The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
acquainted), and when some one said to him, “You do no good by weeping,”
he replied, “But that is the very reason why I weep, because I do no
good.”
XVII. The following letters also are attributed to him:—
SOLON TO PERIANDER.
You send me word that many people are plotting against you; but if you
were to think of putting everyone of them out of the way, you would do
no good; but some one whom you do not suspect would still plot against
you, partly because he would fear for himself, and partly out of dislike
to you for fearing all sorts of things; and he would think, too, that he
would make the city grateful to him, even if you were not suspected. It
is better, therefore, to abstain from the tyranny, in order to escape
from blame. But if you absolutely must be a tyrant, then you had better
provide for having a foreign force in the city superior to that of the
citizens; and then no one need be formidable to you, nor need you put any
one out of the way.
SOLON TO EPIMENIDES.
XVIII. My laws were not destined to be long of service to the Athenians,
nor have you done any great good by purifying the city. For neither
can the Deity nor lawgivers do much good to cities by themselves; but
these people rather give this power, who, from time to time, can lead
the people in any opinions they choose; so also the Deity and the laws,
when the citizens are well governed, are useful; but when they are ill
governed, they are no good. Nor are my laws or all the enactments that
I made, any better; but those who were in power transgressed them, and
did great injury to the commonwealth, inasmuch as they did not hinder
Pisistratus from usurping the tyranny. Nor did they believe me when I
gave them warning beforehand. But he obtained more credit than I did,
who flattered the Athenians while I told him the truth: but I, placing
my arms before the principal council-house, being wiser than they, told
those who had no suspicion of it, that Pisistratus was desirous to
make himself a tyrant; and I showed myself more valiant than those who
hesitated to defend the state against him. But they condemned the madness
of Solon. But at last I spoke loudly—“O, my country, I, Solon, here am
ready to defend you by word and deed; but to these men I seem to be mad.
So I will depart from you, being the only antagonist of Pisistratus; and
let these men be his guards if they please.” For you know the man, my
friend, and how cleverly he seized upon the tyranny. He first began by
being a demagogue; then, having inflicted wounds on himself, he came to
the Heliæa, crying out, and saying, “That he had been treated in this
way by his enemies.” And he entreated the people to assign him as guards
four hundred young men; and they, disregarding my advice, gave them to
him. And they were all armed with bludgeons. And after that he put down
the democracy. They in vain hoped to deliver the poor from their state of
slavery, and so now they are all of them slaves to Pisistratus.
SOLON TO PISISTRATUS.
I am well assured that I should suffer no evil at your hands. For before
your assumption of the tyranny I was a friend of yours, and now my case
is not different from that of any other Athenian who is not pleased
with tyranny. And whether it is better for them to be governed by one
individual, or to live under a democracy, that each person may decide
according to his own sentiments. And I admit that of all tyrants you are
the best. But I do not judge it to be good for me to return to Athens,
lest any one should blame me, for, after having established equality of
civil rights among the Athenians, and after having refused to be a tyrant
myself when it was in my power, returning now and acquiescing in what you
are doing.
SOLON TO CRŒSUS.
XX. I thank you for your goodwill towards me. And, by Minerva, if I did
not think it precious above everything to live in a democracy, I would
willingly prefer living in your palace with you to living at Athens,
since Pisistratus has made himself tyrant by force. But life is more
pleasant to me where justice and equality prevail universally. However,
I will come and see you, being anxious to enjoy your hospitality for a
season.
LIFE OF CHILO.
I. Chilo was a Lacedæmonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses
in elegiac metre to the number of two hundred: and it was a saying of
his that a foresight of future events, such as could be arrived at by
consideration was the virtue of a man. He also said once to his brother,
who was indignant at not being an ephor, while he himself was one, “The
reason is because I know how to bear injustice; but you do not.” And he
was made ephor in the fifty-fifth Olympiad; but Pamphila says that it
was in the fifty-sixth. And he was made first ephor in the year of the
archonship of Euthydemus, as we are told by Sosicrates. Chilo was also
the first person who introduced the custom of joining the ephors to the
kings as their counsellors: though Satyrus attributes this institution
to Lycurgus. He, as Herodotus says in his first book, when Hippocrates
was sacrificing at Olympia, and the cauldrons began to boil of their own
accord, advised him either to marry, or, if he were married already, to
discard his wife, and disown his children.
II. They tell a story, also, of his having asked Æsop what Jupiter was
doing, and that Æsop replied, “He is lowering what is high, and exalting
what is low.” Being asked in what educated men differed from those who
were illiterate, he said, “In good hopes.” Having had the question put
to him, What was difficult, he said, “To be silent about secrets; to
make good use of one’s leisure, and to be able to submit to injustice.”
And besides these three things he added further, “To rule one’s tongue,
especially at a banquet, and not to speak ill of one’s neighbours; for
if one does so one is sure to hear what one will not like.” He advised,
moreover, “To threaten no one; for that is a womanly trick. To be more
prompt to go to one’s friends in adversity than in prosperity. To make
but a moderate display at one’s marriage. Not to speak evil of the dead.
To honour old age.—To keep a watch upon one’s self.—To prefer punishment
to disgraceful gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for
one’s whole life.—Not to laugh at a person in misfortune.—If one is
strong to be also merciful, so that one’s neighbours may respect one
rather than fear one.—To learn how to regulate one’s own house well.—Not
to let one’s tongue outrun one’s sense.—To restrain anger.—Not to dislike
divination.—Not to desire what is impossible.—Not to make too much haste
on one’s road.—When speaking not to gesticulate with the hand; for that
is like a madman.—To obey the laws.—To love quiet.”
And of all his songs this one was the most approved:—
Gold is best tested by a whetstone hard,
Which gives a certain proof of purity;
And gold itself acts as the test of men,
By which we know the temper of their minds.
III. They say, too, that when he was old he said, that he was not
conscious of having ever done an unjust action in his life; but that he
doubted about one thing. For that once when judging in a friend’s cause
he had voted himself in accordance with the law, but had persuaded a
friend to vote for his acquittal, in order that so he might maintain the
law, and yet save his friend.
IV. But he was most especially celebrated among the Greeks for having
delivered an early opinion about Cythera, an island belonging to Laconia.
For having become acquainted with its nature, he said, “I wish it had
never existed, or that, as it does exist, it were sunk at the bottom of
the sea.” And his foresight was proved afterwards. For when Demaratus was
banished by the Lacedæmonians, he advised Xerxes to keep his ships at
that island: and Greece would have been subdued, if Xerxes had taken the
advice. And afterwards Nicias, having reduced the island at the time of
the Peloponnesian war, placed in it a garrison of Athenians, and did a
great deal of harm to the Lacedæmonians.
V. He was very brief in his speech. On which account Aristagoras, the
Milesian, calls such conciseness, the Chilonean fashion; and says that
it was adopted by Branchus, who built the temple among the Branchidæ.
Chilo was an old man, about the fifty-second Olympiad, when Æsop, the
fable writer, flourished. And he died, as Hermippus says, at Pisa, after
embracing his son, who had gained the victory in boxing at the Olympic
games. The cause of his death was excess of joy, and weakness caused
by extreme old age. All the spectators who were present at the games
attended his funeral, paying him the highest honours. And we have written
the following epigram on him:—
I thank you, brightest Pollux, that the son
Of Chilo wears the wreath of victory;
Nor need we grieve if at the glorious sight
His father died. May such my last end be!
And the following inscription is engraved on his statue:—
The warlike Sparta called this Chilo son,
The wisest man of all the seven sages.
One of his sayings was, “Suretyship, and then destruction.” The following
letter of his is also extant:—
CHILO TO PERIANDER.
You desire me to abandon the expedition against the emigrants, as you
yourself will go forth. But I think that a sole governor is in a slippery
position at home; and I consider that tyrant a fortunate man who dies a
natural death in his own house.
LIFE OF PITTACUS.
I. Pittacus was a native of Mitylene, and son of Hyrradius. But Duris
says, that his father was a Thracian. He, in union with the brothers
of Alcæus, put down Melanchrus the tyrant of Lesbos. And in the battle
which took place between the Athenians and Mitylenæans on the subject
of the district of Achilis, he was the Mitylenæan general; the Athenian
commander being Phrynon, a Pancratiast, who had gained the victory at
Olympia. Pittacus agreed to meet him in single combat, and having a
net under his shield, he entangled Phrynon without his being aware of
it beforehand, and so, having killed him, he preserved the district in
dispute to his countrymen. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says, that
subsequently, the Athenians had a trial with the Mitylenæans about the
district, and that the cause was submitted to Periander, who decided it
in favour of the Athenians.
II. In consequence of this victory the Mitylenæans held Pittacus in the
greatest honour, and committed the supreme power into his hands. And
he held it for ten years, and then, when he had brought the city and
constitution into good order, he resigned the government. And he lived
ten years after that, and the Mitylenæans assigned him an estate, which
he consecrated to the God, and to this day it is called the Pittacian
land. But Sosicrates says that he cut off a small portion of it, saying
that half was more than the whole; and when Crœsus offered him some money
he would not accept it, as he said that he had already twice as much as
he wanted; for that he had succeeded to the inheritance of his brother,
who had died without children.
III. But Pamphila says, in the second book of her Commentaries, that he
had a son named Tyrrhæus, who was killed while sitting in a barber’s
shop, at Cyma, by a brazier, who threw an axe at him; and that the
Cymæans sent the murderer to Pittacus, who when he had learnt what had
been done, dismissed the man, saying, “Pardon is better than repentance.”
But Heraclitus says that the true story is, that he had got Alcæus into
his power, and that he released him, saying, “Pardon is better than
punishment.” He was also a lawgiver; and he made a law that if a man
committed a crime while drunk, he should have double punishment; in the
hope of deterring men from getting drunk, as wine was very plentiful in
the island.