The Good Book (92 page)

  9. Some say that he travelled to get learning and experience rather than money.  

10. But in his time, as Hesiod says, work was shameful to none, nor was trade disrespected, but was a desirable calling,

11. For it brought home the good things that barbarous nations enjoyed, was the occasion of friendship with their kings, and a great source of experience.  

12. Some add that Thales the philosopher and Hippocrates the mathematician traded; and that Plato defrayed the expense of his travels by selling oil in Egypt.  

13. Solon’s softness and profuseness, his popular rather than philosophical tone about pleasure in his poems, have been ascribed to his trading life;

14. For, having suffered a thousand dangers, it was natural they should be recompensed with enjoyments;

15. But that he accounted himself poor rather than rich is evident from his lines,

16. ‘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 every day.’

17. At first Solon used his poetry not for any serious purpose, but to amuse his idle hours;

18. Afterwards he introduced moral and political thoughts, which he did, not to record them as an historian,

19. But to justify his actions, and to correct, chastise, and prompt the Athenians to noble performances.

20. Some say that he intended to put his laws into heroic verse.

21. In philosophy, as most of the wise men then, he chiefly esteemed the political part of morals; in physics, he was empirical and plain.

22. It is probable that at that time Thales alone had raised philosophy above mere practice into speculation;

23. And the rest of the wise men were so called from prudence in political concerns.  

24. Solon was acquainted with both Thales and Anacharsis.

25. It is reported that the latter, visiting Athens, knocked at Solon’s door, and told him that he, being a stranger, wished to be his guest, and to begin a friendship with him.

26. When Solon said, ‘It is better to make friends at home,’ Anacharsis replied, ‘Well, you are at home; therefore make friends with me.’  

27. Solon, pleased by this repartee, received him kindly, and kept him there some time.

28. He told Anacharsis about his compilation of laws; which when Anacharsis heard about them, he laughed at Solon for imagining that the dishonesty and covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws,

29. Which, he said, were like spiders’ webs, and would catch the weak and poor, yet be easily broken by the mighty and rich.  

30. To this Solon rejoined that men keep their promises when neither side can get anything by breaking them;

31. And he would so fit his laws to the citizens, that all should understand it was more eligible to be just than to break them.  

32. But Anacharsis proved the more right in the long run.  

33. Anacharsis, being once at the assembly, expressed his wonder at the fact that in Greece wise men spoke and fools decided.

Chapter 17

  1. Solon went, they say, to Thales at Miletus, and wondered that Thales had no wife and children.

  2. To this, Thales made no answer for the present; but, a few days after, procured a stranger to pretend that he had just come from Athens;

  3. And Solon enquiring what news there, the man, according to his instructions, replied, ‘None but a young man’s funeral, which the whole city attended;

  4. ‘For he was the son of an honourable man, the most virtuous of the citizens, who was not then at home, but had been travelling a long time.’  

  5. Solon replied, ‘What an unfortunate man to have lost a son!   What was his name?’  

  6. ‘I have forgotten it,’ said the man, ‘only there was great talk of his wisdom and his justice.’  

  7. Thus Solon was drawn on by every answer, and his fears heightened, till at last, being extremely concerned,

  8. He mentioned his own name, and asked the stranger if that young man was called Solon’s son;

  9. And the stranger assenting, Solon began to beat his head, and to do and say all that is usual with men in transports of grief.  

10. 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;

11. ‘However, be not concerned at the report, for it is a fiction.’  

12. This was an unkind manner of teaching. Moreover, it is irrational and poor-hearted not to seek good things for fear of losing them,

13. For upon the same account we should not allow ourselves to seek wealth, glory or wisdom, since we may fear to be deprived of all these;

14. Nay, even virtue itself, than which there is no richer possession.

15. Now Thales, though unmarried, could not be free from concern, unless he likewise felt no care for his friends, his kinsmen or his country;

16. Yet we are told he adopted his sister’s son. For the mind of man, having a principle of kindness in itself,

17. And being born to love, as well as perceive, think and remember, must feel a connection with someone or something, even a dog or horse.

18. We must not guard against the loss of wealth by being poor, or the loss of friends by refusing to have friends, or the loss of children by having none;

19. Instead, it is by morality and reason that we must guard against the affliction that the loss of such things brings.  

Chapter 18

  1. Now, when the Athenians were tired with a tedious and difficult war that they conducted against the Megarians for the island of Salamis,

  2. And made a law that it should be death for any man, by writing or speaking, to assert that the city ought to recover it,

  3. Solon, vexed at the disgrace, and perceiving that thousands of the youth wished for somebody to oppose that decision, devised a stratagem;

  4. He counterfeited madness, then secretly composed some elegiac verses, and getting them by heart, that they might seem extempore,

  5. Ran into the agora with a cap upon his head, and, the people gathering about him, sang that elegy which begins:

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

  7. The poem contains one hundred verses, very elegantly written. When it had been sung, his friends commended it,

  8. And especially Pisistratus exhorted the citizens to obey its call;

  9. Insomuch that they revoked the law, and renewed the war under Solon’s conduct.  

10. With Pisistratus he sailed to Colias, and, finding the women celebrating a festival according to the custom of the country,

11. He sent a trusty friend to Salamis, who should pretend himself a renegade, to advise them that if they desired to seize the chief Athenian women, to come at once to Colias.

12. The Megarians immediately sent their men with him; and Solon, seeing them sail from the island,

13. Commanded some beardless youths, dressed in the women’s clothing and secretly armed with daggers, to dance and play near the shore till the enemies had landed.

14. The Megarians were allured with the appearance, and coming to shore, jumped out, eager who should first seize a prize.

15. Not one of them escaped; and the Athenians set sail for Salamis and captured it.

16. Others give a different account of the island’s capture.

17. They say that Solon, sailing by night with five hundred Athenian volunteers in several fisher-boats and one thirty-oared ship,

18. Anchored in a bay of Salamis that looks towards Nisaea;

19. And the Megarians who were then on the island, hearing only an uncertain report, hurried to their arms, and sent a ship to reconnoitre.  

20. This ship Solon took, and manned it with Athenians, and gave them orders to sail round the island as secretly as possible;

21. Meanwhile he and the other soldiers marched against the Megarians by land, and while they were fighting, those from the ship took the city.

22. For these exploits, Solon grew famous and powerful.

Chapter 19

  1. Soon afterwards the Athenians again fell into their old quarrels about the government,

  2. There being as many different parties as there were diversities in the country.

  3. The Hill quarter favoured democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and those that lived by the Seaside stood for a mixed government,

  4. And so each hindered either of the other parties from prevailing.  

  5. The disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor, at that time, was at a height;

  6. So the city seemed in a truly dangerous condition, with despotic power seeming to be the only means possible for freeing it from disturbances.

  7. All the people were in debt to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase,

  8. Or else they mortgaged their own bodies for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home, or sold to strangers.

  9. Some, for no law forbade it, were forced to sell their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their creditors.

10. But the bravest of them began to combine together and encourage one another to stand firm and choose a leader,

11. To liberate the condemned debtors, redistribute the land and change the government.

12. Then the wisest of the Athenians, perceiving that Solon was the only one not implicated in the troubles,

13. For he had not joined in the exactions of the rich, and was not involved in the necessities of the poor,

14. Pressed him to succour the commonwealth and resolve the differences.

15. Solon himself says that he engaged in state affairs reluctantly at first, being afraid of the pride of one party and the greediness of the other;

16. But he accepted the office of archon and was empowered as arbitrator and lawgiver,

17. The rich consenting because he was wealthy, the poor because he was honest.

18. There was a saying of his current before his appointment,

19. That when things are even there never can be war, and this pleased both parties,

20. The one taking him to mean, when all have their fair proportion; the others, when all are absolutely equal.  

21. So the chief men pressed Solon to take the government into his own hands, and, when he was once settled, to manage it freely and according to his determination.

22. The common people, thinking it would be difficult to change matters by law and reason, were willing to have one wise and just man set over the affairs as king.

23. But Solon did not choose to be made king. His familiar friends chided him for opposing monarchy, as if the virtue of the ruler could not make it a lawful form;

24. Solon replied to his friends, that it was true a tyranny was a very fair spot, but there was no way down from it.

25. Yet, though he refused the kingship, he was not too mild in the affair;

26. He did not show himself mean and submissive to the powerful, or make his laws to please those that chose him.  

27. For where the laws were already good, he altered nothing,

28. For fear lest, changing everything and disordering the state, it would be difficult to recompose it to a tolerable condition;

29. But what he thought he could effect by persuasion upon the pliable, and by force upon the stubborn, this he did.

30. 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.’  

Chapter 20

  1. The way that the Athenians have of softening the badness of a thing, by ingeniously giving it some pretty and innocent name,

  2. For example: calling harlots, mistresses; tributes, customs; a garrison, a guard; and the jail, the chamber,

  3. Seems originally to have been Solon’s idea, who called cancelling debts ‘relief’.

  4. For the first thing he settled was that all existing debts should be forgiven,

  5. And no man, for the future, should mortgage his own body as security.

  6. Some say the debts were not cancelled, but the interest only lessened, which sufficiently pleased the people,

  7. Together with raising the value of their money; for he made a pound, which before equalled seventy-three drachmas, now worth a hundred;

  8. So that, though the number of pieces in the payment was equal, the value was less;

  9. Which proved a considerable benefit to those that had great debts, and no loss to the creditors.  

10. While he was planning the debt relief arrangements, a most vexatious thing happened;