Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
so that not one of them escaped; and the Athenians set sail for the
island and took it.
Others say that it was not taken this way, but that he first received
this oracle from Delphi:
Those heroes that in fair Asopia rest,
All buried with their faces to the west,
Go and appease with offerings of the best;
and that Solon, sailing by night to the island, sacrificed to the heroes
Periphemus and Cychreus, and then, taking five hundred Athenian
volunteers (a law having passed that those that took the island should
be highest in the government), with a number of fisher-boats and one
thirty-oared ship, anchored in a bay of Salamis that looks towards
Nisaea; and the Megarians that were then in the island, hearing only an
uncertain report, hurried to their arms, and sent a ship to reconnoiter
the enemies. This ship Solon took, and, securing the Megarians, manned
it with Athenians, and gave them orders to sail to the island with as
much privacy as possible; meantime he, with the other soldiers, marched
against the Megarians by land, and whilst they were fighting, those from
the ship took the city. And this narrative is confirmed by the
following solemnity, that was afterwards observed: an Athenian ship used
to sail silently at first to the island, then, with noise and a great
shout, one leapt out armed, and with a loud cry ran to the promontory
Sciradium to meet those that approached upon the land. And just by
there stands a temple which Solon dedicated to Mars. For he beat the
Megarians, and as many as were not killed in the battle he sent away
upon conditions.
The Megarians, however, still contending, and both sides having received
considerable losses, they chose the Spartans for arbitrators. Now, many
affirm that Homer's authority did Solon a considerable kindness, and
that, introducing a line into the Catalog of Ships, when the matter was
to be determined, he read the passage as follows:
Twelve ships from Salamis stout Ajax brought,
And ranked his men where the Athenians fought.
The Athenians, however, call this but an idle story, and report, that
Solon made it appear to the judges, that Philaeus and Eurysaces, the
sons of Ajax, being made citizens of Athens, gave them the island, and
that one of them dwelt at Brauron in Attica, the other at Melite; and
they have a township of Philaidae, to which Pisistratus belonged,
deriving its name from this Philaeus. Solon took a farther argument
against the Megarians from the dead bodies, which, he said, were not
buried after their fashion but according to the Athenian; for the
Megarians turn the corpse to the east, the Athenians to the west. But
Hereas the Megarian denies this, and affirms that they likewise turn the
body to the west, and also that the Athenians have a separate tomb for
every body, but the Megarians put two or three into one. However, some
of Apollo's oracles, where he calls Salamis Ionian, made much for Solon.
This matter was determined by five Spartans, Critolaidas, Amompharetus,
Hypsechidas, Anaxilas, and Cleomenes.
For this, Solon grew famed and powerful; but his advice in favor of
defending the oracle at Delphi, to give aid, and not to suffer the
Cirrhaeans to profane it, but to maintain the honor of the god, got him
most repute among the Greeks: for upon his persuasion the Amphictyons
undertook the war, as, amongst others, Aristotle affirms, in his
enumeration of the victors at the Pythian games, where he makes Solon
the author of this counsel. Solon, however, was not general in that
expedition, as Hermippus states, out of Evanthes the Samian; for
Aeschines the orator says no such thing, and, in the Delphian register,
Alcmaeon, not Solon, is named as commander of the Athenians.
Now the Cylonian pollution had a long while disturbed the commonwealth,
ever since the time when Megacles the archon persuaded the conspirators
with Cylon that took sanctuary in Minerva's temple to come down and
stand to a fair trial. And they, tying a thread to the image, and
holding one end of it, went down to the tribunal; but when they came to
the temple of the Furies, the thread broke of its own accord, upon
which, as if the goddess had refused them protection, they were seized
by Megacles and the other magistrates; as many as were without the
temples were stoned, those that fled for sanctuary were butchered at the
altar, and only those escaped who made supplication to the wives of the
magistrates. But they from that time were considered under pollution,
and regarded with hatred. The remainder of the faction of Cylon grew
strong again, and had continual quarrels with the family of Megacles;
and now the quarrel being at its height, and the people divided, Solon,
being in reputation, interposed with the chiefest of the Athenians, and
by entreaty and admonition persuaded the polluted to submit to a trial
and the decision of three hundred noble citizens. And Myron of Phlya
being their accuser, they were found guilty, and as many as were then
alive were banished, and the bodies of the dead were dug up, and
scattered beyond the confines of the country. In the midst of these
distractions, the Megarians falling upon them, they lost Nisaea and
Salamis again; besides, the city was disturbed with superstitious fears
and strange appearances, and the priests declared that the sacrifices
intimated some villanies and pollutions that were to be expiated. Upon
this, they sent for Epimenides the Phaestian from Crete, who is counted
the seventh wise man by those that will not admit Periander into the
number. He seems to have been thought a favorite of heaven, possessed
of knowledge in all the supernatural and ritual parts of religion; and,
therefore, the men of his age called him a new Cures, and son of a
nymph named Balte. When he came to Athens, and grew acquainted with
Solon, he served him in many instances, and prepared the way for his
legislation. He made them moderate in their forms of worship, and
abated their mourning by ordering some sacrifices presently after the
funeral, and taking off those severe and barbarous ceremonies which the
women usually practiced; but the greatest benefit was his purifying and
sanctifying the city, by certain propitiatory and expiatory lustrations,
and foundation of sacred buildings; by that means making them more
submissive to justice, and more inclined to harmony. It is reported
that, looking upon Munychia, and considering a long while, he said to
those that stood by, "How blind is man in future things! for did the
Athenians foresee what mischief this would do their city, they would
even eat it with their own teeth to be rid of it." A similar
anticipation is ascribed to Thales; they say he commanded his friends to
bury him in an obscure and contemned quarter of the territory of
Miletus, saying that it should some day be the marketplace of the
Milesians. Epimenides, being much honored, and receiving from the city
rich offers of large gifts and privileges, requested but one branch of
the sacred olive, and, on that being granted, returned.
The Athenians, now the Cylonian sedition was over and the polluted gone
into banishment, fell into their old quarrels about the government,
there being as many different parties as there were diversities in the
country. The Hill quarter favored democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and
those that lived by the Sea-side stood for a mixed sort of government,
and so hindered either of the other parties from prevailing. And the
disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor, at that time, also
reached its height; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous
condition, and no other means for freeing it from disturbances and
settling it, to be possible but a despotic power. All the people were
indebted to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their
creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase, and were,
therefore, called Hectemorii and Thetes, or else they engaged their body
for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home,
or sold to strangers; some (for no law forbade it) were forced to sell
their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their
creditors; but the most part and the bravest of them began to combine
together and encourage one another to stand to it, to choose a leader,
to liberate the condemned debtors, divide the land,
and change the government.
Then the wisest of the Athenians, perceiving Solon was of all men the
only one not implicated in the troubles, that he had not joined in the
exactions of the rich, and was not involved in the necessities of the
poor, pressed him to succor the commonwealth and compose the
differences. Though Phanias the Lesbian affirms, that Solon, to save
his country, put a trick upon both parties, and privately promised the
poor a division of the lands, and the rich, security for their debts.
Solon, however, himself, says that it was reluctantly at first that he
engaged in state affairs, being afraid of the pride of one party and the
greediness of the other; he was chosen archon, however, after
Philombrotus, and empowered to be an arbitrator and lawgiver; the rich
consenting because he was wealthy, the poor because he was honest.
There was a saying of his current before the election, that when things
are even there never can be war, and this pleased both parties, the
wealthy and the poor; the one conceiving him to mean, when all have
their fair proportion; the others, when all are absolutely equal. Thus,
there being great hopes on both sides, the chief men pressed Solon to
take the government into his own hands, and, when he was once settled,
manage the business freely and according to his pleasure; and many of
the commons, perceiving it would be a difficult change to be effected by
law and reason, were willing to have one wise and just man set over the
affairs; and some say that Solon had this oracle from Apollo--
Take the mid-seat, and be the vessel's guide;
Many in Athens are upon your side.
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.--
--that I spared my land,
And withheld from usurpation and from violence my hand,
And forbore to fix a stain and a disgrace on my good name,
I regret not; I believe that it will be my chiefest fame.
From which it is manifest that he was a man of great reputation before
he gave his laws. The several mocks that were put upon him for refusing
the power, he records in these words,--
Solon surely was a dreamer, and a man of simple mind;
When the gods would give him fortune, he of his own will declined;
When the net was full of fishes, over-heavy thinking it,
He declined to haul it up, through want of heart and want of wit.
Had but I that chance of riches and of kingship, for one day,
I would give my skin for flaying, and my house to die away.
Thus he makes the many and the low people speak of him. Yet, though he
refused the government, he was not too mild in the affair; he did not
show himself mean and submissive to the powerful, nor make his laws to
pleasure those that chose him. For where it was well before, he applied
no remedy, nor altered anything, for fear lest,
Overthrowing altogether and disordering the state,
he should be too weak to new-model and recompose it to a tolerable
condition; but what he thought he could effect by persuasion upon the