The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [264]
7. He was then at an age when life is still tolerable, yet might be quitted without regret.
8. This latter he did by fasting, thinking it a statesman’s duty to make his very death, if possible, an act of service to the state, and even at the end of life to give some example of virtue.
9. He was not deceived in his expectation that he would secure to his countrymen the advantages he had spent his life obtaining for them,
10. For Sparta continued the chief city of Greece for five hundred years, in strict observance of his laws, during the reign of fourteen kings down to the time of Agis son of Archidamus.
11. And even then, the creation of ephors made in Agis’ day was so far from diminishing, that it much heightened the balanced character of the government,
12. So that it continued Lycurgus’ monument afterwards, until the Pyrrhic victory of its defeat of Athens in that war which Thucydides later recorded.
Chapter 16: Solon of Athens
1. Solon the lawgiver and teacher of Athens was the son of Execestides, a man of moderate wealth and influence in the city, but of noble stock; his mother was cousin to the mother of Pisistratus.
2. He and this latter were at first great friends, partly because they were kin, and partly because of Pisistratus’ noble qualities and beauty.
3. They say Solon loved him; which is the reason that when afterwards they differed about the government,
4. Their enmity never produced any violent passion, for they remembered their old kindnesses, and retained, though in its embers, the once strong fire of their love.
5. As this shows, Solon was not proof against beauty, nor did he lack courage to stand up to passion and meet it.
6. Solon’s father ruined the family estate by his benefits and kindnesses to others,
7. So Solon applied himself to trade, though he had friends enough willing to help him;
8. But as one descended from a family who were accustomed to do kindnesses rather than receive them, he preferred independence.
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