The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [269]
12. With good reason thinking that being seduced into wrong was as bad as being forced,
13. And that between deceit and necessity, flattery and compulsion, there was little difference, since both can suspend the exercise of reason.
14. Observing Athens to be filled with persons that flocked from all parts into Attica for security of living,
15. And that most of the country was barren and unfruitful,
16. And that traders at sea import nothing to those that could give them nothing in exchange,
17. He turned his citizens to trade, and made a law that no son should be obliged to support an ageing father who had not bred him up to a calling.
18. It is true that Lycurgus, having a city free from all strangers, and land large enough for twice the population,
19. And above all, an abundance of slaves about Sparta, did well to relieve his citizens from laborious and mechanical occupations, and keep them only to the art of war.
20. But Solon, fitting his laws to the state of things, and not making things to suit his laws,
21. And finding the ground scarce rich enough to maintain the husbandmen, and altogether incapable of feeding an unoccupied and leisurely multitude,
22. Brought trades into credit, and ordered the Areopagites to examine how every man got his living, and to chastise the idle.
23. Solon’s laws in general about women are his strangest; for he permitted anyone to kill an adulterer that found him in the act;
24. But if anyone forced a free woman, a hundred drachmas was the fine; if he enticed her, twenty;
25. Except those that sell themselves freely, that is, harlots, who go openly to those that hire them.
26. He made it unlawful to sell a daughter or a sister, unless, being yet unmarried, she was found wanton.
27. Since Attica has few rivers, lakes or large springs, and many relied on wells they had dug,
28. There was a law made, that, where there was a public well within four furlongs, all should draw at that;
29. But, when it was farther off, they should try to make a well of their own;
30. And, if they had dug ten fathoms deep and could find no water, they had liberty to fetch a pitcherful of four gallons and a half a day from their neighbours’ well;
31. For he thought it prudent to make provision against want, but not to supply laziness.
32. He permitted only oil to be exported, and those that exported any other fruit, the archon was solemnly to fine a hundred drachmas.
33. He made a law concerning hurts and injuries from beasts,
34. In which he commanded the master of any dog that bit a man to deliver him up with a log about his neck, four and a half feet long; a happy device for men’s security.
35. He permitted only those foreigners to be made free of Athens who were in perpetual exile from their own country, or came with their whole family to trade.
36. He did this not to discourage strangers, but to invite them to a permanent participation in the privileges of the government;
37. And, besides, he thought those would prove the more faithful citizens who had been forced from their own country, or voluntarily forsook it.
38. All his laws he established for a hundred years, and wrote them on wooden tables; and the council and people made solemn promises to abide by them.
Chapter 24
1. Now when these laws were enacted, and some came to Solon every day, to commend or dispraise them,
2. And to advise, if possible, to leave out, or put in something,
3. And many criticised, and desired him to explain, and tell the meaning of such and such a passage,
4. He, knowing that to do it was useless, and not to do it would get him ill-will,
5. And desirous to bring himself out of all straits, and to escape all displeasure and exceptions,
6. It being a hard thing, as he himself says, ‘In great affairs to satisfy all sides’,
7. Decided to travel, and as an excuse bought a trading vessel, and, having obtained leave for ten years’ absence,
8. Departed, hoping that by that time his laws would