Lives of Eminent Philosophers (1.2.61-1.2.65)

and to have replied thus[*]:

Oh take a friend’s suggestion, blot the line,

Grudge not if my invention better thine;

Surely a wiser wish were thus expressed,

At eighty years let me be laid to rest.

Watch every man and see whether, hiding hatred in his

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heart, he speaks with friendly countenance, and his tongue rings with double speech from a dark soul.

He is undoubtedly the author of the laws which bear his name; of speeches, and of poems in elegiac metre, namely, counsels addressed to himself, on Salamis and on the Athenian constitution, five thousand lines in all, not to mention poems in iambic metre and epodes.

His statue has the following inscription[*]:

At Salamis, which crushed the Persian might,

Solon the legislator first saw light.

He flourished, according to Sosicrates, about the 46th Olympiad, in the third year of which he was archon at Athens[*]; it was then that he enacted his laws. He died in Cyprus at the age of eighty. His last injunctions to his relations were on this wise: that they should convey his bones to Salamis and, when they had been reduced to ashes, scatter them over the soil. Hence Cratinus in his play, The Chirons, makes him say[*]:

This is my island home; my dust, men say,

Is scattered far and wide o’er Ajax’ land.

An epigram of my own is also contained in the collection of Epigrams in Various Metres mentioned above, where I have discoursed of all the illustrious dead in all metres and rhythms, in epigrams and lyrics. Here it is[*]:

Far Cyprian fire his body burnt; his bones,

Turned into dust, made grain at Salamis:

Wheel-like, his pillars bore his soul on high;

So light the burden of his laws on men.

It is said that he was the author of the apophthegm Nothing too much, Ne quid nimis. According to Dioscurides in his Memorabilia, when he was weeping for the loss of his son, of whom nothing more is known, and some one said to him, It is all of no avail, he replied, That is why I weep, because it is of no avail.

The following letters are attributed to Solon:

Solon to Periander

You tell me that many are plotting against you. You must lose no time if you want to get rid of them all. A conspirator against you might arise from a quite unexpected quarter, say, one who had fears for his personal safety or one who disliked your timorous dread of anything and everything. He would earn the gratitude of the city who found out that you had no suspicion. The best course would be to resign power, and so be quit of the reproach. But if you must at all hazards remain tyrant, endeavour to make your mercenary force stronger than the forces of the city. Then you have no one to fear, and need not banish any one.

Solon to Epimenides

It seems that after all I was not to confer much benefit on Athenians by my laws, any more than you by purifying the city. For religion and legislation are not sufficient in themselves to benefit cities; it can only be done by those who lead the multitude in any direction they choose. And so, if things are going well, religion and legislation are beneficial; if not, they are of no avail.

Nor are my laws nor all my enactments any better; but the popular leaders did the commonwealth harm by permitting licence, and could not hinder Pisistratus from setting up a tyranny. And, when I warned them, they would not believe me. He found more credit when he flattered the people than I when I told them the truth. I laid my arms down before the generals’ quarters and told the people that I was wiser than those who did not see that Pisistratus was aiming at tyranny, and more courageous than those who shrank from resisting him. They, however, denounced Solon as mad. And at last I protested: My country, I, Solon, am ready to defend thee by word and deed; but some of my countrymen think me mad. Wherefore I will go forth out of their midst as the sole opponent of Pisistratus; and let them, if they like, become his bodyguard. For you must know, my friend, that he was beyond measure ambitious to be tyrant.