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It is now five months since you were appointed by your sagacious Athenian assembly as commissioner to administer the silver taken from the mines at Laurium and devoted to your navy. You fulfilled the people’s confidence by diverting much of this money to the payment of your own great debts to the banker Pittacus of Argos.
It was a very true story, quoth Pittacus, and there are divers still alive who will attest it, if need be. The builders or founders of Lesbos were commanded by the oracle to sail till they came to a haven called Mesogaeum, there they should sacrifice a bull to Neptune, and for the honor of Amphitrite and the sea-nymphs they should offer a virgin.
As thus: Solon's "Know thyself" might be fitted to an Eastern favourite raised suddenly to power, or a poor and honest Glasgow weaver all upon a day served as heir to a Scotch barony, when he forthwith falls into fashionable vices. The "Watch your opportunity" of Pittacus could be shown in the fortunes of some Whittington of trade, some Washington of peace, or some Napoleon of war.
But chiefly his familiar friends chid him for disaffecting monarchy only because of the name, as if the virtue of the ruler could not make it a lawful form; Euboea had made this experiment when it chose Tynnondas, and Mitylene, which had made Pittacus its prince; yet this could not shake Solon's resolution; but, as they say, he replied to his friends, that it was true a tyranny was a very fair spot, but it had no way down from it; and in a copy of verses to Phocus he writes.
Later on, however, Neanthus, son of the tyrant Pittacus, hearing how the lyre had charmed beasts and trees and stones, and how after Orpheus's destruction it had played of its own accord, conceived a violent fancy for the instrument, and by means of a considerable bribe prevailed upon the priest to give him the genuine lyre, and replace it with one of similar appearance.
But having become good, to remain in a good state and be good, as you, Pittacus, affirm, is not possible, and is not granted to man; God only has this blessing; 'but man cannot help being bad when the force of circumstances overpowers him. Now whom does the force of circumstance overpower in the command of a vessel? not the private individual, for he is always overpowered; and as one who is already prostrate cannot be overthrown, and only he who is standing upright but not he who is prostrate can be laid prostrate, so the force of circumstances can only overpower him who, at some time or other, has resources, and not him who is at all times helpless.
Pittacus, Thales, Arctinus, were among the great names she gave to science and to song. Worthy of her renown, she fell amid the ruins of that freedom which she showed how nobly she could have continued to adorn by proving how sternly she could defend. The greater part of the citizens were slain those who remained, with the women and the children, were borne into slavery by the victors.
And is there not a contradiction? he asked. Reflect. Well, my friend, I have reflected. And does not the poet proceed to say, 'I do not agree with the word of Pittacus, albeit the utterance of a wise man: Hardly can a man be good'? Now you will observe that this is said by the same poet. I know it. And do you think, he said, that the two sayings are consistent? And you think otherwise?
He is the man whom the oracle meant." The name of Pittacus was known all over the world. He was a brave soldier and a wise teacher. The people of his country had made him their king; but as soon as he had made good laws for them he gave up his crown. One of his mottoes was this: "Whatever you do, do it well." The messengers found him in his house talking to his friends and teaching them wisdom.
However, having received the expected, or rather the required, compliment on his sobriety, the Baron proceeded 'No, sir, though I am myself of a strong temperament, I abhor ebriety, and detest those who swallow wine gulce causa, for the oblectation of the gullet; albeit I might deprecate the law of Pittacus of Mitylene, who punished doubly a crime committed under the influence of 'Liber Pater'; nor would I utterly accede to the objurgation of the younger Plinius, in the fourteenth book of his 'Historia Naturalis. No, sir, I distinguish, I discriminate, and approve of wine so far only as it maketh glad the face, or, in the language of Flaccus, recepto amico.
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