Anacharsis, or Athletics (16-20)

ANACHARSIS Then, Solon, you amazing person, when you had such magnificent prizes to tell of, you spoke of apples and parsley and a sprig of wild olive and a bit of pine?

SOLON But really, Anacharsis, even those prizes will no longer appear trivial to you when you understand what I mean. They originate in the same purpose, and are all small parts of that greater contest and of the wreath of complete felicity which I mentioned. Our conversation, departing somehow or other from the natural sequence, touched first upon the doings at the Isthmus and Olympia and Nemea. However, as we are at leisure and you are eager, you say, to hear, it will be an easy matter for us to hark back to the -beginning, to the common competition which is, as I say, the object of all these practices.

ANACHARSIS It would be better, Solon, to do so, for by keeping to the highway our talk would make greater progress, and perhaps knowing these prizes may persuade me never again to laugh at those others, if I should see a man putting on airs because he wears a wreath of wild olive or parsley. But if it is all the same to you, let us go into the shade over yonder and sit on the benches, so as not to be annoyed by the men who are shouting at the wrestlers. Besides—I may as well be frank!—I no longer find it easy to stand the sun, which is fierce and burning as it beats upon my bare head. I thought it best to leave my cap at

home, so as not to be the only person among you in a foreign costume.[*]_ But the season of the year is the very fieriest, for the star which you call the Dog burns everything up and makes the air dry and parching, and the sun, now hanging overhead at midday, produces this blazing heat, insupportable to the body. I wonder, therefore, how it is that you, an elderly man, do not perspire in the heat as I do, and do not seem to be troubled by it at all; you do not even look about for a shady spot to enter, but stand the sun with ease.

SOLON These useless exertions, Anacharsis, the continual somersaults in the mud and the open-air struggles in the sand give us our immunity from the shafts of the sun and we have no further need of a cap to keep its rays from striking our heads.

Let us go, however. And take care not to regard everything that I may say to you as a law, so as to believe it at all hazards. Whenever you think I am incorrect in anything that I say, contradict me at once and set my reasoning straight. One thing or the other, certainly, we cannot fail to accomplish: either you will become firmly convinced after you have exhausted all the objections that you think ought to be made, or else I shall be taught that I am not correct in my view of the matter. In that event the entire city of Athens could not be too quick to

acknowledge its gratitude to you, because in so far as you instruct me and convert me to a better view, you will have conferred the grgatest possible benefit upon her. For I could not keep anything from her, but shall at once contribute it all to the public. Taking my stand in the Pnyx, I shall say to everyone: “Men of Athens, I made you the laws which I thought would’ be most beneficial to the city, but this guest of mine”—and then I shall point to you, Anacharsis,—“a Scythian, indeed, but a man of learning, has converted me and taught me other better forms of education and training. Therefore let him be written down as your benefactor, and set his statue up in bronze beside the Namesakes[*] or on the Acropolis beside Athena.” You may be very sure that the city of Athens will not be ashamed to learn what is to her advantage from a foreign guest.

ANACHARSIS Ah! that is just what I used to hear about you Athenians, that you never really mean what you say. For how could I, a nomad and a rover, who have lived my life on a wagon, visiting different lands at different seasons, and have never dwelt in a city or seen one until now—how could I hold forth upon statecraft and teach men sprung from the soil, who have inhabited this very ancient city for so many years in law and order? Above all, how could I teach you, Solon, who from the first, they say, have made it a special study to know how the government of a state

can be conducted best and what laws it should observe to be prosperous? However, in this too, since you are a law-giver, I must obey you; so I shall contradict you if I think that you are incorrect in anything that you say, in order that I may learn my lesson more thoroughly. See, we have escaped the sun and are now in the shade; here is a very delightful and opportune seat on the cool stone. So begin at the beginning and tell why you take your young men in hand and train them from their very boyhood, how they turn out excellent men as a result of the mud and the exercises, and what the dust and the somersaults contribute to their excellencé. That is what I was most eager to hear at the beginning: the rest you shall teach me later, as opportunity offers, each particular in its turn. But bear this in mind, please, Solon, throughout your talk, that you will be speaking to a foreigner. I say this in order that you may not make your explanations too involved or too long, for I am afraid that I may forget the commencement if the sequel should be too profuse in its flow.

SOLON You yourself, Anacharsis, can regulate that better, wherever you think that my discussion is not fully clear, or that it is meandering far from its channel in a random stream; for you can interpose any question that you will, and cut it short. But if what I say is not foreign to the case and beside the mark, there will be nothing, I suppose, to hinder, even if I should speak at length, since that is the

tradition in the court of the Areopagus, which judges our cases of manslaughter. Whenever it goes up to the Areopagus and holds a sitting to judge a case of manslaughter or premeditated wounding or arson, an opportunity to be heard is given to each party to the case, and the plaintiff and defendant plead in turn, either in person or through professional speakers whom they bring to the bar to plead in their behalf. As long as they speak about the case, the court tolerates them and listens in silence; but if anyone prefaces his speech with an introduction in order to make the court more favourable, or brings emotion or exaggeration into the case— tricks that are often devised by the disciples of rhetoric to influence the judges,—then the crier appears and silences them at once, preventing them from talking nonsense to the court and from tricking the case out in words, in order that the Areopagites may see the facts bare. So, Anacharsis, I make you an Areopagite for the present. Listen to me according to the custom of the court and tell me to be silent if you perceive that I am plying you with rhetoric. But as long as what I say is germane to the case, let me have the right to speak at length. Besides, we are not going to converse in the sun now, so that you would find it burdensome if my talk were prolonged; the shade is thick, and we have plenty of time.

ANACHARSIS What you say is reasonable, Solon, and already I am more than a little grateful to you for incidentally teaching me about what takes place in the Areopagus,

which is truly admirable and what good judges would do, who intend to cast their ballot in accordance with the facts. On these conditions, therefore, proceed, and in my _ capacity of Areopagite, since you have made me that, I shall give you a hearing in the manner of that court.

SOLON Then you must first let me tell you briefly what our ideas are about a city and its citizens. We consider that a city is not the buildings, such as walls and temples and docks. These constitute a firm-set, immovable body, so to speak, for the shelter and protection of the community, but the whole significance is in the citizens, we hold, for it is they _ who fill it, plan and carry out everything, and keep it safe; they are something like what the soul is within the individual. So, having noted this, we naturally take care of the city’s body, as you see, beautifying. it so that it may be as fair as possible, not only well furnished inside with buildings but most securely fenced with these external ramparts. But above all and at all hazards we endeavour to insure that the citizens shall be virtuous in soul and strong in body, thinking that such men, joined together in public life, will make good use of themselves in times of peace, will bring the city safe out of war, and will keep it always free and prosperous. Their early upbringing we entrust to mothers, nurses, and tutors, to train and rear them with

liberal teachings; but when at length they become able to understand what is right, when modesty, shame, fear, and ambition spring up in them, and when at length their very bodies seem well fitted for hardships as they get firmer and become more strongly compacted, then we take them in hand and teach them, not only prescribing them certain disciplines and exercises for the soul, but in certain other ways habituating their bodies also to hardships. We have not thought it sufficient for each man to be as he was born, either in body or in soul, but we want education and disciplines for them by which their good traits may be much improved and their bad altered for the better. We take example from the farmers, who shelter and enclose their plants while they are small and young, so that they may not be injured by the breezes: but when the stalk at last begins to thicken, they prune away the excessive growth and expose them te the winds to be shaken and tossed, in that way making them more fruitful.