The Good Book (94 page)

  8. Now when Solon came before him, and seemed not at all surprised, nor gave Croesus those compliments the king expected,

  9. But showed himself to be a man that despised the gaudiness and petty ostentation of it,

10. Croesus commanded his servants to open his treasure houses, and take Solon to see his sumptuous furniture and luxuries, though he did not wish it;

11. For Solon could judge of him well enough by the first sight of him. When he returned from viewing all, Croesus asked him if he had ever known a happier man than he.  

12. And when Solon answered that he had known one Tellus, a fellow-citizen of his own,

13. And told him that this Tellus had been an honest man, had had good children, a competent estate, and died bravely in battle for his country,

14. Croesus took him for an ill-bred fellow and a fool, for not measuring happiness by the abundance of gold and silver,

15. And preferring the life of a private man before so much power and empire.  

16. He asked him, however, again, if, besides Tellus, he knew any other man more happy.  

17. And Solon replying said, ‘Yes, Cleobis and Biton, who were loving brothers, and extremely dutiful to their mother,

18. ‘For when the oxen delayed her, they harnessed themselves to the wagon, and drew her to the festival,

19. ‘Her neighbours all calling her happy, and she herself rejoiced; then, after feasting, the brothers went to rest,

20. ‘And never rose again, but died in the midst of their honour a painless and tranquil death.’

21. ‘What,’ said Croesus, angrily, ‘and do you not reckon me amongst the happy men at all?’  

22. Solon, unwilling either to flatter or exasperate him more, replied,

23. ‘The Greeks, O king, have all the gifts of nature in moderate degree; and so our wisdom, too, is a homely thing;

24. ‘And this, observing the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions, forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments,

25. ‘Or to admire any man’s happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change.  

26. ‘For the uncertain future has yet to come, with every possible variety of fortune;

27. ‘And he only who lives virtuously and harmoniously until his end, we call happy;

28. ‘To salute as happy one that is still in the midst of life and hazard, we think as little safe and conclusive as to crown and proclaim as victorious the wrestler that is still in the ring.’

29. After this, he was dismissed, having given Croesus some pain, but no instruction.

30. Aesop, who wrote the fables, being then at Sardis at Croesus’ invitation, and very much esteemed,

31. Was concerned that Solon was so ill received, and gave him this advice:

32. ‘Solon, let your converse with kings be either short or seasonable.’  

33. ‘Nay, rather,’ replied Solon, ‘either short or reasonable.’  

34. So at this time Croesus despised Solon; but when he was overthrown by Cyrus,

35. Had lost his city, was taken alive, condemned to be burnt, and laid bound on the pyre before all the Persians and Cyrus himself,

36. He cried out as loud as possibly he could three times, ‘O Solon!’

37. And Cyrus, being surprised, and asking who or what this Solon was, whom alone he invoked in this extremity,

38. Croesus told him the whole story, saying, ‘He was one of the wise men of Greece, whom I sent for,

39. ‘Not to be instructed, or to learn anything that I wanted, but that he should see and be a witness of my happiness;

40. ‘The loss of which was, it seems, to be a greater evil than the enjoyment was a good;

41. ‘For when I had them they were goods only in opinion, but now the loss of them has brought upon me intolerable and real evils.  

42. ‘And he, conjecturing from what then was, this that now is, bade me look to the end of my life, and not rely and grow proud upon uncertainties.’  

43. When this was told, Cyrus, who was a wiser man than Croesus, and saw in the present example Solon’s maxim confirmed,

44. Not only freed Croesus from punishment, but honoured him as long as he lived;

45. And Solon had the glory, by the same saying, to save one king and instruct another.

Chapter 26

  1. While Solon was gone the citizens of Athens began to quarrel among themselves again.

  2. One named Lycurgus led the Plain; Megacles, the son of Alcmaeon, led the Seaside;

  3. And Pisistratus led the Hill, the area of the poorest people, and greatest enemies to the rich;

  4. So though the city still used Solon’s new laws, yet all desired a change of government,

  5. Hoping that a change would be better for them, and put them above the other factions.  

  6. Affairs standing thus, Solon returned, and was reverenced by all, and honoured;

  7. But his old age would not permit him to be as active as formerly;

  8. Yet, by privately conferring with the heads of the factions, he endeavoured to compose the differences, Pisistratus appearing the most tractable;

  9. For he was extremely smooth and engaging in his language, a great friend to the poor, and moderate in his resentments;

10. And what nature had not given him, he had the skill to imitate; so that he was trusted more than the others,

11. Being accounted a prudent and orderly man, one that loved equality, and would be an enemy to any that moved against the present settlement.  

12. Thus Pisistratus deceived the majority of people; but Solon knew his character, and understood his intentions, better than anyone else;

13. Yet did not hate him for this, but endeavoured to tame his ambition, and often told him and others,

14. That if anyone could cure him of his desire of absolute power, none would make a more virtuous man or excellent citizen.  

15. Thespis was at this time beginning to act tragedies, and because this was a new thing it much captivated the multitude.

16. Solon, being by nature fond of hearing and learning something new,

17. And now, in his old age, living idly and enjoying himself with music and wine, went to see Thespis act;

18. And after the play was done, addressed him, and asked him if he was not ashamed to tell so many lies before such a number of people;

19. And Thespis replying that it was no harm to say or do so in play, Solon vehemently struck his staff against the ground and said:

20. ‘If we honour and commend such play as this, we shall soon find it in our business.’ And soon enough it was, as a trick played by Pisistratus showed.

21. For Pisistratus wounded himself, and was brought into the marketplace in a chariot pretending to suffer,

22. On purpose to stir up the people, as if he had been thus treated by his political opponents. A great many were enraged, but Solon, going up to him, said,

23. ‘This is a bad copy of Homer’s Odysseus; you do, to trick your countrymen, what he did to deceive his enemies.’  

24. After this the people were eager to protect Pisistratus, and met in assembly, where a motion was put that Pisistratus should be allowed fifty clubmen to guard his person.

25. Solon, knowing that Pisistratus did this to have a private army with which to capture the government, opposed the motion,

26. But observing that the poor were tumultuously bent on gratifying Pisistratus, and the rich were fearful and wished to keep out of harm’s way,

27. He departed, saying he was wiser than some and stouter than others;

28. Wiser than those who did not understand Pisistratus’ plan,

29. Stouter than those who, though they understood it, were afraid to oppose it.  

Chapter 27

  1. Now, the people, having passed the law granting Pisistratus a bodyguard, did not watch how many he gathered around him; until he seized the Acropolis.  

  2. When that was done, and the city was in an uproar, Megacles, with all his family, at once fled;

  3. But Solon, though he was now very old, and had none to back him, nevertheless came into the marketplace and made a speech to the citizens,

  4. Partly blaming their inadvertency and timidity, and in part urging and exhorting them not to lose their liberty so tamely;

  5. And likewise then spoke that memorable saying, that, before, it was an easier task to stop the rising tyranny,

  6. But now the greater and more glorious action was to destroy it, when it was begun already, and had gathered strength.  

  7. But all being afraid to side with him, he returned home, and, taking his sword and shield, he brought them out and laid them in the porch before his door, with these words:

  8. ‘I have done my part to maintain my country and my laws,’ and then he busied himself no more.  

  9. His friends advising him to flee, he refused; but wrote poems reproaching the Athenians for putting tyrannical power into one man’s hands.

10. Many warned him that the tyrant would take his life for this, and asking what he trusted to, that he ventured to speak so boldly, he replied, ‘To my old age.’  

11. But Pisistratus so extremely courted Solon, so honoured him, obliged him, and sent to see him, that Solon gave him his advice, and approved many of his actions;

12. For the tyrant retained most of Solon’s laws, observed them himself, and compelled his friends to obey.  

13. And Pisistratus himself, though already absolute ruler, being accused before the Areopagus of murder, came quietly to clear himself; but his accuser did not appear.  

14. And he added other laws, one of which is that the maimed in the wars should be maintained at the public charge;

15. In this Pisistratus followed Solon’s example, who had decreed it in the case of a soldier named Thersippus;

16. And Theophrastus asserts that it was Pisistratus, not Solon, that made that law against laziness, which was the reason that the country became more productive, and the city more tranquil.

17. Thus Solon survived after Pisistratus seized the government; Heraclides Ponticus says that Solon lived many years after Pisistratus began his tyranny,

18. Whereas Phanias the Eresian says he lived less than two years after it began.

19. The story that his ashes were scattered about the island Salamis is too strange to be easily believed,

20. Yet it is told, amongst other good authors, by Aristotle the philosopher.

Chapter 28: Pericles of Athens

  1. The greatest ruler of Athens in its greatest age was Pericles.

  2. He was the leading citizen of that city for fifty-five years, and in that time he brought it to pre-eminence both in the Greece of its day, and in the history of the world.

  3. In the Athens of Pericles flourished the philosophy and poetry that makes it the capital of the civilisation it founded,

  4. And along with them the very fabric of buildings that to this day are emulated in every notable city of the world,  

  5. Thereby expressing admiration for the Greek genius over which he presided.

  6. Pericles was of the noblest birth both on his father’s and on his mother’s side.

  7. His father Xanthippus defeated the King of Persia’s generals at the battle of Mycale.

  8. His mother Agariste was the granddaughter of Clisthenes, the man who drove out the tyrannical sons of the despot Pisistratus, and nobly put an end to their usurpation;

  9. And moreover made a body of laws, settling a model of government admirably suited for the harmony and safety of the Athenian people.

10. When Pericles was born he was perfectly formed, except that his head was somewhat long and out of proportion.

11. Consequently most images and statues of him show him wearing a helmet. The poets of Athens called him ‘Schinocephalos’, or squill-head, from ‘schinos’, a squill or sea-onion.

12. One of the comic poets, Teleclides, describes him when contending with political difficulties as ‘fainting underneath the load of his own head:

13. ‘And abroad from his huge gallery of a pate sending forth trouble to the state’.

14. And another comic writer, Eupolis, in the play called
The Demi
, has Pericles appear at the end of a line of demagogues to the words,

15. ‘And here by way of summary, now we’ve done, behold, in brief, the heads of all in one.’

16. The master who taught him music was Damon, who, being a sophist, sheltered himself under the profession of music teacher to conceal from people his skill in politics and oratory, and under this pretence taught Pericles.

17. Damon’s lyre, however, did not prove altogether successful as a disguise; he was banished from the country by ostracism for ten years, as a dangerous intermeddler and a favourer of arbitrary power,

18. And by this means gave the comedians occasion to satirise him. As, for instance, one comic poet introduces a character who questions him: ‘Tell me, if you please, since you’re the man who taught Pericles.’