troubles, that he had not joined in
the exactions of the rich and was not involved in the necessities of
the poor, pressed him to succour the commonwealth and compose the
differences. Though Phanias the Lesbian affirms, that Solon, to save
his country' put a trick upon both parties, and privately promised the
poor a division of the lands, and the rich security for their debts.
Solon, however, himself says, that it was reluctantly at first that he
engaged in state affairs, being afraid of the pride of one party and
the greediness of the other; he was chosen archon, however, after
Philombrotus, and empowered to be an arbitrator and lawgiver; the rich
consenting because he was wealthy, the poor because he was honest.
There was a saying of his current before the election, that when
things are even there never can be war, and this pleased both parties,
the wealthy and the poor; the one conceiving him to mean, when all
have their fair proportion; the others, when all are absolutely equal.
Thus, there being great hopes on both sides, the chief men pressed
Solon to take the government into his own hands, and, when he was once
settled, manage the business freely and according to his pleasure; and
many of the commons, perceiving it would be a difficult change to be
effected by law and reason, were willing to have one wise and just man
set over the affairs; and some say that Solon had this oracle from
Apollo-

         "Take the mid-seat, and be the vessel's guide;
         Many in Athens are upon your side."

But chiefly his familiar friends chid him for disaffecting monarchy
only because of the name, as if the virtue of the ruler could not make
it a lawful form; Euboea had made this experiment when it chose
Tynnondas, and Mitylene, which had made Pittacus its prince; yet
this could not shake Solon's resolution; but, as they say, he
replied to his friends, that it was true a tyranny was a very fair
spot, but it had no way down from it; and in a copy of verses to
Phocus he writes"-

                     that I spared my land,
     And withheld from usurpation and from violence my hand,
     And forbore to fix a stain and a disgrace on my good name,
     I regret not; I believe that it will be my chiefest fame."

From which it is manifest that he was a man of great reputation before
he gave his laws. The several mocks that were put upon him for
refusing the power, he records in these words:-

     "Solon surely was a dreamer, and a man of simple mind;
     When the gods would give him fortune, he of his own will
declined;
     When the net was full of fishes, over-heavy thinking it,
     He declined to haul it up, through want of heart and want of wit.
     Had but I that chance of riches and of kingship, for one day,
     I would give my skin for flaying, and my house to die away."

  Thus he makes the many and the low people speak of him. Yet,
though he refused the government, he was not too mild in the affair;
he did not show himself mean and submissive to the powerful, nor
make his laws to pleasure those that chose him. For where it was
well before, he applied no remedy, nor altered anything, for fear
lest-

         "Overthrowing altogether and disordering the state,"

he should be too weak to new-model and recompose it to a tolerable
condition; but what he thought he could effect by persuasion upon
the pliable, and by force upon the stubborn, this he did, as he
himself says-

         "With force and justice working both in one."

And, therefore, when he was afterwards asked if he had left the
Athenians the best laws that could be given, he replied, "The best
they could receive." The way which, the moderns say, the Athenians
have of softening the badness of a thing, by ingeniously giving it
some pretty and innocent appellation, calling harlots, for example,
mistresses, tributes customs, a garrison a guard, and the jail the
chamber, seem originally to have been Solon's contrivance, who
called cancelling debts Seisacthea, a relief, or disencumbrance. For
the first thing which he settled was, that what debts remained
should be forgiven, and no man, for the future, should engage the body
of his debtor for security. Though some, as Androtion, affirm that the
debts were not cancelled, but the interest only lessened, which
sufficiently pleased the people; so that they named this benefit the
Seisacthea, together with the enlarging their measures and raising the
value of their money; for he made a pound, which before passed for
seventy-three drachmas, go for a hundred; so that, though the number
of pieces in the payment was equal, the value was less; which proved a
considerable benefit to those that were to discharge great debts,
and no loss to the creditors. But most agree that it was the taking
off the debts that was called Seisacthea, which is confirmed by some
places in his poem, where he takes honour to himself, that-

         "The mortgage-stones that covered her, by me
         Removed,- the land that was a slave is free:

that some who had been seized for their debts he had brought back from
other countries, where-

               "-so far their lot to roam,
         They had forgot the language of their home;

and some he had set at liberty-

         "Who here in shameful servitude were held."

  While he was designing this, a most vexatious thing happened; for
when he had resolved to take off the debts, and was considering the
proper form and fit beginning for it, he told some of his friends,
Conon, Clinias, and Hipponicus, in whom he had a great deal of
confidence, that he would not meddle with the lands, but only free the
people from their debts; upon which they, using their advantage,
made haste and borrowed some considerable sums of money, and purchased
some large farms; and when the law was enacted, they kept the
possessions, and would not return the money; which brought Solon
into great suspicion and dislike, as if he himself had not been
abused, but was concerned in the contrivance. But he presently stopped
this suspicion, by releasing his debtors of five talents (for he had
lent so much), according to the law; others, as Polyzelus the Rhodian,
say fifteen; his friends, however, were ever afterward called
Chreocopidae, repudiators.
  In this he pleased neither party, for the rich were angry for
their money, and the poor that the land was not divided, and, as
Lycurgus ordered in his commonwealth, all men reduced to equality. He,
it is true, being the eleventh from Hercules, and having reigned
many years in Lacedaemon, had got a great reputation and friends and
power, which he could use in modelling his state; and applying force
more than persuasion, insomuch that he lost his eye in the scuffle,
was able to employ the most effectual means for the safety and harmony
of a state, by not permitting any to be poor or rich in his
commonwealth. Solon could not rise to that in his polity, being but
a citizen of the middle classes; yet he acted fully up to the height
of his power, having nothing but the good-will and good opinion of his
citizens to rely on; and that he offended the most part, who looked
for another result, he declares in the words-

     "Formerly they boasted of me vainly; with averted eyes
     Now they look askance upon me; friends no more, but enemies."

And yet had any other man, he says, received the same power-

         "He would not have forborne, nor let alone,
         But made the fattest of the milk his own."

Soon, however, becoming sensible of the good that was done, they
laid by their grudges, made a public sacrifice, calling it Seisacthea,
and chose Solon to new-model and make laws for the commonwealth,
giving him the entire power over everything, their magistracies, their
assemblies, courts, and councils; that he should appoint the number,
times of meeting, and what estate they must have that could be capable
of these, and dissolve or continue any of the present constitutions,
according to his pleasure.
  First, then, he repealed all Draco's laws, except those concerning
homicide, because they were too severe, and the punishment too
great; for death was appointed for almost all offences, insomuch
that those that were convicted of idleness were to die, and those that
stole a cabbage or an apple to suffer even as villains that
committed sacrilege or murder. So that Demades, in after time, was
thought to have said very happily, that Draco's laws were written
not with ink but blood; and he himself, being once asked why be made
death the punishment of most offences, replied, "Small ones deserve
that, and I have no higher for the greater crimes."
  Next, Solon, being willing to continue the magistracies in the hands
of the rich men, and yet receive the people into the other part of the
government, took an account of the citizens' estates, and those that
were worth five hundred measures of fruit, dry and liquid, he placed
in the first rank, calling them Pentacosiomedimni; those that could
keep an horse, or were worth three hundred measures, were named
Hippada Teluntes, and made the second class; the Zeugitae, that had
two hundred measures, were in the third; and all the others were
called Thetes, who were not admitted to any office, but could come
to the assembly, and act as jurors; which at first seemed nothing, but
afterwards was found an enormous privilege, as almost every matter
of dispute came before them in this latter capacity. Even in the cases
which he assigned to the archon's cognisance, he allowed an appeal
to the courts. Besides, it is said that he was obscure and ambiguous
in the wording of his laws, on purpose to increase the honour of his
courts; for since their differences could not be adjusted by the
letter, they would have to bring all their causes to the judges, who
thus were in a manner masters of the laws. Of this equalisation he
himself makes mention in this manner:-

         "Such power I gave the people as might do,
         Abridged not what they had, now lavished new,
         Those that were great in wealth and high in place
         My counsel likewise kept from all disgrace.
         Before them both I held my shield of might,
         And let not either touch the other's right."

And for the greater security of the weak commons, he gave general
liberty of indicting for an act of injury; if any one was beaten,
maimed, or suffered any violence, any man that would and was able
might prosecute the wrong-doer; intending by this to accustom the
citizens, like members of the same body, to resent and be sensible
of one another's injuries. And there is a saying of his agreeable to
his law, for, being asked what city was best modelled, "That," said
he, "where those that are not injured try and punish the unjust as
much as those that are."
  When he had constituted the Areopagus of those who had been yearly
archons, of which he himself was a member therefore, observing that
the people, now free from their debts, were unsettled and imperious,
he formed another council of four hundred, a hundred out of each of
the four tribes, which was to inspect all matters before they were
propounded to the people, and to take care that nothing but what had
been first examined should be brought before the general assembly. The
upper council, or Areopagus, he made inspectors and keepers of the
laws, conceiving that the commonwealth, held by these two councils,
like anchors, would be less liable to be tossed by tumults, and the
people be more quiet. Such is the general statement, that Solon
instituted the Areopagus; which seems to be confirmed, because Draco
makes no mention of the Areopagites, but in all causes of blood refers
to the Ephetae; yet Solon's thirteenth table contains the eighth law
set down in these very words: "Whoever before Solon's archonship
were disfranchised, let them be restored, except those that, being
condemned by the Areopagus, Ephetae, or in the Prytaneum by the kings,
for homicide, murder, or designs against the government, were in
banishment when this law was made; and these words seem to show that
the Areopagus existed before Solon's laws, for who could be
condemned by that council before his time, if he was the first that
instituted the court? unless, which is probable, there is some
ellipsis, or want of precision in the language, and it should run
thus:- "Those that are convicted of such offences as belong to the
cognisance of the Areopagites, Ephetae, or the Prytanes, when this law
was made," shall remain still in disgrace, whilst others are restored;
of this the reader must judge.
  Amongst his other laws, one is very peculiar and surprising, which
disfranchises all who stand neuter in a sedition; for it seems he
would not have any one remain insensible and regardless of the
public good, and securing his private affairs, glory that he has no
feeling of the distempers of his country; but at once join with the
good party and those that have the right upon their side, assist and
venture with them, rather than keep out of harm's way and watch who
would get the better. It seems an absurd and foolish law which permits
an heiress, if her lawful husband fail her, to take his nearest
kinsman; yet some say this law was well contrived against those who,
conscious of their own unfitness, yet, for the sake of the portion,
would match with heiresses, and make use of law to put a violence upon
nature; for now, since she can quit him for whom she pleases, they
would either abstain from such marriages, or continue them with
disgrace, and suffer for their covetousness and designed affront; it
is well done, moreover, to confine her to her husband's nearest
kinsman, that the children may be of the same family. Agreeable to
this is the law that the bride and bridegroom shall be shut into a
chamber, and eat a quince together; and that the husband of an heiress
shall consort with her thrice a month; for though there be no
children, yet it is an honour and due affection which an husband ought
to pay to a virtuous, chaste wife; it takes off all petty differences,
and will not permit their little quarrels to proceed to a rupture.
  In all other marriages he forbade dowries to be given; the wife
was to have three suits of clothes, a little inconsiderable
household stuff, and that was all; for he would not have marriages
contracted for gain or an estate, but for pure love, kind affection,
and birth of children. When the mother of Dionysius desired him to
marry her to one of his citizens, "Indeed," said he, "by my tyranny
I have broken my country's laws, but cannot put a violence upon
those of nature by an unseasonable marriage." Such disorder is never
to be suffered in a commonwealth, nor such unseasonable and unloving
and unperforming marriages, which attain no due end or fruit; any
provident governor or lawgiver might say to an old man that takes a
young wife what is said to Philoctetes in the tragedy-

         "Truly, in a fit state thou to marry!

and if he find a young man, with a rich and elderly wife, growing
fat in his place, like the partridges, remove him to a young woman
of proper age. And of this enough.
  Another commendable law of Solon's is that which forbids men to
speak evil of the dead; for it is pious to think the deceased
sacred, and just, not to meddle with those that are gone, and politic,
to prevent the perpetuity of discord. He likewise forbade them to
speak evil of the living in the temples, the courts of justice, the
public offices, or at the games, or else to pay three drachmas to
the person, and two to the public. For never to be able to control
passion shows a weak nature and ill-breeding; and always to moderate
it is very hard, and to some impossible. And laws must look to
possibilities, if the maker designs to punish few in order to their
amendment, and not many to no purpose.
  He is likewise much commended for his law concerning wills; before
him none could be made, but all the wealth and estate of the
deceased belonged to his family; but he by permitting them, if they
had no children to bestow it on whom they pleased, showed that he
esteemed friendship a stronger tie than kindred, affection than
necessity; and made every man's estate truly his own. Yet he allowed
not all sorts of legacies, but those only which were not extorted by
the frenzy of a disease, charms, imprisonment, force, or the
persuasions of a wife; with good reason thinking that being seduced
into wrong was as bad as being forced, and that between deceit and
necessity, flattery and compulsion, there was little difference, since
both may equally suspend the exercise of reason.
  He regulated the walks, feasts, and mourning of the women and took
away everything that was either unbecoming or immodest; when they
walked abroad, no more than three articles of dress were allowed them;
an obol's worth of meat and drink; and no basket above a cubit high;
and at night they were not to go about unless in a chariot with a
torch before them. Mourners tearing themselves to raise pity, and
set wailings, and at one man's funeral to lament for another, he
forbade. To offer an ox at the grave was not permitted, nor to bury
above three pieces of dress with the body, or visit the tombs of any
besides their own family, unless at the very funeral; most of which
are likewise forbidden by our laws, but this is further added in ours,
that those that are convicted of extravagance in their mournings are
to be punished as soft and effeminate by the censors of women.
  Observing the city to be filled with persons that flocked from all
parts into Attica for security of living, and that most of the country
was barren and unfruitful, and that traders at sea import nothing to
those that could give them nothing in exchange, he turned his citizens
to trade, and made a law that no son be obliged to relieve a father
who had not bred him up to any calling. It is true, Lycurgus, having a
city free from all strangers, and land, according to Euripides-

         "Large for large hosts, for twice their number much,"

and, above all, an abundance of labourers about Sparta, who should not
be left idle, but be kept down with continual toil and work, did
well to take off his citizens from laborious and mechanical
occupations, and keep them to their arms, and teach them only the
art of war. But Solon, fitting his laws to the state of things, and
not making things to suit his laws, and finding the ground scarce rich
enough to maintain the husbandmen, and altogether incapable of feeding
an unoccupied and leisured multitude, brought trades into credit,
and ordered the Areopagites to examine how every man got his living,
and chastise the idle. But that law was yet more rigid which, as
Heraclides Ponticus delivers, declared the sons of unmarried mothers
not obliged to relieve their fathers; for he that avoids the
honourable form of union shows that he does not take a woman for
children, but for pleasure, and thus gets his just reward, and has
taken away from himself every title to upbraid his children, to whom
he has made their very birth a scandal and reproach.
  Solon's laws in general about women are his strangest; for he
permitted any one to kill an adulterer that found him in the act-
but if any one forced a free woman, a hundred drachmas was the fine;
if he enticed her, twenty; except those that sell themselves openly,
that is, harlots, who go openly to those that hire them. He made it
unlawful to sell a daughter or a sister, unless, being yet
unmarried, she was found wanton. Now it is irrational to punish the
same crime sometimes very severely and without remorse, and
sometimes very lightly, and as it were in sport, with a trivial
fine; unless there being little money then in Athens, scarcity made
those mulcts the more grievous punishment. In the valuation for
sacrifices, a sheep and a bushel were both estimated at a drachma; the
victor in the Isthmian games was to have for reward an hundred
drachmas; the conqueror in the Olympian, five hundred; he that brought
a wolf, five drachmas; for a whelp, one; the former sum, as
Demetrius the Phalerian asserts, was the value of an ox, the latter,
of a sheep. The prices which Solon, in his sixteenth table, sets on
choice victims, were naturally far greater; yet they, too, are very
low in comparison of the present. The Athenians were, from the
beginning, great enemies to wolves, their fields being better for
pasture than corn. Some affirm their tribes did not take their names
from the sons of Ion, but from the different sorts of occupation
that they followed; the soldiers were called Hoplitae, the craftsmen
Ergades, and, of the remaining two, the farmers Gedeontes, and the
shepherds and graziers Aegicores.
  Since the country has but few rivers, lakes, or large springs, and
many used wells which they had dug, there was a law made, that,
where there was a public well within a hippicon, that is, four
furlongs, all should draw at that; but when it was farther off, they
should try and procure a well of their own; and if they had dug ten
fathoms deep and could find no water, they had liberty to fetch a
pitcherful of four gallons and a half in a day from their neighbours';
for he thought it prudent to make provision against want, but not to
supply laziness. He showed skill in his orders about planting, for any
one that would plant another tree was not to set it within five feet
of his neighbour's field; but if a fig or an olive not within nine;
for their roots spread farther, nor can they be planted near all sorts
of trees without damage, for they draw away the nourishment, and in
some cases are noxious by their effluvia. He that would dig a pit or a
ditch was to dig it at the distance of its own depth from his
neighbour's ground; and he that would raise stocks of bees was not
to place them within three hundred feet of those which another had
already raised.
  He permitted only oil to be exported, and those that exported any
other fruit, the archon was solemnly to curse, or else pay an
hundred drachmas himself; and this law was written in his first table,
and, therefore, let none think it incredible, as some affirm, that the
exportation of figs was once unlawful, and the informer against the
delinquents called a sycophant. He made a law, also, concerning
hurts and injuries from beasts, in which he commands the master of any
dog that bit a man to deliver him up with a log about his neck, four
and a half feet long; a happy device for men's security. The law
concerning naturalizing strangers is of doubtful character; he
permitted only those to be made free of Athens who were in perpetual
exile from their own country, or came with their whole family to trade
there; this he did, not to discourage strangers, but rather to
invite them to a permanent participation in the privileges of the
government; and, besides, he thought those would prove the more
faithful citizens who had been forced from their own country, or
voluntarily forsook it. The law of public entertainment (parasitein is
his name for it) is also peculiarly Solon's; for if any man came
often, or if he that was invited refused, they were punished, for he
concluded that one was greedy, the other a contemner of the state.
  All his laws he established for an hundred years, and wrote them
on wooden tables or rollers, named axones, which might be turned round
in oblong cases; some of their relics were in my time still to be seen
in the Prytaneum, or common hall at Athens. These, as Aristotle
states, were called cyrbes, and there is a passage of Cratinus the
comedian-

         "By Solon, and by Draco, if you please,
         Whose Cyrbes make the fires that parch our peas."

But some say those are properly cyrbes, which contain laws
concerning sacrifices and the rites of religion, and all the others
axones. The council all jointly swore to confirm the laws, and every
one of the Thesmothetae vowed for himself at the stone in the
market-place, that if he broke any of the statutes, he would
dedicate a golden statue, as big as himself, at Delphi.
  Observing the irregularity of the months, and that the moon does not
always rise and set with the sun, but often in the same day
overtakes and gets before him, he ordered the day should be named
the Old and New, attributing that part of it which was before the
conjunction to the old moon, and the rest to the new, he being the
first, it seems, that understood that verse of Homer-

         "The end and the beginning of the month,"

and the following day he called the new moon. After the twentieth he
did not count by addition, but, like the moon itself in its wane, by
subtraction; thus up to the thirtieth.
  Now when these laws were enacted, and some came to Solon every
day, to commend or dispraise them, and to advise, if possible, to
leave out or put in something, and many criticized and desired him
to explain, and tell the meaning of such and such a passage, he,
knowing that to do it was useless, and not to do it would get him
ill-will, and desirous to bring himself out of all straits, and to
escape all displeasure and exceptions, it being a hard thing, as he
himself says-

             "In great affairs to satisfy all sides,"

as an excuse for travelling, bought a trading vessel, and, having
leave for ten years' absence, departed, hoping that by that time his
laws would have become familiar.
  His first voyage was for Egypt, and he lived, as he himself says-

         "Near Nilus' mouth, by fair Canopus' shore,"

and spent some time in study with Psenophis of Heliopolis, and Sonchis
the Saite, the most learned of all the priests; from whom, as Plato
says, getting knowledge of the Atlantic story, he put it into a
poem, and proposed to bring it to the knowledge of the Greeks. From
thence he sailed to Cyprus, where he was made much of by
Philocyprus, one of the kings there, who had a small city built by
Demophon, Theseus's son, near the river Clarius, in a strong
situation, but incommodious and uneasy of access. Solon persuaded him,
since there lay a fair plain below, to remove, and build there a
pleasanter and more spacious city. And he stayed himself, and assisted
in gathering inhabitants, and in fitting it both for defence and
convenience of living; insomuch that many flocked to Philocyprus,
and the other kings imitated the design; and, therefore, to honour
Solon, he called the city Soli, which was formerly named Aepea. And
Solon himself, in his Elegies, addressing Philocyprus, mentions this
foundation in these words:-

         "Long may you live, and fill the Solian throne,
         Succeeded still by children of your own;
         And from your happy island while I sail,
         Let Cyprus send for me a favouring gale;
         May she advance, and bless your new command,
         Prosper your town, and send me safe to land."

  That Solon should discourse with Croesus, some think not agreeable
with chronology; but I cannot reject so famous and well-attested a
narrative, and, what is more, so agreeable to Solon's temper, and so
worthy his wisdom and greatness of mind, because, forsooth, it does
not agree with some chronological canons, which thousands have
endeavoured to regulate, and yet, to this day, could never bring their
differing opinions to any agreement. They say, therefore, that
Solon, coming to Croesus at his request, was in the same condition
as an inland man when first he goes to see the sea; for as he
fancies every river he meets with to be the ocean, so Solon, as he
passed through the court, and saw a great many nobles richly
dressed, and proudly attended with a multitude of guards and footboys,
thought every one had been the king, till he was brought to Croesus,
who was decked with every possible rarity and curiosity, in
ornaments of jewels, purple, and gold, that could make a grand and
gorgeous spectacle of him. Now when Solon came before him, and
seemed not at all surprised, nor gave Croesus those compliments he
expected, but showed himself to all discerning eyes to be a man that
despised the gaudiness and petty ostentation of it, he commanded
them to open all his treasure houses, and carry him to see his
sumptuous furniture and luxuries, though he did not wish it; Solon
could judge of him well enough by the first sight of him; and, when he
returned from viewing all, Croesus asked him if ever he had known a
happier man than he. And when Solon answered that he had known one
Tellus, a fellow-citizen of his own, and told him that this Tellus had
been an honest man, had had good children, a competent estate, and
died bravely in battle for his country, Croesus took him for an
ill-bred fellow and a fool, for not measuring happiness by the
abundance of gold and silver, and preferring the life and death of a
private and mean man before so much power and empire. He asked him,
however, again, if, besides Tellus, he knew any other man more
happy. And Solon replying, Yes, Cleobis and Biton, who were loving
brothers, and extremely dutiful sons to their mother, and, when the
oxen delayed her, harnessed themselves to the wagon, and drew her to
Juno's temple, her neighbours all calling her happy, and she herself
rejoicing; then, after sacrificing and feasting, they went to rest,
and never rose again, but died in the midst of their honour a painless
and tranquil death. "What," said Croesus, angrily, "and dost not
thou reckon us amongst the happy men at all?" Solon, unwilling
either to flatter or exasperate him more, replied, "The gods, O
king, have given the Greeks all other gifts in moderate degree; and so
our wisdom, too, is a cheerful and a homely, not a noble and kingly
wisdom; and this, observing the numerous misfortunes that attend all
conditions, forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments,
or to admire any man's happiness that may yet, in course of time,
suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with every
possible variety of fortune; and him only to whom the divinity has
continued happiness unto the end we call happy; to salute as happy one
that is still in the midst of life and hazard, we think as little safe
and conclusive as to crown and proclaim as victorious the wrestler
that is yet in the ring." After this, he was dismissed, having given
Croesus some pain, but no instruction.
  Aesop, who wrote the fables, being then at Sardis upon Croesus's
invitation, and very much esteemed, was concerned that Solon was so
ill received, and gave him this advice: "Solon, let your converse with
kings be either short or seasonable." "Nay, rather," replied Solon,
"either short or reasonable." So at this time Croesus despised
Solon; but when he was overcome by Cyrus, had lost his city, was taken
alive, condemned to be burnt, and laid bound upon the pile before
all the Persians and Cyrus himself, he cried out as loud as possibly
he could three times, "O Solon!" and Cyrus being surprised, and
sending some to inquire what man or god this Solon was, who alone he
invoked in this extremity, Croesus told him the whole story, saying,
"He was one of the wise men of Greece, whom I sent for, not to be
instructed, or to learn anything that I wanted, but that he should see
and be a witness of my happiness; the loss of which was, it seems,
to be a greater evil than the enjoyment was a good; for when I had
them they were goods only in opinion, but now the loss of them has
brought upon me intolerable and real evils. And he, conjecturing
from what then was, this that now is, bade look to the end of my life,
and not rely and grow proud upon uncertainties." When this was told
Cyrus, who was a wiser man than Croesus, and saw in the present
example Solon's maxim confirmed, he not only freed Croesus from
punishment, but honoured him as long as he lived; and Solon had the
glory, by the same saying, to save one king and instruct another.
  When Solon was gone, the citizens began to quarrel; Lycurgus
headed the Plain; Megacles, the son of Alcmaeon, those to the Seaside;
and Pisistratus the Hill-party, in which were the poorest people,
the Thetes, and greatest enemies to the rich; insomuch that, though
the city still used the new laws, yet all looked for and desired a
change of government, hoping severally that the change would be better
for them, and put them above the contrary faction. Affairs standing
thus, Solon returned, and was reverenced by all, and honoured; but his
old age would not permit him to be as active, and to speak in
public, as formerly; yet, by privately conferring with the heads of
the factions, he endeavoured to compose the differences, Pisistratus
appearing the most tractable; for he was extremely smooth and engaging
in his language, a great friend to the poor, and moderate in his
resentments; and what nature had not given him, he had the skill to
imitate; so that he was trusted more than the others, being
accounted a prudent and orderly man, one that loved equality, and
would be an enemy to any that moved against the present settlement.
Thus he deceived the majority of people; but Solon quickly
discovered his character, and found out his design before any one
else; yet did not hate him upon this, but endeavoured to humble him,
and bring him off from his ambition, and often told him and others,
that if any one could banish the passion for pre-eminence from his
mind, and cure him of his desire of absolute power, none would make
a more virtuous man or a more excellent citizen. Thespis, at this
time, beginning to act tragedies, and the thing, because it was new,
taking very much with the multitude, though it was not yet made a
matter of competition, Solon, being by nature fond of hearing and
learning something new, and now, in his old age, living idly, and
enjoying himself, indeed, with music and with wine, went to see
Thespis himself, as the ancient custom was, act: and after the play
was done, he addressed him, and asked him if he was not ashamed to
tell so many lies before such a number of people; and Thespis replying
that it was no harm to say or do so in play, Solon vehemently struck
his staff against the ground: "Ah," said he, "if we honour and commend
such play as this, we shall find it some day in our business."
  Now when Pisistratus, having wounded himself, was brought into the
market-place in a chariot, and stirred up the people, as if he had
been thus treated by his opponents because of his political conduct,
and a great many were enraged and cried out, Solon, coming close to
him, said, "This, O son of Hippocrates, is a bad copy of Homer's
Ulysses; you do, to trick your countrymen, what he did to deceive
his enemies." After this, the people were eager to protect
Pisistratus, and met in an assembly, where one Ariston making a motion
that they should allow Pisistratus fifty clubmen for a guard to his
person, Solon opposed it, and said much to the same purport as what he
has left us in his poems-

         "You dote upon his words and taking phrase;"

and again-

         "True, you are singly each a crafty soul,
         But all together make one empty fool."

But observing the poor men bent to gratify Pisistratus, and
tumultuous, and the rich fearful and getting out of harm's way, he
departed, saying he was wiser than some and stouter than others; wiser
than those that did not understand the design, stouter than those
that, though they understood it, were afraid to oppose the tyranny.
Now, the people, having passed the law, were not nice with Pisistratus
about the number of his clubmen, but took no notice of it, though he
enlisted and kept as many as he would, until he seized the
Acropolis. When that was done, and the city in an uproar, Megacles,
with all his family, at once fled; but Solon, though he was now very
old, and had none to back him, yet came into the marketplace and
made a speech to the citizens, partly blaming their inadvertency and
meanness of spirit, and in part urging and exhorting them not thus
tamely to lose their liberty; and likewise then spoke that memorable
saying, that, before, it was an easier task to stop the rising
tyranny, but now the great and more glorious action to destroy it,
when it was begun already, and had gathered strength. But all being
afraid to side with him, he returned home, and, taking his arms, he
brought them out and laid them in the porch before his door, with
these words: "I have done my part to maintain my country and my laws,"
and then he busied himself no more. His friends advising him to fly,
he refused, but wrote poems, and thus reproached the Athenians in
them:-

         "If now you suffer, do not blame the Powers,
         For they are good, and all the fault was ours,
         All the strongholds you put into his hands,
         And now his slaves must do what he commands."

And many telling him that the tyrant would take his life for this, and
asking what he trusted to, that he ventured to speak so boldly, he
replied, "To my old age." But Pisistratus, having got the command,
so extremely courted Solon, so honoured him, obliged him, and sent
to see him, that Solon gave him his advice, and approved many of his
actions; for he retained most of Solon's laws, observed them
himself, and compelled his friends to obey. And he himself, though
already absolute ruler, being accused of murder before the
Areopagus, came quietly to clear himself; but his accuser did not
appear. And he added other laws, one of which is that the maimed in
the wars should be maintained at the public charge; this Heraclides
Ponticus records, and that Pisistratus followed Solon's example in
this, who had decreed it in the case of one Thersippus, that was
maimed; and Theophrastus asserts that it was Pisistratus, not Solon,
that made that law against laziness, which was the reason that the
country was more productive, and the city tranquiller.
  Now Solon, having begun the great work in verse, the history or
fable of the Atlantic Island, which he had learned from the wise men
in Sais, and thought convenient for the Athenians to know, abandoned
it; not, as Plato says, by reason of want of time, but because of
his age, and being discouraged at the greatness of the task; for
that he had leisure enough, such verses testify, as-

         "Each day grow older, and learn something new;"

and again-

         "But now the Powers, of Beauty, Song, and Wine,
         Which are most men's delights, are also mine."

Plato, willing to improve the story of the Atlantic Island, as if it
were a fair estate that wanted an heir and came with some title to
him, formed, indeed, stately entrances, noble enclosures, large
courts, such as never yet introduced any story, fable, or poetic
fiction; but, beginning it late, ended his life before his work; and
the reader's regret for the unfinished part is the greater, as the
satisfaction he takes in that which is complete is extraordinary.
For as the city of Athens left only the temple of Jupiter Olympius
unfinished, so Plato, amongst all his excellent works, left this
only piece about the Atlantic Island imperfect. Solon lived after
Pisistratus seized the government, as Heraclides Ponticus asserts, a
long time; but Phanias the Eresian says not two full years; for
Pisistratus began his tyranny when Comias was archon, and Phanias says
Solon died under Hegestratus, who succeeded Comias. The story that his
ashes were scattered about the island Salamis is too strange to be
easily believed, or be thought anything but a mere fable; and yet it
is given, amongst other good authors, by Aristotle, the philosopher.


                             THE END