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When the Egyptian priest said to Solon, 'You Greeks are always children, he intended a gentle sarcasm, but he implied a compliment; for the quality of imperishable youth belonged to the Hellenic spirit, and has become the heritage of every race which partook of it. And this spirit in no common degree has been shared by the Italians of the earlier and the later classic epoch.
Solon, as Hermippus writes, when his father had ruined his estate in doing benefits and kindnesses to other men, though he had friends enough that were willing to contribute to his relief, yet was ashamed to be beholden to others, since he was descended from a family who were accustomed to do kindnesses rather than receive them; and therefore applied himself to merchandise in his youth; though others assure us that he traveled rather to get learning and experience than to make money.
The Athenians had previously possessed the power of selling their children and sisters; and even Solon allowed fathers, brothers, and guardians, this right, if their daughters, sisters, and wards, had lost their innocence. From various enactments, it appears that adultery was extremely common, and female modesty could not be preserved even by legislative restraint.
For tragedy, there was the look my queen lavished upon Solon when she heard his sentence; a look of blushing merriment, with a maddening dash of pity in it, he was to suffer because of her. "'Twas your beauty that made me do it," he might have quoted, with the old result.
For Solon held that a man's reason was perverted by deceit as much as by violence, and by pleasure no less than by pain. He regulated, moreover, the journeys of the women, and their mournings and festivals.
For this, a strong force and a vehement impulse will be necessary.... Citizens, the inflexible austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis of the Spartan republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Solon plunged Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the whole science of Government." Lepelletier.
Lydia was overcome, Sardis, his capital, was burnt, and he was about to be slain, when, remembering the warning, “Call no man happy till his death,” he cried out, “O Solon, Solon, Solon!” Cyrus heard him, and bade that he should be asked what it meant. The story so struck the great king, that he spared Crœsus, and kept him as his adviser for the rest of his life.
Scarcely had Solon and I got on board by a shore boat, than a breeze coming off the land, the Orion's anchor was hove up, and we stood out of the bay of Santa Cruz. We had now got the steady north-east trade-wind, and away went the Orion, at the rate of nine knots, through the water.
I wished for something more than just the common course of what is called the tour of Europe, and Corsica occurred to me as a place where nobody else had been. It may have been suggested to him by Rousseau, who had been engaged in some vague scheme of philandering philanthropy by which the wild philosopher was to play the Solon and the Lycurgus of the distressed islanders, and establish a fresh code of laws upon the basis of his new fraternity, but with which 'this steady patriot of the world alone, as Canning styles him, 'the friend of every country but his own, managed to mix in a much more practical way some not very honourable, if characteristic, intrigues for the surrender of the island to France.
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