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HERMOCRATES: 'We will do our best, and have been already preparing; for on our way home, Critias told us of an ancient tradition, which I wish, Critias, that you would repeat to Socrates. 'I will, if Timaeus approves. 'I approve. Listen then, Socrates, to a tale of Solon's, who, being the friend of Dropidas my great-grandfather, told it to my grandfather Critias, and he told me.
And he added other laws, one of which is that the maimed in the wars should be maintained at the public charge; this Heraclides Ponticus records, and that Pisistratus followed Solon's example in this, who had decreed it in the case of one Thersippus, that was maimed; and Theophrastus asserts that it was Pisistratus, not Solon, that made that law against laziness, which was the reason that the country was more productive, and the city tranquiller.
Observe, for instance, Solon's definition of happiness before Croesus, how much better it suits Poplicola than Tellus. He says that Tellus was fortunate because of his good luck, his virtue, and his noble children; but yet he makes no mention of him or of his children in his poetry, and he never was a man of any renown, or held any high office.
Solon's laws in general about women are his strangest; for he permitted any one to kill an adulterer that found him in the act; but if any one forced a free woman, a hundred drachmas was the fine; if he enticed her, twenty; except those that sell themselves openly, that is, harlots, who go openly to those that hire them.
Solon's weak confidence threw Athens into fresh slavery, while Lycurgus's severity founded the republic of Sparta on an immovable basis." These words, which come from a decree of the Committee of Public Safety, might well be taken for an excerpt from the Social Contract.
The result of this is, that old age is even more confident and courageous than youth. That is the meaning of Solon's answer to the tyrant Pisistratus. When the latter asked him what he relied upon in opposing him with such boldness, he is said to have replied, "On my old age."
In the yard next to Solon's, Tobin Crowder, of Crowder & Fancett, Lumber, Coal and Building Supplies, had left a magnificent green wagon-box flat upon the ground, a thing so fine that it was almost a game of itself. An imagination of even the second order could at once render it supremely fascinating.
"I felt it strongly when I perused the columns of the newspaper which Mr. Denney was thoughtful enough to send me." Solon's eyes uneasily sought the cabbage-like flowers in the faded carpet of the room. "And I feel it more strongly now that I have ventured among you," continued the lady, glowing upon us both.
The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves, an abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic. Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility.
XXIX. During Solon's absence the strife of the factions at Athens was renewed; Lykurgus was the chief of the party of the Pediaei, Megakles, the son of Alkmaeon, led the Parali, and Peisistratus, the Diakrii, who were joined by the mass of the poorer classes who hated the rich.
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