The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [266]
8. And especially Pisistratus exhorted the citizens to obey its call;
9. Insomuch that they revoked the law, and renewed the war under Solon’s conduct.
10. With Pisistratus he sailed to Colias, and, finding the women celebrating a festival according to the custom of the country,
11. He sent a trusty friend to Salamis, who should pretend himself a renegade, to advise them that if they desired to seize the chief Athenian women, to come at once to Colias.
12. The Megarians immediately sent their men with him; and Solon, seeing them sail from the island,
13. Commanded some beardless youths, dressed in the women’s clothing and secretly armed with daggers, to dance and play near the shore till the enemies had landed.
14. The Megarians were allured with the appearance, and coming to shore, jumped out, eager who should first seize a prize.
15. Not one of them escaped; and the Athenians set sail for Salamis and captured it.
16. Others give a different account of the island’s capture.
17. They say that Solon, sailing by night with five hundred Athenian volunteers in several fisher-boats and one thirty-oared ship,
18. Anchored in a bay of Salamis that looks towards Nisaea;
19. And the Megarians who were then on the island, hearing only an uncertain report, hurried to their arms, and sent a ship to reconnoitre.
20. This ship Solon took, and manned it with Athenians, and gave them orders to sail round the island as secretly as possible;
21. Meanwhile he and the other soldiers marched against the Megarians by land, and while they were fighting, those from the ship took the city.
22. For these exploits, Solon grew famous and powerful.
Chapter 19
1. Soon afterwards the Athenians again fell into their old quarrels about the government,
2. There being as many different parties as there were diversities in the country.
3. The Hill quarter favoured democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and those that lived by the Seaside stood for a mixed government,
4. And so each hindered either of the other parties from prevailing.
5. The disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor, at that time, was at a height;
6. So the city seemed in a truly dangerous condition, with despotic power seeming to be the only means possible for freeing it from disturbances.
7. All the people were in debt to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase,
8. Or else they mortgaged their own bodies for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home, or sold to strangers.
9. Some, for no law forbade it, were forced to sell their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their creditors.
10. But the bravest of them began to combine together and encourage one another to stand firm and choose a leader,
11. To liberate the condemned debtors, redistribute the land and change the government.
12. Then the wisest of the Athenians, perceiving that Solon was the only one not implicated in the troubles,
13. For he had not joined in the exactions of the rich, and was not involved in the necessities of the poor,
14. Pressed him to succour the commonwealth and resolve the differences.
15. Solon himself says that he engaged in state affairs reluctantly at first, being afraid of the pride of one party and the greediness of the other;
16. But he accepted the office of archon and was empowered as arbitrator and lawgiver,
17. The rich consenting because he was wealthy, the poor because he was honest.
18. There was a saying of his current before his appointment,
19. That when things are even there never can be war, and this pleased both parties,
20. The one taking him to mean, when all have their fair proportion; the others, when all are absolutely equal.
21. So the chief men pressed Solon to take the government into his own hands, and, when he was once settled, to manage it freely and according to his determination.
22. The common people, thinking it would be difficult