Plutarch’s account of developments there in the seventh and sixth centuries, though it may be distorted and tendentious, gives a better idea of the inner life of the people than we have of any other nation; consciousness and reason do not exist elsewhere to the same degree. When Solon, to take one example, finds the golden mean between the various predominating interests, he reveals a profound and many-sided social culture. A glance at his poems shows an extraordinarily lucid reflective power directed to every aspect of the world. All in all he not only makes by far the most outstanding impression of all the Seven Sages, with Thales the nearest to equallying him, but in his special consciousness as an Athenian he seems the incarnation of his city’s finest qualities. — Jacob Burckhardt, “The Agonal Age”
Sections
Epimenides Purifies Athens and Helps Solon Enact Religious Reforms
Solon is Given More Authority Because His Debt Policy Proved Practical
Solon’s Lineage and Friendship with Pisistratus
Didymus the grammarian, in his answer to Asclepiades concerning the laws of Solon, cites the testimony of one Philocles, by which he would prove Solon the son of Euphorion, contrary to the opinion of others that have written of him. For they all with one voice declare that Execestides was his father; a man of moderate fortune and power, but of the noblest family in Athens, being descended from Codrus. His mother, according to Heraclides of Pontus, was cousingerman to the mother of Pisistratus. This tie of kindred at first united Solon and Pisistratus1 in a very intimate friendship, which was drawn closer (if we may believe some writers) by the regard which the former had for the beauty and excellent qualities of the latter. Hence we may believe it was, that when they differed afterwards about matters of state, this dissension broke not out into any harsh or ungenerous treatment of each other; but their first union kept some hold of their hearts, some sparks of the flame still remained, and the tenderness of former friendship was not quite forgotten. . . .
Wisdom Over Wealth
Solon’s father having hurt his fortune,2 as Hermippus tells us, by indulging his great and munificent spirit, though the son might have been supported by his friends, yet as he was of a family that had long been assisting to others, he was ashamed to accept of assistance himself; and therefore in his younger years applied himself to merchandise. Some, however, say that he travelled rather to gratify his curiosity and extend his knowledge than to raise an estate. For he professed his love of wisdom, and when far advanced in years made this declaration, “I grow old in the pursuit of learning.” He was not too much attached to wealth, as we may gather from the following verses:3
The man that boasts of golden stores, Of grain that loads his bending floors. Of fields with fresh’ning herbage green. Where bounding steeds and herds are seen, I call not happier than the swain Whose limbs are sound, whose food is plain. Whose joys a blooming wife endears. Whose hours a smiling offspring cheers.
Yet in another place he says:
The flow of riches, though desired. Life’s real goods, if well acquired. Unjustly let me never gain. Lest vengeance follow in their train.
Trade and Commerce Not Always Banausic
Indeed, a good man, a valuable member of society, should neither set his heart upon superfluities, nor reject the use of what is necessary and convenient. And in those times, as Hesiod informs us, no business was looked upon as a disparagement, nor did any trade cause a disadvantageous distinction. The profession of merchandise was honourable, as it brought home the produce of barbarous countries, engaged the friendship of kings, and opened a wide field of knowledge and experience. Nay, some merchants have been founders of great cities; Protus, for instance, that built Marseilles, for whom the Gauls about the Rhone had the highest esteem. Thales also, and Hippocrates the mathematician, are said to have had their share in commerce; and the oil that Plato disposed of in Egypt defrayed the expense of his travels.
Solon’s Poetical Talent
If Solon was too expensive and luxurious in his way of living, and indulged his poetical vein in his description of pleasure too freely for a philosopher, it is imputed to his mercantile life. For as he passed through many and great dangers, he might surely compensate them with a little relaxation and enjoyment. But that he placed himself rather in the class of the poor than the rich, is evident from these lines:
For vice, tho' plenty fills her horn, And virtue sinks in want and scorn; Yet never, sure, shall Solon change His truth for wealth’s most easy range! Since virtue lives, and truth shall stand. While wealth eludes the grasping hand.
He seems to have made use of his poetical talent at first, not for any serious purpose, but only for amusement, and to fill up his hours of leisure; but afterwards he inserted moral sentences, and interwove many political transactions in his poems, not for the sake of recording or remembering them, but sometimes by way of apology for his own administration, and sometimes to exhort, to advise, or to censure the citizens of Athens. Some are of opinion, that he attempted to put his laws too in verse, and they give us this beginning:
Supreme of gods, whose power we first address This plan to honour and these laws to bless.
An Agon Among the Sages
Like most of the sages of those times, he cultivated chiefly that part of moral philosophy which treats of civil obligations. His physics were of a very simple and ancient cast, as appears from the following lines:
From cloudy vapours falls the treasur’d snow, And the fierce hail: from lightning’s rapid blaze Springs the loud thunder — winds disturb the deep. Than whose unruffled breast, no smoother scene In all the works of nature !
Upon the whole, Thales seems to have been the only philosopher who then carried his speculations beyond things in common use, while the rest of the wise men maintained their character by rules for social life.
They are reported to have met at Delphi, and afterwards at Corinth upon the invitation of Periander, who made provision for their entertainment. But what contributed most to their honour was their sending the tripod from one to another, with an ambition to outvie each other in modesty. The story is this: When some Coans were drawing a net, certain strangers from Miletus bought the draught unseen. It proved to be a golden tripod, which Helen, as she sailed from Troy, is said to have thrown in there, in compliance with an ancient oracle. A dispute arising at first between the strangers and the fishermen about the tripod, and afterwards extending itself to the states to which they belonged, so as almost to engage them in hostilities, the priestess of Apollo took up the matter, by ordering that the wisest man they could find should have the tripod. And first it was sent to Thales at Miletus, the Coans voluntarily presenting that to one of the Milesians, for which they would have gone to war with them all. Thales declared that Bias was a wiser man than he, so it was brought to him. He sent it to another, as wiser still. After making a farther circuit, it came to Thales the second time. And at last, it was carried from Miletus to Thebes, and dedicated to the Ismenian Apollo. Theophrastus relates, that the tripod was first sent to Bias at Priene; that Bias sent it back again to Thales at Miletus; that so having passed through the hands of the seven, it came round to Bias again, and at last was sent to the temple of Apollo at Delphi. This is the most current account: yet some say the present was not a tripod, but a bowl sent by Croesus ; and others, that it was a cup which one Bathycles had left for that purpose.
Anacharsis Bests Solon
We have a particular account of a conversation which Solon had with Anacharsis,4 and of another he had with Thales. Anacharsis went to Solon's house at Athens, knocked at the door, and said, he was a stranger who desired to enter into engagements of friendship and mutual hospitality with him. Solon answered, “Friendships are best formed at home.” “Then do you,” said Anacharsis, “who are at home, make me your friend, and receive me into your house.” Struck with the quickness of his repartee, Solon gave him a kind welcome, and kept him some time with him, being then employed in public affairs, and in modeling his laws. When Anacharsis knew what Solon was about, he laughed at his undertaking, and at the absurdity of imagining he could restrain the avarice and injustice of his citizens by written laws, which in all respects resembled spiders' webs, and would, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful easily broke through them. To this, Solon replied, that men keep their agreements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them; and he would so frame his laws, as to make it evident to the Athenians, that it would be more for their interest to observe than to transgress them. The event, however, showed that Anacharsis was nearer the truth in his conjecture, than Solon was in his hope. Anacharsis having seen an assembly of the people at Athens, said, he was surprised at this, that in Greece wise men pleaded causes, and fools determined them.
Solon Bests Thales
When Solon was entertained by Thales at Miletus, he expressed some wonder that he did not marry and raise a family. To this, Thales gave no immediate answer: but some days after, he instructed a stranger to say, that he came from Athens ten days before. Solon inquiring, what news there was at Athens, the man, according to his instructions, said, “None, except the funeral of a young man, which was attended by the whole city. For he was the son (as they told me) of a person of great honour, and of the highest reputation for virtue, who was then abroad upon his travels.” “What a miserable man is he!” said Solon: “but what was his name?” “I have heard his name,” answered the stranger, “but do not recollect it. All I remember is, that there was much talk of his wisdom and justice.”
Solon, whose apprehensions increased with every reply, was now much disconcerted, and mentioned; his own name, asking, whether it was not Solon’s son that was dead. The stranger answering in the affirmative, he began to beat his head, and to do and say such things as are usual to men in a transport of grief.5 Then Thales, taking him by his hand, said, with a smile, “These things, which strike down so firm a man as Solon, kept me from marriage and from having children. But take courage, my good friend, for not a word; of what has been told you is true.” Hermippus says, he took this story from Pataecus, who used to boast he had the soul of Aesop.
But after all, to neglect the procuring of what is necessary or convenient in life, for fear of losing it, would be acting a very mean and absurd part; by the same rule a man might refuse the enjoyment of riches, or honour, or wisdom, because it is possible for him to be deprived of them. Even then excellent qualities of the mind, the most valuable and pleasing possession in the world, we see destroyed by poisonous drugs, or by the violence of some disease. Nay, Thales himself could not be secure from fears, by living single, unless he would renounce all interest in his friends, his relations, and his country. Instead of that, however, he is said to have adopted his sister’s son, named Cybisthus. Indeed, the soul has not only a principle of sense, of understanding, of memory, but of love; and when it has nothing at home to fix its affection upon, it unites itself, and cleaves to something abroad. Strangers, or persons of spurious birth often insinuate themselves into such a man's heart, as into a house or land that has no lawful heirs, and, together with love, bring a train of cares and apprehensions for them. It is not uncommon to hear persons of a morose temper, who talk against marriage and a family, uttering the most abject complaints, when a child which they have had by a slave or a concubine, happens to sicken or die. Nay, some have expressed a very great regret upon the death of dogs and horses; whilst others have borne the loss of valuable children without any affliction, or at least without any indecent sorrow, and have passed the rest of their days with calmness and composure. It is certainly weakness, not affection, which brings infinite troubles and fears upon men who are not fortified by reason against the power of fortune; who have no enjoyment of a present good, because of their apprehensions, and the real anguish they find in considering, that, in time, they may be deprived of it. No man, surely, should take refuge in poverty, to guard against the loss of an estate; nor remain in the unsocial state of celibacy, that he may have neither friends nor children to lose; he should be armed by reason against all events. But, perhaps, we have been too diffuse in these sentiments.
Taking Salamis; Cunning Tricks; Editing Homer
When the Athenians, tired out with a long and troublesome war against the Megarensians for the isle of Salamis, made a law, that no one for the future, under pain of death, should, either by speech or writing, propose that the city should assert its claim to that island; Solon was very uneasy at so dishonourable a decree, and seeing great part of the youth desirous to begin the war again, being restrained from, it only by fear of the law, he feigned himself insane;6 and a report spread from his house into the city, that he was out of his senses. Privately, however, he had composed an elegy, and got it by heart, in order to repeat it in public; thus prepared, he sallied out unexpectedly into the market-place, with a cap upon his head.7 A great number of people flocking about him there, he got upon the herald’s stone, and sung the elegy which begins thus:
Hear and attend: from Salamis I came To show your error.
This composition is entitled Salamis and consists of a hundred very beautiful lines. When Solon had done, his friends began to express their admiration, and Pisistratus, in particular, exerted himself in persuading the people to comply with his directions; whereupon they repealed the law, once more undertook the war, and invested Solon with the command. The common account of his proceedings is this: He sailed with Pisistratus to Colias, and having seized the women, who, according to the custom of the country, were offering sacrifice Ceres there, he sent a trusty person to Salamis, who was to pretend he was a deserter, and to advise the Megarensians, if they had a mind to, seize the principal Athenian; matrons, to set sail immediately for Colias. The Megarensians readily embracing the proposal, and sending out a body of men, Solon discovered the ship as it put off from the island; and causing the women directly to withdraw, ordered a number of young men, whose faces were yet smooth, to dress themselves in their habits, caps, and shoes. Thus, with weapons concealed under their clothes, they were to dance, and play by the sea-side till the enemy was landed, and the vessel near enough to be seized. Matters being thus ordered, the Megarensians were deceived with the appearance, and ran confusedly on shore, striving which should first lay hold on the women. But they met with so warm a reception, that they were cut off to a man; and the Athenians embarking immediately for Salamis, took possession of the island.
Others deny that it was recovered in this manner, and tell us, that Apollo, being first consulted at Delphi, gave this answer :
Go, first propitiate the country’s chiefs Hid in Aesopus’ lap, who, when interr'd. Fac’d the declining sun.
Upon this, Solon crossed the sea by night, and offered sacrifices in Salamis, to the heroes Periphemus and Cichreus. Then taking 500 Athenian volunteers, who had obtained a decree that, if they conquered the island, the government of it should be invested in them, he sailed with a number of fishing vessels and one galley of thirty oars for Salamis, where he cast anchor at a point which looks towards Euboea.
The Megarensians that were in the place, having heard a confused report of what had happened, betook themselves in a disorderly manner to arms, and sent a ship to discover the enemy. As the ship approached too near, Solon took it, and securing the crew, put in their place some of the bravest of the Athenians, with orders to make the best of their way to the city, as privately as possible. In the mean time, with the rest of his men, he attacked the Megarensians by land; and while these were engaged, those from the ship took the city. A custom which obtained afterwards, seems to bear witness to the truth of this account. For an Athenian ship, once a year, passed silently to Salamis, and the inhabitants coming down upon; it with noise and tumult, one man in armour leaped ashore, and ran shouting towards the promontory of Sciradium, to meet those that were advancing by land. Near that place is a temple of Ares, erected by Solon; for there it was that he defeated the Megarensians, and dismissed upon certain conditions, such as were not slain in battle.
However, the people of Megara persisted in their claim till both sides had severely felt the calamities of war, and then they referred the affair to the decision of the Lacedaemonians. Many authors relate that Solon availed himself of a passage in Homer’s catalogue of ships, which he argued before the arbitrators, dexterously inserting a line of his own; for to this verse —
Ajax from Salamis twelve ships commands, he is said to have added —
And ranks his forces with the Athenian power.8 But the Athenians look upon this as an idle story, and tell us, that Solon made it appear to the judges, that Philaeus and Eurysaces, sons of Ajax, being admitted by the Athenians to the freedom of their city, gave up the island to them, and removed, the one to Brauron, and the other to Melite in Attica: likewise, that the tribe of the Philaidse, of which Pisistratus was, had its name from that Philseus. He brought another argument against the Megarensians, from the manner of burying in Salamis, which was agreeable to the custom of Athens, and not to that of Megara; for the Megarensians inter the dead with their faces to the east, and the Athenians turn theirs to the west. On the other hand, Hereas of Megara insists, that the Megarensians likewise turn the faces of the dead to the west; and, what is more, that, like the people of Salamis, they put three or four corpses in one tomb, whereas the Athenians have a separate tomb for each. But Solon’s cause was farther assisted by certain oracles of Apollo, in which the island was called Ionian Salamis. This matter was determined by five Spartans: Critolaides, Amomphretus, Hyssechidas, Anaxilas, and Cleomenes.
The Curse of the Alcmaeonids
Solon acquired considerable honor and authority in Athens by this fair; but he was much more celebrated among the Greeks in general, for negotiating succors for the temple at Delphi, against the insolent and injurious behavior of the Cirrhaeans,9 and persuading the Greeks to arm for the honour of the god. At his motion it was that the Amphictyons declared war; as Aristotle, among others, testifies in his book concerning the Pythian games, where he attributes that decree to Solon. He was not, however appointed general in that war, as Hermippus relates from Euanthes the Damian. For Aeschines the orator says no such thing; and we find in the records of Delphi, that Alcmaeon, not Solon, commanded the Athenians on that occasion. The execrable proceedings against the accomplices of Cylon10 had long occasioned great troubles in the Athenian state. The conspirators had taken sanctuary in Athena’s temple; but Megacles, then Archon, persuaded them to quit it, and stand trial, under the notion that if they tied a thread to the shrine of the goddess, and kept hold of it, they would still be under her protection. But when they came over against the temple of the furies, the thread broke of itself; upon which Megacles and his colleagues rushed upon them and seized them, as if they had lost their privilege. Such as were out of the temple were stoned; those that fled to the altars were cut in pieces there; and they only were spared who made application to the wives of the magistrates. From that time, those magistrates were called execrable and became objects of the public hatred. The remains of Cylon’s faction afterwards recovered strength, and kept up the quarrel with the descendants of Megacles. The dispute was greater than ever, and the two parties more exasperated, when Solon, whose authority was now very great, and others of the principal Athenians, interposed, and by entreaties and arguments persuaded the persons called execrable to submit to justice and a fair trial, before 300 judges selected from the nobility. Myron, of the Phylensian ward, carried on the impeachment, and they were condemned: as many as were alive were driven into exile, and the bodies of the dead dug up and cast out beyond the borders of Attica. Amidst these disturbances, the Megarensians renewed the war, took Nisae from the Athenians, and recovered Salamis once more.
Epimenides Purifies Athens and Helps Solon Enact Religious Reforms
About this time the city was likewise afflicted with superstitious fears and strange appearances: and the soothsayers declared, that there were certain abominable crimes which wanted expiation, pointed out by the entrails of the victims. Upon this they sent to Crete for Epimenides the Phaestian,11 who is reckoned the seventh among the wise men, by those that do not admit Periander into the number. He was reputed a man of great piety, beloved by the gods, and skilled in matters of religion, particularly in what related to inspiration and the sacred mysteries: therefore the men of those days called him the son of the nymph Balte, and one of the Curetes revived. When he arrived at Athens, he contracted a friendship with Solon, and privately gave him considerable assistance, preparing the way for the reception of his laws. For he taught the Athenians to be more frugal in their religious worship, and more moderate in their mourning, by intermixing certain sacrifices with the funeral solemnities, and abolishing the cruel and barbarous customs that had generally prevailed among the women before. What is of still greater consequence, by expiations, lustrations, and the erecting of temples and shrines, he hallowed and purified the city, and made the people more observant of justice and more inclined to union.
When he had seen Munychia, and considered it some time, he is reported to have said to those about him,12 “How blind is man to futurity! If the Athenians could foresee what trouble that place will give them, they would tear it in pieces with their teeth, rather than it should stand.” Something similar to this is related of Thales. For he ordered the Milesians to bury him in a certain refuse and neglected place, and foretold at the same time, that their market-place would one day stand there. As for Epimenides, he was held in admiration at Athens; great honours were paid him, and many valuable presents made: yet he would accept of nothing but a branch of the sacred olive, which they gave him at his request; and with that he departed.
Description of Political Problems in Athens
When the troubles about Cylon’s affair were over, and the sacrilegious persons removed, in the manner we have mentioned, the Athenians relapsed into their old disputes concerning the government; for there were as many parties among them as there were different tracts of land in their country. The inhabitants of the mountainous part were, it seems, for a democracy; those of the plains, for an oligarchy; and those of the sea coasts contending for a mixed kind of government, hindered the other two from gaining their point. At the same time, the inequality between the poor and the rich occasioned the greatest discord, and the state was in so dangerous a situation, that there seemed to be no way to quell the seditious, or to save it from ruin, but changing it to a monarchy. So greatly were the poor in debt to the rich, that they were obliged either to pay them a sixth part of the produce of the land (whence they were called Hectemorii and Thetes) or else to engage their persons to their creditors, who might seize them on failure of payment. Accordingly some made slaves of them, and others sold them to foreigners. Nay, some parents were forced to sell their own children (for no law forbade it), and to quit the city, to avoid the severe treatment of those usurers. But the greater number, and men of the most spirit, agreed to stand by each other, and to bear such impositions no longer. They determined to choose a trusty person for their leader to deliver those who had failed in their time of payment, to divide the land, and to give an entire new face to the commonwealth.
Lawgiver and Statesman — Rejects Tyranny
Then the most prudent of the Athenians cast their eyes upon Solon, as a man least obnoxious to either party, having neither been engaged in oppressions with the rich, nor entangled in necessities with the poor. Him, therefore, they entreated to assist the public in this exigency, and to compose these differences. Phanias the Lesbian asserts, indeed, that Solon, to save the state, dealt artfully with both parties, and privately promised the poor a division of the lands, and the rich a confirmation of their securities. At first he was loath to take the administration upon him, by reason of the avarice of some and the insolence of others; but was, however, chosen archon next after Philombrotus, and at the same time arbitrator and lawgiver; the rich accepting of him readily, as one of them, and the poor, as a good and worthy man. They tell us too, that a saying of his, which he had let fall some time before, that eqziality causes no war, was then much repeated, and pleased both the rich and the poor; the latter expecting to come to a balance by their numbers and by the measure of divided lands, and the former to preserve an equality at least by their dignity and power. Thus both parties being in great hopes, the heads of them were urgent with Solon to make himself king, and endeavoured to persuade him, that he might with better assurance take upon him the direction of a city where he had the supreme authority. Nay, many of the citizens that leaned to neither party, seeing the intended change difficult to be effected by reason and law, were not against the entrusting of the government to the hands of one wise and just man. Some, moreover, acquaint us that he received this oracle from Apollo:
Seize, seize the helm; the reeling vessel guide: With aiding patriots stem the raging tide.
His friends, in particular told him it would appear that he wanted courage, if he rejected the monarchy for fear of the name of tyrant; as if the sole and supreme power would not soon become a lawful sovereignty through the virtues of him that received it. Thus formerly (said they) the Eubaeans set up Tynnondas and lately the Mitylenseans Pittacus for their prince.13 None of these things moved Solon from his purpose, and the answer he is said to have given his friends is this, “Absolute monarchy is a fair field, but it has no outlet.” And in one of his poems he thus addresses himself to his friend Phocus:
If I spar’d my country, If gilded violence and tyrannic sway Could never charm me; thence no shame accrues: Still the mild honour of my name I boast, And find my empire there.
Whence it is evident that his reputation was very great before he appeared in the character of a legislator. As for the ridicule he was exposed to for rejecting kingly power, he has described it in the following verses:
Nor wisdom’s palm, nor deep-laid policy Can Solon boast. For when its noblest blessings Heaven pour'd into his lap, he spurn’d them from him. Where was his sense and spirit, when enclos’d He found the choicest prey, nor deign’d to draw it? Who to command fair Athens but one day. Would not himself, with all his race, have fallen Contented on the morrow ?
Thus he has introduced the multitude and men of low minds, as discoursing about him. But though he rejected absolute power, he proceeded with spirit enough in the administration; he did not make any concessions in behalf of the powerful, nor, in the framing of his laws did he indulge the humour of his constituents. Where the former establishment was tolerable, he neither applied remedies, nor used the incision-knife, lest he should put the whole in disorder, and not have power to settle or compose it afterwards in the temperature he could wish. He only made such alterations as he might bring the people to acquiesce in by persuasion, or compel them to by his authority, making (as he says) force and right conspire. Hence it was, that having the question afterwards put to him, whether he had provided the best of laws for the Athenians, he answered, ‘The best they were capable of receiving.”
Cancellation of Debts
And as the moderns observe, that the Athenians used to qualify the harshness of things by giving them softer and politer names, calling whores mistresses, tributes contributions, garrisons guards, and prisons castles; so Solon seems to be the first that distinguished the cancelling of debts by the name of a discharge. For this was the first of his public acts, that debts should be forgiven, and that no man, for the future, should take the body of his debtor for security. Though Androtion and some others say, that it was not by the cancelling of debts, but by moderating the interest, that the poor were relieved, they thought themselves so happy in it, that they gave the name of discharge to this act of humanity, as well as to the enlarging of measures and the value of money, which went along with it. For he ordered the minae, which before went but for seventy three drachmas, to go for a hundred; so that, as they paid the same in value, but much less in weight, those that had great sums to pay were relieved, while such as received them were no losers.
The greater part of writers, however, affirm, that it was the abolition of past securities that was called a discharge, and with these the poems of Solon agree. For in them he values himself on having taken away the marks of mortgaged land,14 which before were almost everywhere set up, and made free those fields which before were bound: and not only so, but of such citizens as were seizable by their creditors for debt, some, he tells us, he had brought back from other countries, where they had wandered so long that they had forgot the Attic dialect, and others he had set at liberty, who had experienced a cruel slavery at home.
This affair, indeed, brought upon him the greatest trouble he met with: For when he undertook the annulling of debts, and was considering of a suitable speech and a proper method of introducing the business, he told some of his most intimate friends, namely Conon, Clinias, and Hipponicus, that he intended only to abolish the debts, and not to meddle with the lands. These friends of his hastening to make their advantage of the secret, before the decree took place, borrowed large sums of the rich, and purchased estates with them. Afterwards, when the decree was published, they kept their possessions without paying the money they had taken up; which brought great reflections upon Solon, as if he had not been imposed upon with the rest, but were rather an accomplice in the fraud. This charge, however, was soon removed, by his being the first to comply with the law, and remitting a debt of five talents, which he had out at interest. Others, among whom is Polyzelus the Rhodian, say it was fifteen talents. But his friends went by the name of Chreocopidae or debt-cutters ever after.
Solon v Lycurgus
The method he took satisfied neither the poor nor the rich. The latter were displeased by the cancelling of their bonds; and the former at not finding a division of lands: upon this they had fixed their hopes, and they complained that he had not, like Lycurgus, made all the citizens equal in estate. Lycurgus, however, being the eleventh from Hercules, and having reigned many years in Lacedaemon, had acquired great authority, interest, and friends, of which he knew very well how to avail himself in setting up a new form of government. Yet he was obliged to have recourse to force rather than persuasion, and had an eye struck out in the dispute, before he could bring it to a lasting settlement, and establish such a union and equality, as left neither rich nor poor in the city. On the other hand, Solon’s estate was but moderate, not superior to that of some commoners, and therefore he attempted not to erect such a commonwealth as that of Lycurgus, considering it as out of his power: he proceeded as far as he thought he could be supported by the confidence the people had in his probity and wisdom.
Solon is Given More Authority Because His Debt Policy Proved Practical
That he answered not the expectations of the generality, but offended them by falling short, appears from these verses of his:
Those eyes with joy once sparkling when they view’d me. With cold oblique regard behold me now.
And a little after —
Yet who but Solon Could have spoke peace to their tumultuous waves, And not have sunk beneath them?
But being soon sensible of the utility of the decree, they laid aside their complaints, offered a public sacrifice, which they called seisacthia, or the sacrifice of the discharge, and constituted Solon lawgiver and superintendent of the commonwealth; committing to him the regulation not of a part only, but the whole, magistracies, assemblies, courts of judicature, and senate; and leaving him to determine the qualification, number, and time of meeting for them all, as well as to abrogate or continue the former constitutions, at his pleasure.
Repealed the Laws of Draco
First then, he repealed the laws of Draco15, except those concerning murder, because of the severity of the punishments they appointed, which for almost all offences were capital; even those that were convicted of idleness were to suffer death, and such as stole only a few apples or pot-herbs, were to be punished in the same manner as sacrilegious persons and murderers. Hence a saying of Demades, who lived long after, was much admired, that Draco wrote his laws not with ink, but with blood. And he himself being asked, why he made death the punishment for most offences, answered, “Small ones deserve it, and I can find no greater for the most heinous.”
Divided the Citizenry into Four Economic Ranks
In the next place, Solon took an estimate of the estates of the citizens; intending to leave the great offices in the hands of the rich, but to give the rest of the people a share in other departments which they had not before. Such as had a yearly income of 500 measures in wet and dry goods, he placed in the first rank, and called them Pentacosiomedimni:16 The second consisted of those that could keep a horse, or whose lands produced 300 measures; these were of the eqtiestrian order, and called Hippodatelountes. And those of the third class, who had but 200 measures, were called Zeugitae. The rest were named Thetes, and not admitted to any office: they had only a right to appear and give their vote in the general assembly of the people. This seemed at first but a slight privilege, but afterwards showed itself a matter of great importance: for most causes came at last to be decided by them; and in such matters as were under the cognizance of the magistrates there lay an appeal to the people. Besides, he is said to have drawn up his laws in an obscure and ambiguous manner, on purpose to enlarge the authority of the popular tribunal. For as they could not adjust their difference by the letter of the law, they were obliged to have recourse to living judges; I mean the whole body of citizens, who therefore had all controversies brought before them, and were in a manner superior to the laws. Of this equality he himself takes notice in these words:
By me the people held their native rights Uninjur’d, unoppress’d— The great restrain’d From lawless violence, and the poor from rapine. By me, their mutual shield.
Rule of Law Binds the Athenians Together
Desirous yet farther to strengthen the common people, he empowered any man whatever to enter an action for one that was injured. If a person was assaulted or suffered damage or violence, another that was able and willing to do it, might prosecute the offender. Thus the lawgiver wisely accustomed the citizens, as members of one body, to feel and to resent one another’s injuries. And we are told of a saying of his agreeable to this law: being asked, what city was best modeled, he answered, “That, where those who are not injured are no less ready to prosecute and punish offenders than those who are.”
Established the Council of the Areopagus
When these points were adjusted, he established the council of the areopagus,17 which was to consist of such as had borne the office of archon18, and himself was one of the number. But observing that the people, now discharged from their debts, grew insolent and imperious, he proceeded to constitute another council or senate, of 400,19 100 out of each tribe, by whom all affairs were to be previously considered; and ordered that no matter, without their approbation, should be laid before the general assembly. In the mean time the high court of the Areopagus were to be the inspectors and guardians of the laws. Thus he supposed the commonwealth, secured by two councils, as by two anchors, would be less liable to be shaken by tumults and the people would become more orderly and peaceable. Most writers, as we have observed, affirm that the council of the areopagus was of Solon’s appointing: and it seems greatly to confirm their assertion, that Draco has made no mention of the areopagites, but in capital causes constantly addresses himself to the ephetae: yet the eighth law of Solon’s thirteenth table is set down in these very words, “Whoever were declared infamous before Solon’s archonship, let them be restored in honor, except such as having been condemned in the areopagus, or by the ephetae, or by the kings in the Prytaneum, for murder or robbery, or attempting to usurp the government, had fled their country before this law was made.” This, on the contrary, shows that before Solon was chief magistrate and delivered his laws, the council of the areopagus was in being. For who could have been condemned in the areopagus before Solon’s time, if he was the first that erected it into a court of judicature? Unless, perhaps, there be some obscurity or deficiency in the text, and the meaning be, that such as have been convicted of crimes that are now cognizable before the areopagites, the ephetae,20 and profanes, shall continue infamous, whilst others are restored. But this I submit to the judgment of the reader.
Some Surprising Laws
The most peculiar and surprising of his other laws, is that which declares the man infamous who stands neuter in the time of sedition.21 It seems he would not have us be indifferent and unaffected with the fate of the public, when our own concerns are upon a safe bottom; nor when we are in health, be insensible to the distempers and griefs of our country. He would have us espouse the better and juster cause, and hazard everything in defence of it, rather than wait in safety to see which side the victory will incline to.
That law, too, seems quite ridiculous and absurd, which permits a rich heiress, whose husband happens to be impotent, to console herself with his nearest relations. Yet some say, this law was very properly levelled against those, who, conscious of their own inability, match with heiresses for the sake of the portion, and under colour of law do violence to nature. For when they know that such heiresses may make choice of others to grant their favours to, they will either let those matches alone, or if they do marry in that manner, they must suffer the shame of their avarice and dishonesty. It is right that the heiress should not have liberty to choose at large but only amongst her husband’s relations, that the child which is born may at least belong to his kindred and family. Agreeable to this is the direction, that the bride and bridegroom should be- shut up together and eat of the same quince;22 and that the husband of an heiress should approach her at least three times in a month. For, though they may happen not to have children, yet it is a mark of honour and regard due from a man to the chastity of his wife: it removes many uneasinesses, and prevents differences from proceeding to an absolute breach.
In all other marriages, he ordered that no dowries should be given: the bride was to bring with her only three suits of clothes, and some household stuff of small value.23 For he did not choose that marriages should be made with mercenary or venal views, but would have that union cemented by the endearment of children, and every other instance of love and friendship. Nay, Dionysius himself, when his mother desired to be married to a young Syracusan, told her, he had, indeed, by his tyranny, broke through the laws of his country, but he could not break those of nature, by countenancing so disproportioned a match. And surely such disorders should not be tolerated in any state, nor such matches where there is no equality of years, or inducements of love, or probability that the end of marriage will be answered. So that to an old man who marries a young woman, some prudent magistrate or lawgiver might express himself in the words addressed to Philoctetes, —
Poor soul! how fit art thou to marry!
And if he found a young man in the house of a rich old. woman, like a partridge, growing fat in his private services, he would remove him to some young virgin who wanted a husband. But enough of this.
Law Reinforcing Piety to Temper Resentment
That law of Solon’s is also justly commended, which forbids men to speak ill of the dead. For piety requires us to consider the deceased as sacred; justice calls upon us to spare those that are not in being: and good policy, to prevent the perpetuating of hatred. He forbade his people also to revile the living, in a temple, in a court of justice, in the great assembly of the people, or at the public games. He that offended in this respect, was to pay three drachmas to the person injured, and two to the public. Never to restrain anger is, indeed, a proof of weakness or want of breeding; and always to guard against it very difficult, and to some persons impossible. Now, what is enjoined by law should be practicable, if the legislator desires to punish a few to some good purpose, and not many to no purpose.
Laws Concerning Wills; Regulating Women
His law concerning wills has likewise its merit. For before his time the Athenians were not allowed to dispose of their estates by will; the houses arid other substance of the deceased were to remain among his relations. But he permitted any one that had not children, to leave his possessions to whom he pleased; thus preferring the tie of friendship to that of kindred, and choice to necessity, he gave every man the full and free, disposal of his own. Yet he allowed not all sorts of legacies, but those only that were not extorted by frenzy, the consequence of disease or poisons, by imprisonment or violence, or the persuasions of a wife. For he considered inducements that operated against reason, as no better than force: to be deceived was with him the same thing as to be compelled; and he looked upon pleasure to be as great a perverter as pain.24
He regulated, moreover, the journeys of women, their mournings and sacrifices, and endeavoured to keep them clear of all disorder and excess. They were not to go out of town with more than three habits; the provisions they carried with them, were not to exceed the value of an obolus; their basket was not to be above a cubit high: and in the night they were not to travel but in a carriage, with a torch before them. At funerals they were forbidden to tear themselves,25 and no hired mourner was to utter lamentable notes, or to act anything else that tended to excite sorrow. They were not permitted to sacrifice an ox on those occasions; or to bury more than three garments with the body; or to visit any tombs beside those of their own family, except at the time of interment. Most of these things are likewise forbidden by our laws, with the addition of this circumstance, that those who offend in such a manner are fined by the censors of the women, as giving way to weak passions and childish sorrow.
Laws Encouraging Work and Chastising Idleness
As the city was filled with persons who assembled from all parts, on account of the great security in which people lived in Attica, Solon observing this, and that the country withal was poor and barren, and that merchants who traffic by sea, do not use to import their goods where they can have nothing in exchange, turned the attention of the citizens to manufactures. For this purpose he made a law, that no son should be obliged to maintain his father, if he had not taught him a trade.26 As for Lycurgus, whose city was clear of strangers, and whose country, according to Euripides, was sufficient for twice the number of inhabitants; where there was, moreover, a multitude of Helotes, who were not only to be kept constantly employed, but to be humbled and worn out by servitude; it was right for him to set the citizens free from laborious and mechanic arts, and to employ them in arms, as the only art fit for them to learn and exercise. But Solon, rather adapting his laws to the state of his country, than his country to his laws, and perceiving that the soil of Attica, which hardly rewarded the husbandman’s labour, was far from being capable of maintaining a lazy multitude, ordered that trades should be accounted honourable; that the council of the areopagus should examine into every man’s means of subsisting, and chastise the idle.
Bastards; Adultery; Sacrificial Animals; Rewards for Athletic Victors; Water Wells; Welfare; Trees; Exports; Animal Bites; Naturalizing Foreigners; Public Entertainment; Astronomy
But that law was more rigid, which (as Heraclides of Pontus informs us) excused bastards from relieving their fathers. Nevertheless, the man that disregards so honourable a state as marriage does not take a woman for the sake of children, but merely to indulge his appetite. He has, therefore, his reward; and there remains no pretence for him to upbraid those children, whose very birth he has made a reproach to them.
In truth, his laws concerning women, in general appear very absurd. For he permitted any one to kill an adulterer taken in the fact;27 but if a man committed a rape upon a free woman, he was only to be fined a hundred drachmas; if he gained his purpose by persuasion, twenty but prostitutes were excepted, because they have their price. And he would not allow them to sell a daughter or sister, unless she were taken in an act of dishonour before marriage. But to punish the same fault sometimes in a severe and rigorous manner, and sometimes lightly, and as it were in sport, with a trivial fine, is not agreeable to reason: unless the scarcity of money in Athens, at that time, made a pecuniary mulct a heavy one.
And indeed, in the valuation of things for the sacrifice, a sheep and a rnedimnus of corn were reckoned each at a drachma only. To the victor in the Isthmean games, he appointed a reward of 100 drachmas; and to the victor in the Olympian, 500.28 He that caught a he wolf, was to have five drachmas; he that took a she wolf, one: and the former sum (as Demetrius Phalereus asserts) was the value of an ox, the latter of a sheep. Though the prices which he fixes in his sixteenth table for select victims, were probably much higher than the common, yet they are small in comparison of the present. The Athenians of old were great enemies to wolves, because their country was better for pasture than, tillage; and some say their tribes had not their names from the sons of Ion, but from the different occupations, they followed; the soldiers being called hoplitae, the artificers ergaedes; and of the other two, the husbandmen teleontes ; and the graziers agicores.
As Attica was not supplied with water from perennial rivers, lakes, or springs,29 but chiefly by wells dug for that purpose, he made a law, that where there was a public well, all within the distance of four furlongs should make use of it: but where the distance was greater, they were to provide a well of their own. And if they dug ten fathoms deep in their own ground, and could find no water, they had liberty to fill a vessel of six gallons twice a day at their neighbor’s. Thus he thought it proper to assist persons in real necessity, but not to encourage idleness. His regulations with respect to the planting of trees were also very judicious. He that planted any tree in his field, was to place it at least five feet from his neighbor’s ground; and if it was a fig tree or an olive, nine; for these extend their roots farther than others, and their neighborhood is prejudicial to some trees, not only as they take away the nourishment, but as their effluvia is noxious. He that would dig a pit or a ditch, was to dig it as far from another man’s ground, as it was deep: and if any one would raise stocks of bees, he was to place them 300 feet from those already raised by another.
Of all the products of the earth, he allowed none to be sold to strangers, but oil: and whoever presumed to export anything else, the archon was solemnly to declare him accursed, or to pay himself 100 drachmas into the public treasury. This law is in the first table. And therefore it is not absolutely improbable, what some affirm, that the exportation of figs was formerly forbidden, and that the informer against the delinquents was called a sycophant.
He likewise enacted a law for reparation of damage received from beasts. A dog that had bit a man was to be delivered up bound to a log of four cubits long;30 an agreeable contrivance for security against such an animal.
But the wisdom of the law concerning the naturalizing of foreigners, is a little dubious; because it forbids the freedom of the city to be granted to any but such as are for ever exiled from their own country, or transplant themselves to Athens with their whole family, for the sake of exercising some manual trade. This, we are told, he did, not with a view to keep strangers at a distance, but rather to invite them to Athens, upon the sure hope of being admitted to the privilege of citizens: and he imagined the settlement of those might be entirely depended upon, who had been driven from their native country, or had quitted it by choice.
That law is peculiar to Solon, which regulates the going to entertainments made at the public charge, by him called parasitien.31 For he does not allow the same person to repair to them often, and he lays a penalty upon such as refuse to go when invited; looking upon the former as a mark of epicurism, and the latter of contempt of the public.
All his laws were to continue in force for 100 years, and were written upon wooden tables which might be turned round in the oblong cases that contained them. Some small remains of them are preserved in the Prytaneum to this day. They were called cyrbes, as Aristotle tells us; and Cratinus, the comic poet, thus speaks of them:
By the great names of Solon and of Draco, Whose cyrbes now but serve to boil our pulse.
Some say, those tables were properly called cyrbes on which were written the rules for religious rites and sacrifices, and the other axones. The senate, in a body, bound themselves by oath to establish the laws of Solon; and the thesmothetae or guardians of the laws, severally took an oath in a particular form, by the stone in the market-place, that for every law they broke, each would dedicate a golden statue at Delphi of the same weight with himself.32
Observing the irregularity of the months,33 and that the moon neither rose nor set at the same time with the sun, as it often happened that in the same day she overtook and passed by him, he ordered that day to be called hene kai nea (the old and the new); assigning the part of it before the conjunction, to the old month, and the rest to the beginning of the new. He seems, therefore, to have been the first who understood that verse in Homer, which makes mention of a day wherein the old month ended, and the new began.34 The day following he called the new moon. After the twentieth he counted not by adding, but subtracting, to the thirtieth, according to the decreasing phases of the moon.
The day following he called the new moon. After the twentieth he counted not by adding, but subtracting, to the thirtieth, according to the decreasing phases of the moon.
Solon Withdraws From Athens and Travels The Mediterranean
When his laws took place,35 Solon had his visitors every day, finding fault with some of them, and commending others, or advising him to make certain additions, or retrenchments. But the greater part came to desire a reason for this, or that article, or a clear and precise explication of the meaning and design. Sensible that he could not well excuse himself from complying with their desires, and that, if he indulged their importunity, the doing it might give offence, he determined to withdraw from the difficulty, and to get rid at once of their cavils and exceptions. For, as he himself observes —
Not all the greatest enterprise can please.
Under pretence, therefore, of traffic he set sail for another country, having obtained leave of the Athenians for ten years’ absence. In that time he hoped his laws would become familiar to them.
His first voyage was to Egypt, where he abode some time, as he himself relates —
On the Canadian shore, by the Nile’s deep mouth.
There he conversed upon points of philosophy with Psenophis the Heliopolitan, and Senchis the Saite, the most learned of the Egyptian priests; and having an account from them of the Atlantic island36 (as Plato informs us), he attempted to describe it to the Grecians in a poem. From Egypt he sailed to Cyprus, and there was honoured with the best regards of Philocyprus, one of the kings of that island, who reigned over a small city built by Demophon the son of Theseus, near the river Clarius, in a strong situation indeed, but very indifferent soil. As there was an agreeable plain below, Solon persuaded him to build a larger and pleasanter city there, and to remove the inhabitants of the other to it. He also assisted in laying out the whole, and building it in the best manner for convenience and defence: so that Philocyprus in a short time had it so well peopled as to excite the envy of the other princes. And, therefore, though the former city was called Aipeia, yet in honour of Solon, he called the new one Soli. He himself speaks of the building of this city, in his elegies, addressing himself to Philocyprus:
For you be long the Solian throne decreed! For you a race of prosperous sons succeed! If in those scenes to her so justly dear. My hand a blooming city help’d to rear. May the sweet voice of smiling Venus bless. And speed me home with honours and success!
Solon and King Croesus of Lydia
As for his interview with Croesus, some pretend to prove from chronology, that it is fictitious. But since the story is so famous, and so well attested, nay (what is more), so agreeable to Solon’s character, so worthy of his wisdom and magnanimity, I cannot prevail with myself to reject it for the sake of certain chronological tables, which thousands are correcting to this day, without being able to bring them to any certainty. Solon, then, is said to have gone to Sardis at the request of Croesus: and when he came there, he was affected much in the same manner as a person born in an inland country, when he first goes to see the ocean: for as he takes every great river he comes to for the sea; so Solon, as he passed through the court, and saw many of the nobility richly dressed, and walking in great pomp amidst a crowd of attendants and guards, took each of them for Croesus. At last, when he was conducted into the presence, he found the king set off with whatever can be imagined curious and valuable, either in beauty of colours, elegance of golden ornaments, or splendour of jewels; in order that the grandeur and variety of the scene might be as striking as possible. Solon, standing over against the throne, was not at all surprised, nor did he pay those compliments that were expected; on the contrary, it was plain to all persons of discernment that he depised such vain ostentation and littleness of pride. Croesus then ordered his treasures to be opened, and his magnificent apartments and furniture to be shown him; but this was quite a needless trouble; for Solon in one view of the king was able to read his character. When he has seen all, and was conducted back, Croesus asked him, if he had ever beheld a happier man than he. Solon answered, he had, and that the person was one Tellus, a plain but worthy citizen of Athens, who left valuable children behind him; and who, having been above the want of necessaries all his life, died gloriously fighting for his country. By this time he appeared to Croesus to be a strange uncouth kind of rustic, who did not ineasure happiness by the quantity of gold and silver, but could prefer the life and death of a private and mean person to his high dignity and power. However, he asked him again, whether, after Tellus, he knew another happier man in the world. Solon answered, “Yes, Cleobis and Biton, famed for their brotherly affection, and dutiful behaviour to their mother; for the oxen not being ready, they put themselves in the harness, and drew their mother to Hera’s temple, who was extremely happy in having such sons, and moved forward amidst the blessings of the people. After the sacrifice, they drank a cheerful cup with their friends, and then laid down to rest, but rose no more; for they died in the night without sorrow or pain, in the midst of so much glory.” “Well!” said Croesus, now highly displeased, “and do you not then rank us in the number of happy men?” Solon, unwilling either to flatter him, or to exasperate him more, replied, “King of Lydia, as God has given the Greeks a moderate proportion of other things, so likewise he has favoured them with a democratic spirit and a liberal kind of wisdom, which has no taste for the splendours of royalty. Moreover, the vicissitudes of life suffer us not to be elated by any present good fortune, or to admire that felicity which is liable to change. Futurity carries for every man many various and uncertain events in its bosom. He, therefore, whom heaven blesses with success to the last, is in our estimation the happy man. But the happiness of him who still lives, and has the dangers of life to encounter, appears to us no better than that of a champion before the combat is determined, and while the crown is uncertain.” With these words, Solon departed, leaving Croesus chagrined, but not instructed.
At that time Aesop, the fabulist, was at the court of Croesus, who had sent for him, and caressed him not a little. He was concerned at the unkind reception Solon met with, and thereupon gave him this advice: “A man should either not converse with kings at all, or say what is agreeable to them.” To which Solon replied : “Nay, but he should either not do it at all, or say what is useful to them.”
Croesus Recalls Solon Before Cyrus
Though Croesus at that time held our lawgiver in contempt, yet when he was defeated in his wars with Cyrus; when his city was taken, himself made prisoner, and laid bound upon the pile in order to be burned, in the presence of Cyrus and all the Persians, he cried out as loud as he possibly could, “Solon! Solon! Solon!” Cyrus, surprised at this, sent to inquire of him, “What god or man it was whom alone he thus invoked under so great a calamity?” Croesus answered, without the least disguise, “He is one of the wise men of Greece, whom I sent for, not with a design to hear his wisdom, or to learn what might be of service to me, but that he might see and extend the reputation of that glory, the loss of which I find a much greater misfortune, than the possession of it was a blessing. My exalted state was only an exterior advantage, the happiness of opinion; but the reverse plunges me into real sufferings, and ends in misery irremediable. This was foreseen by that great man, who, forming a conjecture of the future from what he then saw, advised me to consider the end of life, and not to rely or grow insolent upon uncertainties.” When this was told Cyrus, who was a much wiser man than Croesus, finding Solon’s maxim confirmed by an example before him, he not only set Croesus at liberty, but honoured him with his protection as long as he lived. Thus Solon had the glory of saving the life of one of these kings, and of instructing the other.
New Political Challenges in Athens; Solon’s Return
During his absence, the Athenians were much divided among themselves, Lycurgus being at the head of the low country,37 Megacles, the son of Alcmaeon, of the people that lived near the sea-coast, and Pisistratus of the mountaineers; among which last was a multitude of labouring people, whose enmity was chiefly levelled at the rich. Hence it was, that though the city did observe Solon’s laws, yet all expected some change, and were desirous of another establishment; not in hopes of an equality, but with a view to be gainers by the alteration, and entirely , to subdue those that differed from them.
While matters stood thus, Solon arrived at Athens, where he was received with great respect, and still held in veneration by all; but by reason of his great age he had neither the strength nor spirit to act or speak in public as he had done. He therefore applied in private to the heads of the factions, and endeavoured to appease and reconcile them. Pisistratus seemed to give him greater attention than the rest; for Pisistratus had an affable and engaging manner. He was a liberal benefactor to the poor;38 and even to his enemies he behaved with great candour. He counterfeited so dexterously the good qualities which nature had denied him, that he gained more credit than the real possessors of them, and stood foremost in the public esteem in point of moderation and equity, in zeal for the present government, and aversion to all that endeavoured at a change. With these arts he imposed upon the people: but Solon soon discovered his real character, and was the first to discern his insidious designs. Yet he did not absolutely break with him, but endeavoured to soften him and advise him better; declaring both to him and others, that if ambition could .but be banished from his soul, and he could be cured of his desire of absolute power, there would not be a man better disposed, or a more worthy citizen in Athens.
Solon Scolds Thespis’ New Tragic Form
About this time, Thespis began to change the form of tragedy, and the novelty of the thing attracted many spectators; for this was before any prize was proposed for those that excelled in this respect. Solon, who was always willing to hear and to learn, and in his old age more inclined to anything that might divert and entertain, particularly to music and good fellowship, went to see Thespis himself exhibit, as the custom of the ancient poets was. When the play was done, he called to Thespis, and asked him, if he was not ashamed to tell so many lies before so great an assembly? Thespis answered, it was no great matter, if he spoke or acted so in jest. To which Solon replied, striking the ground violently with his staff, “If we encourage such jesting as this, we shall quickly find it in our contracts and agreements.”
Solon Scolds Pisistratus but Cannot Resist His Tyranny
Soon after this, Pisistratus, having wounded himself for the purpose, drove in that condition into the market-place, and endeavoured to inflame the minds of the people, by telling them, his enemies had laid in wait for him, and treated him in that manner on account of his patriotism. Upon this, the multitude loudly expressed their indignation: but Solon came up, and thus accosted him : “Son of Hippocrates, you act Homer’s Odysseus but very indifferently; for he wounded himself to deceive his enemies, but you have done it to impose upon your countrymen.” Notwithstanding this, the rabble were ready to take up arms for him: and a general assembly of the people being summoned, Ariston made a motion, that a body-guard of fifty clubmen should be assigned him. Solon stood up and opposed it with many arguments, of the same kind with those he has left us in his poems:
You hang with rapture on his honey’d tongue. And again: Your art, to public interest ever blind. Your foxlike art still centres in yourself.
But when he saw the poor behave in a riotous manner, and determined to gratify Pisistratus at any rate, while the rich out of fear declined the opposition, he retired with this declaration, that he had shown more wisdom than the former, in discerning what method should have been taken: and more courage than the latter, who did not want understanding, but spirit to oppose the establishment of a tyrant. The people having made the decree, did not curiously inquire into the number of guards which Pisistratus employed, but visibly connived at his keeping as many as he pleased, till he seized the citadel. When this was done, and the city in great confusion, Megacles, with the rest of the Alcmaeonidae, immediately took to flight. But Solon, though he was now very old, and had none to second him, appeared in public, and addressed himself to the citizens, sometimes upbraiding them with their past indiscretion and cowardice, sometimes exhorting and encouraging them to stand up for their liberty. Then it was that he spoke tho.se memorable words: “It would have been easier for them to repress the advances of tyranny, and prevent its establishment; but now it was established and grown to some height, it would be more glorious to demolish it.” However, finding that their fears prevented their attention to what he said, he returned to his own house, and placed his weapons at the street door, with these words : “I have done all in my power to defend my country and its laws.” This was his last public effort. Though some exhorted him to fly, he tqok no notice of their advice, but was composed enough to make verses, in which he thus reproaches the Athenians:
If fear or folly has your rights betray’d, Let not the fault on righteous heaven be laid. You gave them guards: you rais’d your tyrants high T’ impose the heavy yoke that draws the heaving sigh.
Solon is Spared and Made Pisistratus’ Counsellor
Many of his friends, alarmed at this, told him the tyrant would certainly put him to death for it, and asked him, what he trusted to, that he went such imprudent lengths: he answered, “To old age.” However, when Pisistratus had fully established himself, he made his court to Solon, and treated him with so much kindness and respect, that Solon became, as it were, his counsellor, and gave sanction to many of his proceedings. He observed the greatest part of Solon’s laws, showing himself the example, and obliging his friends to follow it. Thus, when he was accused of murder before the court of areopagus, he appeared in the modest manner to make hi defense; but his accuser dropped the impeachment. He likewise added other laws, one of which was, that persons maimed in the wars should be maintained at the public charge. Yet this, Heraclides tells us, was the pursuance of Solon’s plan, who had decreed the same in the case of Thersippus. But according to Theophrastus, Pisistratus, not Solon, made the law against idleness, which produced at once greater industry in the country, and tranquility in the city.
Atlantis
Solon moreover attempted, in verse, a large description or rather fabulous account of the Atlantic Island,39 which he had learned from the wise men of Said, and which particularly concerned the Athenians: but by reason of his age, not want of leisure (as Plato would have it), he was apprehensive the work would be too much for him, and therefore did not go through with it. These verses are a proof that business was not the hindrance:
I grow in learning as I grow in years.
And again:
Wine, wit, and beauty still their charms bestow, Light all the shades of life, and cheer us as we go.
Plato, ambitious to cultivate and adorn the subject of the Atlantic Island, as a delightful spot in some fair field unoccupied, to which also he had some claim by his being related to Solon,40 laid out magnificent courts and enclosures, and erected a grand entrance to it, such as no other story, fable, or poem ever had. But as he began it late, he ended his life before the work ; so that the more the reader is delighted with the part that is 'written, the more regret he has to find it unfinished. As the temple of Zeus Olympus in Athens is the only one that has not the last hand put to it, so the wisdom of Plato, amongst his many excellent works, has left nothing imperfect but the Atlantic Island.
Heraclides Ponticus relates that Solon lived a considerable time after Pisistratus usurped the government; but according to Phanias the Ephesian, not quite two years. For Pisistratus began his tyranny in the archonship of Comias, and Phanias tells us, Solon died in the archonship of Hegestratus, the immediate successor to Comias. The story of his ashes41 being scattered about the Isle of Salamis, appears absurd and fabulous; and yet it is related by several authors of credit, and by Aristotle in particular.
Pisistratus was remarkably courteous, affable, and liberal. He had always two or three slaves near him with bags of silver coin : when he saw any man look sickly, or heard that any died insolvent, he relieved the one, and buried the others, at his own expense. If he perceived people melancholy, he inquired the cause; and if he found it was poverty, he furnished them with what might enable them to get bread, but not to live idly. Nay, he left even his gardens and orchards open, and the fruit free to the citizens. His looks were easy and sedate, his language soft and modest. In short, if his virtues had been genuine, and not dissembled, with a view to the tyranny of Athens, he would (as Solon told him) have been the best citizen in it.
Aristotle reckons Solon himself among the inferior citizens, and quotes his own works to prove it. The truth is, that Solon was never rich, it may be, because he was always honest. In his youth he was mightily addicted to poetry. And Plato (in Timaeo) says, that if he had finished all his poems, and particularly the History of the Atlantic Island, which he brought out of Egypt, and had taken time to revise and correct them as others did, neither Homer, Hesiod, nor any other ancient poet, would have been more famous. It is evident both from the life and writings of this great man, that he was a person not only of exalted virtue, but of a pleasant and agreeable temper. He considered men as men; and keeping both their capacity for virtue, and their proneness to evil in his view, he adapted his laws so as to strengthen and support the one, and to check and keep under the other. His institutions are as remarkable for their sweetness and practicability, as those of Lycurgus are for harshness and forcing human nature.
This passage of Solon’s, and another below are now found among the sentences of Theognis.
The Scythians, long before the days of Solon, had been celebrated for their frugality, their temperance, and justice. Anacharsis was one of these Scythians, and a prince of the blood. He went to Athens about the forty-seventh olympiad, that is, 590 years before Christ. His good sense, his knowledge, and great experience, made him pass for one of the seven wise men. But the greatest and wisest men have their inconsistencies: for such it certainly was, for Anacharsis to carry the Grecian worship, the rite of Cybele, into Scythia, contrary to the laws of his country. Though he performed those rites, privately in a woody part of the country, a Scythian happened to see him, and acquainted the king with it, who came immediately, and shot him with an arrow upon the spot. Herodot. 1. iv. c. 76.
Whether on this occasion, or on the real loss of a son, is uncertain, Solon being desired not to weep, since weeping would avail nothing; he answered, with much humanity and good sense, “And for this cause I weep.”
When the Athenians were delivered from their fears by the death of Epaminondas, they began to squander away upon shows and plays the money that had been assigned for the pay of the army and navy, and at the same time they made it death for any one to propose a reformation. In that case, Demosthenes did not, like Solon, attack their error, under a pretense of insanity, but boldly and resolutely spoke against it, and by the force of his eloquence brought them to correct it.
None wore caps but the sick.
This line could be no sufficient evidence; for there are many passages in Homer which prove that the ships of Ajax were stationed near the Thessalians.
The inhabitants of Cirrha, a town seated in the bay of Corinth, after having by repeated incursions wasted the territory of Delphi, besieged the city itself, from a desire of making themselves masters of the riches contained in the temple of Apollo. Advice of this being sent to the Amphictyons who were the states general of Greece, Solon advised that this matter should be universally resented. Accordingly, Clysthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, was sent commander in chief against the Cirrhaeans; Alcmaeon was general of the Athenian quota; and Solon went as counsellor or assistant to Clysthenes. When the Greek army had besieged Cirrha some time without any great appearance of success, Apollo was consulted, who answered, that they should not be able to reduce the place, till the waves of the Cirrhsean sea washed the territories of Delphi. This answer struck the army with surprise, from which Solon extricated them by advising Clysthenes to consecrate the whole territories of Cirrha to the Delphic Apollo, whence it would follow that the sea must wash the sacred coast. Pausanias (in Phocicis) mentions another stratagem, which was not worthy of the justice of Solon. Cirrha, however, was taken, and became henceforth the arsenal of Delphi.
There was, for a long time after the democracy took place, a strong party against it, who left no measures untried, in order, if possible, to restore their ancient form of government. Cylon, a man of quality, and son-in-law to Theagenes, tyrant of Megara, repined at the sudden change of the magistrates, and hated the thoughts of asking that as a favour, which he apprehended to be due to his birthright. He formed, therefore, a design to seize the citadel, which he put in practice in the forty-fifth olympiad, when many of the citizens were gone to the Olympic games. Megacles, who was at that time chief archon, with the other magistrates and the whole power of Athens, immediately besieged the conspirators there, and reduced them to such distress, that Cylon and his brother fled, and left the meaner sort to shift or themselves. Such as escaped the sword, took refuge, as Plutarch relates, in Athena’s temple ; and though they deserved death for conspiring against the government, yet, as the magistrates put them to death in breach of the privilege of sanctuary, they brought upon themselves the indignation of the superstitious Athenians, who deemed such a breach a greater crime than treason.
This Epimenides was a very extraordinary person. Diogenes Laertius tells us, that he was the inventor of the art of lustrating or purifying houses, fields, and persons; which, if spoken of Greece, may be true; but Moses had long before taught the Hebrews something of this nature. (Vide Levit. xvi.) Epimenides took some sheep that were all black, and others that were all white; these he led into the Areopagus, and turning them loose, directed certain persons to follow them, who should mark where they couched, and there sacrifice them to the local deity. This being done, altars were erected in all these places, to perpetuate the memory of this solemn expiation. There were, however, other ceremonies practised for the purpose of lustration, of which Tzetzes, in his poetical chronicle, gives a particular account, but which are too trifling to be mentioned here.
This prediction was fulfilled 270 years after, when Antipater constrained the Athenians to admit his garrison into that place. Besides this prophecy, Epimenides uttered another during his stay at Athens; for hearing that the citizens were alarmed at the progress of the Persian power at sea, he advised them to make themselves easy, for that the Persians would not for many years attempt anything against the Greeks, and when they did, they would receive greater loss themselves than they would be able to bring upon the states they thought to destroy.
Pittacus, one of the seven wise men of Greece, made himself master of Mitylene; for which, Alcaeus, who was of the same town, contemporary with Pittacus and, as a poet, a friend to liberty, satirized him, as he did the other tyrants. Pittacus disregarded his censures, and having by his authority quelled the seditions of his citizens, and established peace and harmony among them, he voluntarily quitted his power, and restored his country to its liberty.
The Athenians had a custom of fixing up billets, to show that houses or lands were mortgaged.
Draco was archon in the second, though some say in the last year of the thirty-ninth olympiad, about the year before Christ 623. Though the name of this great man occurs frequently in history, yet we nowhere find so much as ten lines together concerning him and his institutions. He may be considered as the first legislator of the Athenians; for the laws, or rather precepts, of Triptolemus were very few, viz. “Honour your parents ; worship the gods ; hurt not animals”; Draco was the first of the Greeks that punished idolatry with death and he esteemed murder so high a crime, that to imprint a deep abhorrence of it in the minds of men, he ordained that process should be carried on even against inanimate things, if they accidentally caused the death of any person. But besides murder and adultery, which deserved death, he made a number of small offences capital; and that brought almost all his laws into disuse. The extravagant severity of them, like an edge too finely ground, hindered his thesmoi, as he called them, from striking deep. Porphyry (de abstinent) has preserved one of them concerning divine worship, “It is an everlasting law in Attica, that the gods are to be worshipped, and the heroes also, according to the customs of our ancestors, and in private only with a proper address, first fruits, and annual libations.’
The Pentacosiomedimni paid a talent to the public treasury; the Hippodatelountes, as the word signifies, were obliged to find a horse, and to serve as cavalry in the wars; the Zeugitae were so called, as being a middle rank between the knights and those of the lowest order (for rowers who have the middle bench between the Thalamites and the Thranites, are called Zeugitae); and though the Thetes had barely each a vote in the general assemblies, yet that (as Plutarch observes) appeared in time to be a great privilege, most causes being brought by appeal before the people.
The court of areopagus, though settled long before, had lost much of its power by Draco’s preferring the ephetae. In ancient times, and till Solon became legislator, it consisted of such persons as were most conspicuous in the state for their wealth, power, and probity; but Solon made it a rule that such only should have a seat in it as had borne the office of archon. This had the effect he designed, it raised the reputation of the areopagites very high, and rendered their decrees so venerable, that none contested or repined at them through a long course of ages.
After the extinction of the race of the Medontidae, the Athenians made the office of archon annual; and instead of one, they created nine archons. By the latter expedient, they provided against the too great power of a single person, as by the former they took away all apprehension of the archons setting up for sovereigns, In one word, they attained now what they had long sought, the making their supreme magistrates dependent on the people. This remarkable sera of the completion of the Athenian democracy was, according to the Marmora, in the fipt year of the twenty-fourth olympiad, before Christ 684. That these magistrates might, however, retain sufficient authority and dignity, they had high titles and great honours annexed to their offices. The first was styled by way of eminence The archon, and the year was distinguished by his name. The second was called Basileus, that is king; for they chose to have that title considered as a secondary one. This officer had the care of religion. The third had the name of Polemarch, for war was his particular province. The other six had the title of Thesmotheta and were considered as the guardians of their laws. These archons continued till the time of the emperor Callienus.
The number of tribes was increased by Calisthenes to ten, after he had driven out the Pisistratidae; and then this senate consisted of five hundred, fifty being chosen out of each tribe, lowards the close of the year the president of each tribe gave in a list of candidates, out of whom the senators were elected by lot. The senators then appointed the officers called prytanes. The prytanes, while the senate consisted of five hundred, were fifty in number; and, for :he avoiding of confusion, ten of these presided a week, during which space they were called praedri, ind out of them an epistates or president was chosen, whose office lasted but one day.
The ephetae were first appointed in the reign of Demophon, the son of Theseus, for the trying of willful murders and cases of manslaughter, they consisted at first of fifty Athenians and as many Argives: but Draco excluded the Argives, in ordered that it should be composed of fifty Athenians, who were all to be turned of fifty years of age. He also fixed their authority above that of the areoopagites; but Solon brought them under that court, and limited their jurisdiction.
Aulus Gellius, who has preserved the very words of this law, adds, that one who so stood neuter, should lose his houses, his country, and estate, and be sent out an exile. Noct. Attic. 1. ii. c. 12.
Plutarch in another place condemns this law, but Gellius highly commends it, and assigns this reason — The wise and just, as well as the envious and wicked, being obliged to choose some side, matters were easily accommodated; whereas if the latter only, as is generally the case with other cities, had the management of factions, they would, for private reasons, be continually kept up, to the great hurt, if not to the utter ruin of the state.
The eating of the quince, which was not peculiar to an heiress and her husband (for all new married people eat it) implied that their discourses ought to be pleasant to each other, that fruit making the breath sweet.
The bride brought with her an earthen pan called phrogeteon, wherein barley was parched; to signify that she undertook the business of the house, and would do her part towards providing for the family.
He likewise ordained that adopted persons should make no will, but as soon as they had children lawfully begotten, they were at liberty to return into the family whence they were adopted; or if they continued in it to their death, the estates reverted to the relations of the persons who adopted them.
Demosthenes (in Timocr.) recites Solon’s directions as to funerals as follows: “Let the dead bodies be laid out in the house, according as the deceased gave order, and the day following before sunrise carried forth. Whilst the body is carrying to the grave let the men go before, the women follow. It shall not be lawful for any woman to enter upon the goods of the dead, and to follow the body to the grave, under threescore years of age, except such as are within the degrees of cousins.”
He that was thrice convicted of idleness, was to be declared infamous. Herodotus (1. vii.) and Diodorus Siculus (1. i.) agree that a law of this kind was in use in Egypt. It is probable therefore that Solon, who was thoroughly acquainted with the learning of that nation, borrowed it from them.
No adulteress was to adorn herself, or to assist at the public sacrifices; and in case she did, he gave liberty to any one to tear her clothes off her back, and beat her into the bargain.
At the same time he contracted the rewards bestowed upon wrestlers, esteeming such gratuities useless and even dangerous; as they tended to encourage idleness by putting men upon wasting that time in exercises which ought to be spent in providing for their families.
Strabo tells us there was a spring of fresh water near the Lycaeum; but the soil of Attica in general was dry, and the rivers Ilissus and Eridamus did not run constantly.
This law, and several others of Solon’s, were taken into the twelve tables. In the consulate of T. Romilius and C. Veturius, in the year of Rome 293, the Romans sent deputies to Athens, to transcribe his laws, and those of the other lawgivers of Greece, in order to form thereby a body of laws for Rome.
In the first ages the name of parasite was venerable and sacred, for it properly signified one that was a messmate at the table of sacrifices. There were in Greece several persons particularly honoured with this title, much like those whom the Romans called epulones, a religious order instituted by Numa. Solon ordained that every tribe should offer a sacrifice once a month, and at the end of the sacrifice make a public entertainment, at which all who were of that tribe should be obliged to assist by turns.
Gold in Solon’s time was so scarce in Greece, that the Spartans were ordered by the oracle to gild the face of Apollo’s statue, they inquired in vain for gold all over Greece, and were directed by the pythoness to buy some of Croesus, king of Lydia.
Solon discovered the falseness of Thales’s maxim, that the moon performed her revolution in thirty days, and found that the true time was twenty-nine days and a half. He directed, therefore, that each of the twelve months should be accounted twenty-nine or thirty days alternately. By this means a lunar year was formed, of 354 days; and to reconcile it to the solar year, he ordered a month of twenty-two days to be intercalated every two years, and at the end of the second two years, he directed that a month of twenty-three days should be intercalated. He likewise engaged the Athenians to divide their months into three parts, styled the beginning, middling, and ending; each of these consisted of ten days, when the month was thirty days long, and the last of nine, when it was nine and twenty days long. In speaking of the two first parts, they reckoned according to the usual order of numbers, viz. the first, etc. day of the moon beginning; the first, second, etc. of the moon middling; but with respect to the last part of the month, they reckoned backwards, that is, instead of saying the first, second, etc., day of the moon ending, they said the tenth, ninth, etc., of the moon ending. This is a circumstance which should be carefully attended to.
Odyss. xiv. 162.
Plutarch has only mentioned such of Solon’s laws as he thought the most singular and remarkable: Diogenes, Laertius, and Demosthenes, have given us account of some others that ought not to be forgotten. — “Let not the guardian live in the same house with the mother of his wards. Let not the tuition of minors be committed to him who is next after them in the inheritance. Let not an engraver keep the impression of a seal which he has engraved. Let him that puts out the eye of a man who has but one, lose both his own. If an archon is taken in liquor, let him be put to death. Let him who refuses to maintain his father and mother, be infamous; and sb let him that has consumed his patrimony. Let him who refuses to go to war, flies, or behaves cowardly, be debarred the precincts of the forum and places of public worship. If a man surprises his wife in adultery, and lives with her afterwards, let him be deemed infamous. Let him who frequents the houses of lewd women, be debarred from speaking in the assemblies of the people. Let a pander be pursued, and put to death if taken. If any man steal in the day-time, let him be carried to the eleven officers; if in the night, it shall be lawful to kill him in the act, or to wound him in the pursuit, and carry him to the aforesaid officers: if he steals common things, let him pay double, and if the convictor thinks fit, be exposed in chains five days; if he is guilty of sacrilege, let him be put to death.”
Plato finished this history from Solon’s memoirs, as may be seen in his Timaeus, and Critias. He pretends that this Atlantis, an island situated in the Atlantic Ocean, was bigger than Asia and Africa, and that, notwithstanding its vast extent, it was drowned in one day and night. Diodorus Siculus says, the Carthaginians, who discovered it, made it death for any one to settle in it. Amidst a number of conjectures concerning it, one of the most probable is, that in those days the Africans had some knowledge of America. Another opinion, worth mentioning, is, that the Atlantides, or Fortunate Islands, were what we now call the Canaries. Homer thus describes them:
Stern winter smiles on that auspicious clime; The fields are florid with unfading prime. From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow, Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow; But from the breezy deep the bless’d inhale The fragrant murmurs of the western gale.
These three parties into which the Athenians were divided, viz. the Pediai, the Parali, and Diacrii, have been mentioned in this life before.
By the poor, we are not to understand such as asked alms, for there were none such in Athens. “In those days,” says Isocrates, “there was no citizen that died of want, or begged in the streets, to the dishonour of the community.” This was owing to the laws against idleness and prodigality, and the care which the areopagus took that every man should have a visible livelihood.
This fable imported, that the people of Atlantis having subdued all Lybia, and a great part of Europe, threatened Egypt and Greece; but the Athenians making head against their victorious army, overthrew them in several engagements, and confined them to their own island.
Plato’s mother was a descendant of the brother of Solon.
It is said by Diogenes Laertius, that this was done by his own order. In thus disposing of his remains, either Solon himself, or those who wrote his history, imitated the story of Lycurgus, who I left an express order that his ashes should be 1 thrown into the sea.