Lives of Eminent Philosophers (1.2.56-1.2.60)

The effect of this was that many strove to acquit themselves as gallant soldiers in battle, like Polyzelus, Cynegirus, Callimachus and all who fought at Marathon; or again like Harmodius and Aristogiton, and Miltiades and thousands more. Athletes, on the other hand, incur heavy costs while in training, do harm when successful, and are crowned for a victory over their country rather than over their rivals, and when they grow old they, in the words of Euripides,[*]

Are worn threadbare, cloaks that have lost the nap;

and Solon, perceiving this, treated them with scant respect.[*] Excellent, too, is his provision that the guardian of an orphan should not marry the mother of his ward, and that the next heir who would succeed on the death of the orphans should be disqualified from acting as their guardian.

Furthermore, that no engraver of seals should be allowed to retain an impression of the ring which he has sold, and that the penalty for depriving a one-eyed man of his single eye should be the loss of the offender’s two eyes. A deposit shall not be removed except by the

depositor himself, on pain of death. That the magistrate found intoxicated should be punished with death.

He has provided that the public recitations of Homer shall follow in fixed order[*]: thus the second reciter must begin from the place where the first left off. Hence, as Dieuchidas says in the fifth book of his Megarian History, Solon did more than Pisistratus to throw light on Homer. The passage in Homer more particularly referred to is that beginning Those who dwelt at Athens ...[*]

Solon was the first to call the 30th day of the month the Old-and-New day, and to institute meetings of the nine archons for private conference, as stated by Apollodorus in the second book of his work On Legislators. When civil strife began, he did not take sides with those in the city, nor with the plain, nor yet with-the coast section.

One of his sayings is: Speech is the mirror of action; and another that the strongest and most capable is king. He compared laws to spiders’ webs, which stand firm when any light and yielding object falls upon them, while a larger thing breaks through them and makes off. Secrecy he called the seal of speech, and occasion the seal of secrecy.

He used to say that those who had influence with tyrants were like the pebbles employed in calculations; for, as each of the pebbles represented now a large and now a small number, so the tyrants would treat each one of those about them at one time as great and famous, at another as of no account. On being asked why he had not framed any law against parricide,

he replied that he hoped it was unnecessary. Asked how crime could most effectually be diminished, he replied, If it caused as much resentment in those who are not its victims as in those who are, adding, Wealth breeds satiety, satiety outrage. He required the Athenians to adopt a lunar month. He prohibited Thespis from performing tragedies on the ground that fiction was pernicious.

When therefore Pisistratus appeared with self-inflicted wounds, Solon said, This comes from acting tragedies. His counsel to men in general is stated by Apollodorus in his work on the Philosophic Sects as follows: Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath. Never tell a lie. Pursue worthy aims. Do not be rash to make friends and, when once they are made, do not drop them. Learn to obey before you command. In giving advice seek to help, not to please, your friend. Be led by reason. Shun evil company. Honour the gods, reverence parents. He is also said to have criticized the couplet of Mimnermus:

Would that by no disease, no cares opprest,

I in my sixtieth year were laid to rest;