Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
When it is neither humored nor oppressed.
The remission of debts was peculiar to Solon; it was his great means for
confirming the citizens' liberty; for a mere law to give all men equal
rights is but useless, if the poor must sacrifice those rights to their
debts, and, in the very seats and sanctuaries of equality, the courts of
justice, the offices of state, and the public discussions, be more than
anywhere at the beck and bidding of the rich. A yet more extraordinary
success was, that, although usually civil violence is caused by any
remission of debts, upon this one occasion this dangerous but powerful
remedy actually put an end to civil violence already existing, Solon's
own private worth and reputation overbalancing all the ordinary ill-
repute and discredit of the change. The beginning of his government was
more glorious, for he was entirely original, and followed no man's
example, and, without the aid of any ally, achieved his most important
measures by his own conduct; yet the close of Poplicola's life was more
happy and desirable, for Solon saw the dissolution of his own
commonwealth, Poplicola's maintained the state in good order down to the
civil wars. Solon, leaving his laws, as soon as he had made them,
engraven in wood, but destitute of a defender, departed from Athens;
whilst Poplicola, remaining, both in and out of office, labored to
establish the government Solon, though he actually knew of Pisistratus's
ambition, yet was not able to suppress it, but had to yield to
usurpation in its infancy; whereas Poplicola utterly subverted and
dissolved a potent monarchy, strongly settled by long continuance;
uniting thus to virtues equal to those, and purposes identical with
those of Solon, the good fortune and the power that alone could make
them effective.
In military exploits, Daimachus of Plataea will not even allow Solon the
conduct of the war against the Megarians, as was before intimated; but
Poplicola was victorious in the most important conflicts, both as a
private soldier and commander. In domestic politics, also, Solon, in
play, as it were, and by counterfeiting madness, induced the enterprise
against Salamis; whereas Poplicola, in the very beginning, exposed
himself to the greatest risk, took arms against Tarquin, detected the
conspiracy, and, being principally concerned both in preventing the
escape of and afterwards punishing the traitors, not only expelled the
tyrants from the city, but extirpated their very hopes. And as, in
cases calling for contest and resistance and manful opposition, he
behaved with courage and resolution, so, in instances where peaceable
language, persuasion, and concession were requisite, he was yet more to
be commended; and succeeded in gaining happily to reconciliation and
friendship, Porsenna, a terrible and invincible enemy. Some may,
perhaps, object, that Solon recovered Salamis, which they had lost, for
the Athenians; whereas Poplicola receded from part of what the Romans
were at that time possessed of; but judgment is to be made of actions
according to the times in which they were performed. The conduct of a
wise politician is ever suited to the present posture of affairs; often
by foregoing a part he saves the whole, and by yielding in a small
matter secures a greater; and so Poplicola, by restoring what the Romans
had lately usurped, saved their undoubted patrimony, and procured,
moreover, the stores of the enemy for those who were only too thankful
to secure their city. Permitting the decision of the controversy to his
adversary, he not only got the victory, but likewise what he himself
would willingly have given to purchase the victory, Porsenna putting an
end to the war, and leaving them all the provision of his camp, from the
sense of the virtue and gallant disposition of the Romans which their
consul had impressed upon him.
THEMISTOCLES
The birth of Themistocles was somewhat too obscure to do him honor. His
father, Neocles, was not of the distinguished people of Athens, but of
the township of Phrearrhi, and of the tribe Leontis; and by his mother's
side, as it is reported, he was base-born.
I am not of the noble Grecian race,
I'm poor Abrotonon, and born in Thrace;
Let the Greek women scorn me, if they please,
I was the mother of Themistocles.
Yet Phanias writes that the mother of Themistocles was not of Thrace,
but of Caria, and that her name was not Abrotonon, but Euterpe; and
Neanthes adds farther that she was of Halicarnassus in Caria. And, as
illegitimate children, including those that were of the half-blood or
had but one parent an Athenian, had to attend at the Cynosarges (a
wrestling-place outside the gates, dedicated to Hercules, who was also
of half-blood amongst the gods, having had a mortal woman for his
mother), Themistocles persuaded several of the young men of high birth
to accompany him to anoint and exercise themselves together at
Cynosarges; an ingenious device for destroying the distinction between
the noble and the base-born, and between those of the whole and those of
the half blood of Athens. However, it is certain that he was related to
the house of the Lycomedae; for Simonides records, that he rebuilt the
chapel of Phlya, belonging to that family, and beautified it with
pictures and other ornaments, after it had been burnt by the Persians.
It is confessed by all that from his youth he was of a vehement and
impetuous nature, of a quick apprehension, and a strong and aspiring
bent for action and great affairs. The holidays and intervals in his
studies he did not spend in play or idleness, as other children, but
would be always inventing or arranging some oration or declamation to
himself, the subject of which was generally the excusing or accusing his
companions, so that his master would often say to him, "You, my boy,
will be nothing small, but great one way or other, for good or else for
bad." He received reluctantly and carelessly instructions given him to
improve his manners and behavior, or to teach him any pleasing or
graceful accomplishment, but whatever was said to improve him in
sagacity, or in management of affairs, he would give attention to,
beyond one of his years, from confidence in his natural capacities for
such things. And thus afterwards, when in company where people engaged
themselves in what are commonly thought the liberal and elegant
amusements, he was obliged to defend himself against the observations of
those who considered themselves highly accomplished, by the somewhat
arrogant retort, that he certainly could not make use of any stringed
instrument, could only, were a small and obscure city put into his
hands, make it great and glorious. Notwithstanding this, Stesimbrotus
says that Themistocles was a hearer of Anaxagoras, and that he studied
natural philosophy under Melissus, contrary to chronology; for Melissus
commanded the Samians in their siege by Pericles, who was much
Themistocles's junior; and with Pericles, also, Anaxagoras was intimate.
They, therefore, might rather be credited, who report, that Themistocles
was an admirer of Mnesiphilus the Phrearrhian, who was neither
rhetorician nor natural philosopher, but a professor of that which was
then called wisdom, consisting in a sort of political shrewdness and
practical sagacity, which had begun and continued, almost like a sect of
philosophy, from Solon; but those who came afterwards, and mixed it with
pleadings and legal artifices, and transformed the practical part of it
into a mere art of speaking and an exercise of words, were generally
called sophists. Themistocles resorted to Mnesiphilus when he had
already embarked in politics.
In the first essays of his youth he was not regular nor happily
balanced; he allowed himself to follow mere natural character, which,
without the control of reason and instruction, is apt to hurry, upon
either side, into sudden and violent courses, and very often to break
away and determine upon the worst; as he afterwards owned himself,
saying, that the wildest colts make the best horses, if they only get
properly trained and broken in. But those who upon this fasten stories
of their own invention, as of his being disowned by his father, and that
his mother died for grief of her son's ill fame, certainly calumniate
him; and there are others who relate, on the contrary, how that to deter
him from public business, and to let him see how the vulgar behave
themselves towards their leaders when they have at last no farther use
of them, his father showed him the old galleys as they lay forsaken and
cast about upon the sea-shore.
Yet it is evident that his mind was early imbued with the keenest
interest in public affairs, and the most passionate ambition for
distinction. Eager from the first to obtain the highest place, he
unhesitatingly accepted the hatred of the most powerful and influential
leaders in the city, but more especially of Aristides, the son of
Lysimachus, who always opposed him. And yet all this great enmity
between them arose, it appears, from a very boyish occasion, both being
attached to the beautiful Stesilaus of Ceos, as Ariston the philosopher
tells us; ever after which, they took opposite sides, and were rivals in
politics. Not but that the incompatibility of their lives and manners
may seem to have increased the difference, for Aristides was of a mild
nature, and of a nobler sort of character, and, in public matters,
acting always with a view, not to glory or popularity, but to the best
interests of the state consistently with safety and honesty, he was
often forced to oppose Themistocles, and interfere against the increase
of his influence, seeing him stirring up the people to all kinds of
enterprises, and introducing various innovations. For it is said that
Themistocles was so transported with the thoughts of glory, and so
inflamed with the passion for great actions, that, though he was still
young when the battle of Marathon was fought against the Persians, upon
the skillful conduct of the general, Miltiades, being everywhere talked
about, he was observed to be thoughtful, and reserved, alone by him
self; he passed the nights without sleep, and avoided all his usual
places of recreation, and to those who wondered at the change, and
inquired the reason of it, he gave the answer, that "the trophy of
Miltiades would not let him sleep." And when others were of opinion
that the battle of Marathon would be an end to the war, Themistocles
thought that it was but the beginning of far greater conflicts, and for
these, to the benefit of all Greece, he kept himself in continual
readiness, and his city also in proper training, foreseeing from far
before what would happen.
And, first of all, the Athenians being accustomed to divide amongst
themselves the revenue proceeding from the silver mines at Laurium, he
was the only man that dared propose to the people that this distribution
should cease, and that with the money ships should be built to make war
against the Aeginetans, who were the most flourishing people in all
Greece, and by the number of their ships held the sovereignty of the
sea; and Themistocles thus was more easily able to persuade them,
avoiding all mention of danger from Darius or the Persians, who were at
a great distance, and their coming very uncertain, and at that time not
much to be feared; but, by a seasonable employment of the emulation and
anger felt by the Athenians against the Aeginetans, he induced them to
preparation. So that with this money a hundred ships were built, with
which they afterwards fought against Xerxes. And, henceforward, little
by little, turning and drawing the city down towards the sea, in the
belief, that, whereas by land they were not a fit match for their next