[211] Herodot. i, 29; Plutarch, Solon, c. 25. Aulus Gellius

affirms that the Athenians swore, under strong religious

penalties, to observe them forever (ii, 12).

[212] Livy iii, 34.

If we examine the facts of the case, we shall see that nothing more

than the bare foundation of the democracy of Athens as it stood

in the time of Periklês, can reasonably be ascribed to Solon. “I

gave to the people,” Solon says, in one of his short remaining

fragments,[213] “as much strength as sufficed for their needs,

without either enlarging or diminishing their dignity: for those

too who possessed power and were noted for wealth, I took care that

no unworthy treatment should be reserved. I stood with the strong

shield cast over both parties, so as not to allow an unjust triumph

to either.” Again, Aristotle tells us that Solon bestowed upon the

people no greater measure of power than was barely necessary,[214]—to

elect their magistrates and to hold them to accountability: if the

people had had less than this, they could not have been expected

to remain tranquil,—they would have been in slavery and hostile to

the constitution. Not less distinctly does Herodotus speak, when he

describes the revolution subsequently operated by Kleisthenês—the

latter, he tells us, found “the Athenian people excluded from

everything.”[215] These passages seem positively to contradict the

supposition, in itself sufficiently improbable, that Solon is the

author of the peculiar democratical institutions of Athens, such as

the constant and numerous dikasts for judicial trials and revision

of laws. The genuine and forward democratical movement of Athens

begins only with Kleisthenês, from the moment when that distinguished

Alkmæônid, either spontaneously, or from finding himself worsted

in his party strife with Isagoras, purchased by large popular

concessions the hearty coöperation of the multitude under very

dangerous circumstances. While Solon, in his own statement as well

as in that of Aristotle, gave to the people as much power as was

strictly needful, but no more,—Kleisthenês (to use the significant

phrase of Herodotus), “being vanquished in the party contest with

his rival, _took the people into partnership_.”[216] It was thus

to the interests of the weaker section, in a strife of contending

nobles, that the Athenian people owed their first admission to

political ascendency,—in part, at least, to this cause, though the

proceedings of Kleisthenês indicate a hearty and spontaneous popular

sentiment. But such constitutional admission of the people would

not have been so astonishingly fruitful in positive results, if the

course of public events for the half-century after Kleisthenês had

not been such as to stimulate most powerfully their energy, their

self-reliance, their mutual sympathies, and their ambition. I shall

recount in a future chapter those historical causes, which, acting

upon the Athenian character, gave such efficiency and expansion

to the great democratical impulse communicated by Kleisthenês: at

present, it is enough to remark that that impulse commences properly

with Kleisthenês, and not with Solon.

[213] Solon, Fragm. ii, 3, ed. Schneidewin:—

Δήμῳ μὲν γὰρ ἔδωκα τόσον κράτος, ὅσσον ἐπαρκεῖ,

Τιμῆς οὔτ᾽ ἀφελὼν, οὔτ᾽ ἐπορεξάμενος·

Οἳ δ᾽ εἶχον δύμαμιν καὶ χρήμασιν ἦσαν ἀγητοὶ,

Καὶ τοῖς ἐφρασάμην μηδὲν ἀεικὲς ἔχειν.

Ἔστην δ᾽ ἀμφιβαλὼν κρατερὸν σάκος ἀμφοτέροισι,

Νικᾷν δ᾽ οὐκ εἴασ᾽ οὐδετέρους ἀδίκως.

The reading ἐπαρκεῖ in the first line is not universally

approved: Brunck adopts ἐπαρκεῖν, which Niebuhr approves. The

latter construes it to mean, “I gave to the people only so much

power as could not be withheld from them.” (Röm. Geschicht. t.

ii, p. 346, 2d ed.) Taking the first two lines together, I think

Niebuhr’s meaning is substantially correct, though I give a more

literal translation myself. Solon seems to be vindicating himself

against the reproach of having been too democratical, which was,

doubtless, addressed to him in every variety of language.

[214] Aristot. Polit. ii, 9, 4. Ἐπεὶ Σόλων γ᾽ ἔοικε τὴν

ἀναγκαιοτάτην ἀποδιδόναι τῷ δημῳ δύναμιν, τὸ τὰς ἀρχὰς αἱρεῖσθαι

καὶ εὐθύνειν· μηδὲ γὰρ τούτου κύριος ὢν ὁ δῆμος, δοῦλος ἂν εἴη

λαὶ πολέμιος.

In this passage respecting Solon (containing sections 2, 3, 4

of the edition of M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire), Aristotle first

gives the opinion of certain critics who praised Solon, with the

reasons upon which it is founded; next, the opinion of certain

critics who blamed him, with _their_ reasons; thirdly, his own

judgment. The first of these three contains sect. 2 (from Σόλωνα

δ᾽ ἔνιοι, down to τὰ δικαστήρια ποιήσας ἐκ πάντων). The second

contains the greater part of sect. 3 (from Διὸ καὶ μέμφονταί

τινες αὐτῷ, down to τὴν νῦν δημοκρατίαν). The remainder is his

own judgment. I notice this, because sections 2 and 3 are not to

be taken as the opinion of Aristotle himself, but of those upon

whom he was commenting, who considered Solon as the author of the

dikasteries selected by lot.

[215] Herodot. v, 69. τὸν Ἀθηναίων δῆμον, πρότερον ἀπωσμένον

πάντων, etc.

[216] Herodot. v, 66-69. Οὗτοι οἱ ἄνδρες (Kleisthenês and

Isagoras) ἐστασίασαν περὶ δυνάμεως· ἑσσούμενος δὲ ὁ Κλεισθένης

τὸν δῆμον προσεταιρίζεται ...

... Ὡς γὰρ δὴ τὸν Ἀθηναίων δῆμον, πρότερον ἀπωσμένον πάντων,

τότε πρὸς τὴν ἑωϋτοῦ μοίρην προσεθήκατο, (Kleisthenês) τὰς φυλὰς

μετωνόμασε ... ἦν δὲ, τὸν δῆμον προσθέμενος πολλῷ κατύπερθε τῶν

ἀντιστασιώτεων.

As to the marked democratical tendency of the proceedings of

Kleisthenês, see Aristot. Polit. vi, 2, 11; iii, 1, 10.

But the Solonian constitution, though only the foundation, was yet

the indispensable foundation, of the subsequent democracy; and if

the discontents of the miserable Athenian population, instead of

experiencing his disinterested and healing management, had fallen

at once into the hands of selfish power-seekers, like Kylôn or

Peisistratus, the memorable expansion of the Athenian mind during

the ensuing century would never have taken place, and the whole

subsequent history of Greece would probably have taken a different

course. Solon left the essential powers of the state still in the

hands of the oligarchy, and the party combats—to be recounted

hereafter—between Peisistratus, Lykurgus, and Megaklês, thirty years

after his legislation, which ended in the despotism of Peisistratus,

will appear to be of the same purely oligarchical character as they

had been before he was appointed archon. But the oligarchy which he

established was very different from the unmitigated oligarchy which

he found, so teeming with oppression and so destitute of redress, as

his own poems testify.

It was he who first gave both to the citizens of middling property

and to the general mass, a _locus standi_ against the eupatrids; he

enabled the people partially to protect themselves, and familiarized

them with the idea of protecting themselves, by the peaceful exercise

of a constitutional franchise. The new force, through which this

protection was carried into effect, was the public assembly called

heliæa,[217] regularized and armed with enlarged prerogatives, and

farther strengthened by its indispensable ally,—the pro-bouleutic

or pre-considering senate. Under the Solonian constitution, this

force was merely secondary and defensive, but after the renovation

of Kleisthenês, it became paramount and sovereign; it branched out

gradually into those numerous popular dikasteries which so powerfully

modified both public and private Athenian life, drew to itself the

undivided reverence and submission of the people, and by degrees

rendered the single magistracies essentially subordinate functions.

The popular assembly as constituted by Solon, appearing in modified

efficiency, and trained to the office of reviewing and judging the

general conduct of a past magistrate,—forms the intermediate stage

between the passive Homeric agora, and those omnipotent assemblies

and dikasteries which listened to Periklês or Dêmosthenês. Compared

with these last, it has in it but a faint streak of democracy,—and

so it naturally appeared to Aristotle, who wrote with a practical

experience of Athens in the time of the orators; but compared with

the first, or with the ante-Solonian constitution of Attica, it

must doubtless have appeared a concession eminently democratical.

To impose upon the eupatrid archon the necessity of being elected,

or put upon his trial of after-accountability, by the _rabble_ of

freemen (such would be the phrase in eupatrid society), would be

a bitter humiliation to those among whom it was first introduced;

for we must recollect that this was the most extensive scheme of

constitutional reform yet propounded in Greece, and that despots

and oligarchies shared between them at that time the whole Grecian

world. As it appears that Solon, while constituting the popular

assembly with its pro-bouleutic senate, had no jealousy of the senate

of areopagus, and indeed even enlarged its powers,—we may infer

that his grand object was, not to weaken the oligarchy generally,

but to improve the administration and to repress the misconduct

and irregularities of the individual archons; and that too, not by

diminishing their powers, but by making some degree of popularity the

condition both of their entry into office, and of their safety or

honor after it.

[217] Lysias cont. Theomnest. A. c. 5, p. 357, who gives ἐὰν

μὴ προστιμήσῃ ἡ Ἡλίαια as a Solonian phrase; though we are led

to doubt whether Solon can ever have employed it, when we find

Pollux (vii, 5, 22) distinctly stating that Solon used the word

ἐπαίτια to signify what the orators called προστιμήματα.

The original and proper meaning of the word Ἡλίαια is, the public

assembly (see Tittmann, Griech. Staatsverfass. pp. 215-216); in

subsequent times we find it signifying at Athens—1. The aggregate

of six thousand dikasts chosen by lot annually and sworn, or the

assembled people considered as exercising judicial functions; 2.

Each of the separate fractions into which this aggregate body was

in practice subdivided for actual judicial business. Ἐκκλησία

became the term for the public deliberative assembly properly

so called, which could never be held on the same day that the

dikasteries sat (Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. c. 21, p. 726): every

dikastery is in fact always addressed as if it were the assembled

people engaged in a specific duty.

I imagine the term Ἡλίαια in the time of Solon to have been

used in its original meaning,—the public assembly, perhaps

with a connotation of employment in judicial proceeding. The

fixed number of six thousand does not date before the time of

Kleisthenês, because it is essentially connected with the ten

tribes; while the subdivision of this body of six thousand into

various bodies of jurors for different courts and purposes

did not commence, probably, until after the first reforms of

Kleisthenês. I shall revert to this point when I touch upon the

latter, and his times.

It is, in my judgment, a mistake to suppose that Solon transferred

the judicial power of the archons to a popular dikastery; these

magistrates still continued self-acting judges, deciding and

condemning without appeal,—not mere presidents of an assembled jury,

as they afterwards came to be during the next century.[218] For the

general exercise of such power they were accountable after their

year of office; and this accountability was the security against

abuse,—a very insufficient security, yet not wholly inoperative.

It will be seen, however, presently, that these archons, though

strong to coerce, and perhaps to oppress, small and poor men,—had no

means of keeping down rebellious nobles of their own rank, such as

Peisistratus, Lykurgus, and Megaklês, each with his armed followers.

When we compare the drawn swords of these ambitious competitors,

ending in the despotism of one of them, with the vehement

parliamentary strife between Themistoklês and Aristeidês afterwards,

peaceably decided by the vote of the sovereign people, and never

disturbing the public tranquillity,—we shall see that the democracy

of the ensuing century fulfilled the conditions of order, as well as

of progress, better than the Solonian constitution.

[218] The statement of Plutarch, that Solon gave an appeal

from the decision of the archon to the judgment of the popular

dikastery (Plutarch, Solon, 18), is distrusted by most of the

expositors, though Dr. Thirlwall seems to admit it, justifying it

by the analogy of the ephetæ, or judges of appeal, constituted by

Drako (Hist. of Greece, vol. ii, ch. xi, p. 46).

To me it appears that the Drakonian ephetæ were not really

judges in _appeal_: but be that as it may, the supposition of

an appeal from the judgment of the archon is inconsistent with

the known course of Attic procedure, and has apparently arisen

in Plutarch’s mind from confusion with the Roman _provocatio_,

which really was an appeal from the judgment of the consul to

that of the people. Plutarch’s comparison of Solon with Publicola

leads to this suspicion,—Καὶ τοῖς φεύγουσι δίκη, ἐπικαλεῖσθαι

τὸν δῆμον, ὥσπερ ὁ Σόλων τοὺς δικαστὰς, ἔδωκε (Publicola). The

Athenian archon was first a judge without appeal; and afterwards,

ceasing to be a judge, he became president of a dikastery,

performing only those preparatory steps which brought the case to

an issue fit for decision: but he does not seem ever to have been

a judge subject to appeal.

It is hardly just to Plutarch to make him responsible for

the absurd remark that Solon rendered his laws intentionally

obscure, in order that the dikasts might have more to do and

greater power: he gives the remark, himself, only with the saving

expression λέγεται, “it is said;” and we may well doubt whether

it was ever seriously intended even by its author, whoever he may

have been.

To distinguish this Solonian constitution from the democracy which

followed it, is essential to a due comprehension of the progress of

the Greek mind, and especially of Athenian affairs. That democracy

was achieved by gradual steps, which will be hereafter described:

Dêmosthenês and Æschinês lived under it as a system consummated and

in full activity, when the stages of its previous growth were no

longer matter of exact memory; and the dikasts then assembled in

judgment were pleased to hear the constitution to which they were

attached identified with the names either of Solon, or of Theseus,

to which they were no less partial. Their inquisitive contemporary

Aristotle was not thus misled: but even the most common-place

Athenians of the century preceding would have escaped the same

delusion. For during the whole course of the democratical movement

from the Persian invasion down to the Peloponnesian war, and

especially during the changes proposed by Periklês and Ephialtês,

there was always a strenuous party of resistance, who would not

suffer the people to forget that they had already forsaken, and were

on the point of forsaking still more, the orbit marked out by Solon.

The illustrious Periklês underwent innumerable attacks both from the

orators in the assembly and from the comic writers in the theatre;

and among these sarcasms on the political tendencies of the day, we

are probably to number the complaint breathed by the poet Kratinus,

of the desuetude into which both Solon and Drako had fallen. “I

swear,[219] said he, in a fragment of one of his comedies, by

Solon and Drako, whose wooden tablets (of laws) are now employed by

people to roast their barley.” The laws of Solon respecting penal

offences, respecting inheritance and adoption, respecting the private

relations generally, etc., remained for the most part in force; his

quadripartite census also continued, at least for financial purposes

until the archonship of Nausinikus in 377 B. C.; so that Cicero and

others might be warranted in affirming that his laws still prevailed

at Athens: but his political and judicial arrangements had undergone

a revolution[220] not less complete and memorable than the character

and spirit of the Athenian people generally. The choice, by way of

lot, of archons and other magistrates, and the distribution by lot

of the general body of dikasts or jurors into pannels for judicial

business, may be decidedly considered as not belonging to Solon,

but adopted after the revolution of Kleisthenês;[221] probably, the

choice of senators by lot also. The lot was a symptom of pronounced

democratical spirit, such as we must not seek in the Solonian

institutions.

[219] Kratinus ap. Plutarch. Solon. 25.—

Πρὸς τοῦ Σόλωνος καὶ Δράκοντος, οἷσι νῦν

Φρύγουσιν ἤδη τὰς κάχρυς τοῖς κύρβεσιν.

Isokratês praises the moderate democracy in early Athens, as

compared with that under which he lived; but in the Orat. vii

(Areopagitic.) he connects the former with the names of Solon and

Kleisthenês, while in the Orat. xii (Panathenaic.), he considers

the former to have lasted from the days of Theseus to those of

Solon and Peisistratus. In this latter oration he describes

pretty exactly the power which the people possessed under the

Solonian constitution,—τοῦ τὰς ἀρχὰς καταστῆσαι καὶ λαβεῖν δίκην

παρὰ τῶν ἐξαμαρτανόντων, which coincides with the phrase of

Aristotle—τὰς ἀρχὰς αἱρεῖσθαι καὶ εὐθύνειν,—supposing ἀρχόντων to

be understood as the substantive of ἐξαμαρτανόντων.

Compare Isokratês, Or. vii, p. 143 (p. 192 Bek.) and p. 150 (202

Bek.) and Orat. xii, pp. 260-264 (351-356 Bek.).

[220] Cicero, Orat. pro Sext. Roscio, c. 25; Ælian, V. H. viii,

10.

[221] This seems to be the opinion of Dr. Thirlwall, against

Wachsmuth though he speaks with doubt. (History of Greece, vol.

ii, ch. 11, p. 48, 2d ed.)

It is not easy to make out distinctly what was the political position

of the ancient gentes and phratries, as Solon left them. The four

tribes consisted altogether of gentes and phratries, insomuch that

no one could be included in any one of the tribes who was not

also a member of some gens and phratry. Now the new pro-bouleutic

or pre-considerate senate consisted of four hundred members,—one

hundred from each of the tribes: persons not included in any gens or

phratry could therefore have had no access to it. The conditions of

eligibility were similar, according to ancient custom, for the nine

archons,—of course, also, for the senate of areopagus. So that there

remained only the public assembly, in which an Athenian not a member

of these tribes could take part: yet he was a citizen, since he could

give his vote for archons and senators, and could take part in the

annual decision of their accountability, besides being entitled to

claim redress for wrong from the archons in his own person,—while

the alien could only do so through the intervention of an avouching

citizen, or prostatês. It seems, therefore, that all persons not

included in the four tribes, whatever their grade of fortune might

be, were on the same level in respect to political privilege as the

fourth and poorest class of the Solonian census. It has already been

remarked that, even before the time of Solon, the number of Athenians

not included in the gentes or phratries was probably considerable:

it tended to become greater and greater, since these bodies were

close and unexpansive, while the policy of the new lawgiver tended

to invite industrious settlers from other parts of Greece to

Athens. Such great and increasing inequality of political privilege

helps to explain the weakness of the government in repelling the

aggressions of Peisistratus, and exhibits the importance of the

revolution afterwards wrought by Kleisthenês, when he abolished (for

all political purposes) the four old tribes, and created ten new

comprehensive tribes in place of them.

In regard to the regulations of the senate and the assembly of

the people, as constituted by Solon, we are altogether without

information: nor is it safe to transfer to the Solonian constitution

the information, comparatively ample, which we possess respecting

these bodies under the later democracy.

The laws of Solon were inscribed on wooden rollers and triangular

tablets, in the species of writing called boustrophêdon (lines

alternating first from left to right, and next from right to left,

like the course of the ploughman), and preserved first in the

acropolis, subsequently in the prytaneium. On the tablets, called

kyrbeis, were chiefly commemorated the laws respecting sacred rites

and sacrifices:[222] on the pillars, or rollers, of which there were

at least sixteen, were placed the regulations respecting matters

profane. So small are the fragments which have come down to us, and

so much has been ascribed to Solon by the orators, which belongs

really to the subsequent times, that it is hardly possible to form

any critical judgment respecting the legislation as a whole, or to

discover by what general principles or purposes he was guided.

[222] Plutarch, Solon, 23-25. He particularly mentions the

sixteenth ἄξων: we learn, also, that the thirteenth ἄξων

contained the eighth law (c. 19): the twenty-first law is alluded

to in Harpokration, v. Ὅτι οἱ ποιητοί.

Some remnants of these wooden rollers existed in the days of

Plutarch, in the Athenian prytaneium. See Harpokration and

Photius, v. Κύρβεις; Aristot. περὶ Πολιτειῶν, Frag. 35, ed.

Neumann; Euphorion ap. Harpokrat. Ὁ κάτωθεν νόμος. Bekker,

Anecdota, p. 413.

What we read respecting the ἄξονες and the κύρβεις does not

convey a clear idea of them. Besides Aristotle, both Seleukus

and Didymus are named as having written commentaries expressly

about them (Plutarch, Solon, i; Suidas, v. Ὀργεῶνες; compare also

Meursius, Solon, c. 24; Vit. Aristotelis ap. Westermann. Vitarum

Scriptt. Græc. p. 404), and the collection in Stephan. Thesaur.

p. 1095.

He left unchanged all the previous laws and practices respecting

the crime of homicide, connected as they were intimately with the

religious feelings of the people. The laws of Drako on this subject

therefore remained, but on other subjects, according to Plutarch,

they were altogether abrogated:[223] there is, however, room for

supposing, that the repeal cannot have been so sweeping as this

biographer represents.

[223] Plutarch, Solon, c. 17; Cyrill. cont. Julian, v, p.

169, ed. Spanheim. The enumeration of the different admitted

justifications for homicide, which we find in Dêmosth. cont.

Aristokrat. p. 637, seems rather too copious and systematic for

the age of Drako; it may have been amended by Solon, or, perhaps,

in an age subsequent to Solon.

The Solonian laws seem to have borne more or less upon all the

great departments of human interest and duty. We find regulations

political and religious, public and private, civil and criminal,

commercial, agricultural, sumptuary, and disciplinarian. Solon

provides punishment for crimes, restricts the profession and status

of the citizen, prescribes detailed rules for marriage as well as

for burial, for the common use of springs and wells, and for the

mutual interest of conterminous farmers in planting or hedging their

properties. As far as we can judge, from the imperfect manner in

which his laws come before us, there does not seem to have been any

attempt at a systematic order or classification. Some of them are

mere general and vague directions, while others again run into the

extreme of speciality.

By far the most important of all was the amendment of the law

of debtor and creditor which has already been adverted to, and

the abolition of the power of fathers and brothers to sell their

daughters and sisters into slavery. The prohibition of all contracts

on the security of the body, was itself sufficient to produce a

vast improvement in the character and condition of the poorer

population,—a result which seems to have been so sensibly obtained

from the legislation of Solon, that Boeckh and some other eminent

authors suppose him to have abolished villenage and conferred upon

the poor tenants a property in their lands, annulling the seignorial

rights of the landlord. But this opinion rests upon no positive

evidence, nor are we warranted in ascribing to him any stronger

measure in reference to the land, than the annulment of the previous

mortgages.[224]

[224] See Boeckh, Public Economy of the Athenians, book iii,

sect. 5. Tittmann (Griechisch. Staatsverfass. p. 651) and others

have supposed (from Aristot. Polit. ii, 4, 4) that Solon enacted

a law to limit the quantity of land which any individual citizen

might acquire. But the passage does not seem to me to bear out

such an opinion.

The first pillar of his laws contained a regulation respecting

exportable produce. He forbade the exportation of all produce of the

Attic soil, except olive-oil alone, and the sanction employed to

enforce observance of this law deserves notice, as an illustration

of the ideas of the time;—the archon was bound, on pain of

forfeiting one hundred drachms, to pronounce solemn curses against

every offender.[225] We are probably to take this prohibition in

conjunction with other objects said to have been contemplated by

Solon, especially the encouragement of artisans and manufacturers at

Athens. Observing, we are told, that many new emigrants were just

then flocking into Attica to seek an establishment, in consequence

of its greater security, he was anxious to turn them rather to

manufacturing industry than to the cultivation of a soil naturally

poor.[226] He forbade the granting of citizenship to any emigrants,

except such as had quitted irrevocably their former abodes, and come

to Athens for the purpose of carrying on some industrious profession;

and in order to prevent idleness, he directed the senate of areopagus

to keep watch over the lives of the citizens generally, and punish

every one who had no course of regular labor to support him. If a

father had not taught his son some art or profession, Solon relieved

the son from all obligation to maintain him in his old age. And

it was to encourage the multiplication of these artisans, that he

insured, or sought to insure, to the residents in Attica a monopoly

of all its landed produce except olive-oil, which was raised in

abundance more than sufficient for their wants. It was his wish that

the trade with foreigners should be carried on by exporting the

produce of artisan labor, instead of the produce of land.[227]

[225] Plutarch, Solon, 24. The _first law_, however, is said

to have related to the insuring of a maintenance to wives and

orphans (Harpokration, v. Σῖτος).

By a law of Athens (which marks itself out as belonging to the

century after Solon, by the fulness of its provisions, and by the

number of steps and official persons named in it), the rooting

up of an olive-tree in Attica was forbidden, under a penalty

of two hundred drachms for each tree so destroyed,—except for

sacred purposes, or to the extent of two trees per annum for the

convenience of the proprietor (Dêmosthen. cont. Makartat c. 16,

p. 1074).

[226] Plutarch, Solon, 22. ταῖς τέχναις ἀξίωμα περιέθηκε.

[227] Plutarch, Solon, 22-24. According to Herodotus, Solon had

enacted that the authorities should punish every man with death

who could not show a regular mode of industrious life (Herod. ii,

177; Diodor. i, 77).

So severe a punishment is not credible; nor is it likely that

Solon borrowed his idea from Egypt.

According to Pollux (viii, 6) idleness was punished by atimy

(civil disfranchisement) under Drako: under Solon, this

punishment only took effect against the person who had been

convicted of it on three successive occasions. See Meursius,

Solon, c. 17; and the “Areopagus” of the same author, c. 8 and 9;

and Taylor, Lectt. Lysiac. cap. 10.

This commercial prohibition is founded on principles substantially

similar to those which were acted upon in the early history of

England, with reference both to corn and to wool, and in other

European countries also. In so far as it was at all operative, it

tended to lessen the total quantity of produce raised upon the

soil of Attica, and thus to keep the price of it from rising,—a

purpose less objectionable—if we assume that the legislator is to

interfere at all—than that of our late Corn Laws, which were destined

to prevent the price of grain from falling. But the law of Solon

must have been altogether inoperative, in reference to the great

articles of human subsistence; for Attica imported, both largely and

constantly, grain and salt provisions,—probably, also, wool and flax

for the spinning and weaving of the women, and certainly timber for

building. Whether the law was ever enforced with reference to figs

and honey, may well be doubted; at least these productions of Attica

were in after-times generally consumed and celebrated throughout

Greece. Probably also, in the time of Solon, the silver-mines of

Laureium had hardly begun to be worked: these afterwards became

highly productive, and furnished to Athens a commodity for foreign

payments not less convenient than lucrative.[228]

[228] Xenophon, De Vectigalibus, iii, 2.

It is interesting to notice the anxiety, both of Solon and of

Drako, to enforce among their fellow-citizens industrious and

self-maintaining habits;[229] and we shall find the same sentiment

proclaimed by Periklês, at the time when Athenian power was at

its maximum. Nor ought we to pass over this early manifestation

in Attica, of an opinion equitable and tolerant towards sedentary

industry, which in most other parts of Greece was regarded as

comparatively dishonorable. The general tone of Grecian sentiment

recognized no occupations as perfectly worthy of a free citizen

except arms, agriculture, and athletic and musical exercises; and the

proceedings of the Spartans, who kept aloof even from agriculture,

and left it to their Helots, were admired, though they could not be

copied throughout most part of the Hellenic world. Even minds like

Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon concurred to a considerable extent in

this feeling, which they justified on the ground that the sedentary

life and unceasing house-work of the artisan was inconsistent with

military aptitude: the town-occupations are usually described by a

word which carries with it contemptuous ideas, and though recognized

as indispensable to the existence of the city, are held suitable

only for an inferior and semi-privileged order of citizens. This,

the received sentiment among Greeks, as well as foreigners, found

a strong and growing opposition at Athens, as I have already

said,—corroborated also by a similar feeling at Corinth.[230] The

trade of Corinth, as well as of Chalkis in Eubœa, was extensive,

at a time when that of Athens had scarce any existence. But while

the despotism of Periander can hardly have failed to operate as

a discouragement to industry at Corinth, the contemporaneous

legislation of Solon provided for traders and artisans a new

home at Athens, giving the first encouragement to that numerous

town-population both in the city and in the Peiræeus, which we find

actually residing there in the succeeding century. The multiplication

of such town-residents, both citizens and metics, or non-freemen, was

a capital fact in the onward march of Athens, since it determined not

merely the extension of her trade, but also the preëminence of her

naval force,—and thus, as a farther consequence, lent extraordinary

vigor to her democratical government. It seems, moreover, to have

been a departure from the primitive temper of Atticism, which

tended both to cantonal residence and rural occupation. We have,

therefore, the greater interest in noting the first mention of it as

a consequence of the Solonian legislation.

[229] Thucyd. ii, 40 (the funeral oration delivered by

Periklês),—καὶ τὸ πένεσθαι οὐχ ὁμολογεῖν τινι αἰσχρὸν, ἀλλὰ μὴ

διαφεύγειν ἔργῳ αἴσχιον.

[230] Herodot. ii, 167-177: compare Xenophon, Œconomic. iv, 3.

The unbounded derision, however, which Aristophanes heaps

upon Kleôn as a tanner, and upon Hyperbolus as a lamp-maker,

proves that, if any manufacturer engaged in politics, his party

opponents found enough of the old sentiment remaining to turn it

to good account against him.

To Solon is first owing the admission of a power of testamentary

bequest at Athens, in all cases in which a man had no legitimate

children. According to the preëxisting custom, we may rather presume

that if a deceased person left neither children nor blood relations,

his property descended, as at Rome, to his gens and phratry.[231]

Throughout most rude states of society, the power of willing is

unknown, as among the ancient Germans,—among the Romans prior to

the twelve tables,—in the old laws of the Hindus,[232] etc. Society

limits a man’s interest or power of enjoyment to his life, and

considers his relatives as having joint reversionary claims to his

property, which take effect, in certain determinate proportions,

after his death; and this view was the more likely to prevail at

Athens, inasmuch as the perpetuity of the family sacred rites,

in which the children and near relatives partook of right, was

considered by the Athenians as a matter of public as well as of

private concern. Solon gave permission to every man dying without

children to bequeathe his property by will as he should think fit,

and the testament was maintained, unless it could be shown to have

been procured by some compulsion or improper seduction. Speaking

generally, this continued to be the law throughout the historical

times of Athens. Sons, wherever there were sons, succeeded to the

property of their father in equal shares, with the obligation of

giving out their sisters in marriage along with a certain dowry. If

there were no sons, then the daughters succeeded, though the father

might by will, within certain limits, determine the person to whom

they should be married, with their rights of succession attached

to them; or might, with the consent of his daughters, make by will

certain other arrangements about his property. A person who had no

children, or direct lineal descendants, might bequeathe his property

at pleasure: if he died without a will, first his father, then his

brother or brother’s children, next his sister or sister’s children

succeeded: if none such existed, then the cousins by the father’s

side, next the cousins by the mother’s side,—the male line of descent

having preference over the female. Such was the principle of the

Solonian laws of succession, though the particulars are in several

ways obscure and doubtful.[233] Solon, it appears, was the first

who gave power of superseding by testament the rights of agnates

and gentiles to succession,—a proceeding in consonance with his

plan of encouraging both industrious occupation and the consequent

multiplication of individual acquisitions.[234]

[231] This seems the just meaning of the words, ἐν τῷ γένει τοῦ

τεθνηκότος ἔδει τὰ χρήματα καὶ τὸν οἶκον καταμένειν, for that

early day (Plutarch, Solon, 21): compare Meier, De Gentilitate

Atticâ, p. 33.

[232] Tacitus, German, c. 20; Halhed, Preface to Gentoo Code, p.

i, iii; Mill’s History of British India, b. ii, ch. iv, p. 214.

[233] See the Dissertation of Bunsen, De Jure Hereditario

Atheniensium. pp. 28, 29; and Hermann Schelling. De Solonis

Legibus ap. Oratt. Atticos, ch. xvii.

The adopted son was not allowed to bequeathe by will that

property of which adoption had made him the possessor: if he left

no legitimate children, the heirs at law of the adopter claimed

it as of right (Dêmosthen. cont. Leochar p. 1100; cont. Stephan.

B. p. 1133; Bunsen, _ut sup._ pp. 55-58).

[234] Plutarch, Solon, 21. τὰ χρήματα, κτήματα τῶν ἐχόντων

ἐποίησεν.

It has been already mentioned that Solon forbade the sale of

daughters or sisters into slavery, by fathers or brothers,—a

prohibition which shows how much females had before been looked upon

as articles of property. And it would seem that before his time the

violation of a free woman must have been punished at the discretion

of the magistrates; for we are told that he was the first who enacted

a penalty of one hundred drachms against the offender, and twenty

drachms against the seducer of a free woman.[235] Moreover, it is

said that he forbade a bride when given in marriage to carry with her

any personal ornaments and appurtenances, except to the extent of

three robes and certain matters of furniture not very valuable.[236]

Solon farther imposed upon women several restraints in regard to

proceedings at the obsequies of deceased relatives: he forbade

profuse demonstrations of sorrow, singing of composed dirges, and

costly sacrifices and contributions; he limited strictly the quantity

of meat and drink admissible for the funeral banquet, and prohibited

nocturnal exit, except in a car and with a light. It appears that

both in Greece and Rome, the feelings of duty and affection on the

part of surviving relatives prompted them to ruinous expense in

a funeral, as well as to unmeasured effusions both of grief and

conviviality; and the general necessity experienced for interference

of the law is attested by the remark of Plutarch, that similar

prohibitions to those enacted by Solon were likewise in force at his

native town of Chæroneia.[237]

[235] According to Æschinês (cont. Timarch. pp. 16-78), the

punishment enacted by Solon against the προαγωγὸς, or procurer,

in such cases of seduction, was death.

[236] Plutarch, Solon, 20. These φερναὶ were independent of the

dowry of the bride, for which the husband, when he received it,

commonly gave security, and repaid it in the event of his wife’s

death: see Bunsen, De Jure Hered. Ath. p. 43.

[237] Plutarch, _l. c._ The Solonian restrictions on the subject

of funerals were to a great degree copied in the twelve tables

at Rome: see Cicero, De Legg. ii, 23, 24. He esteems it a right

thing to put the rich and the poor on a level in respect to

funeral ceremonies. Plato follows an opposite idea, and limits

the expense of funerals upon a graduated scale, according to the

census of the deceased (Legg. xii, p. 959).

Dêmosthenês (cont. Makartat. p 1071) gives what he calls the

Solonian law on funerals, different from Plutarch on several

points.

Ungovernable excesses of grief among the female sex are sometimes

mentioned in Grecian towns: see the μανικὸν πένθος among the

Milesian women (Polyæn. viii, 63): the Milesian women, however,

had a tinge of Karian feeling.

Compare an instructive inscription, recording a law of the

Greek city of Gambreion in Æolic Asia Minor, wherein the dress,

the proceedings, and the time of allowed mourning, for men,

women, and children who had lost their relatives, are strictly

prescribed under severe penalties (Franz, Fünf Inschriften und

fünf Städte in Kleinasien, Berlin, 1840, p. 17). Expensive

ceremonies in the celebration of marriage are forbidden by

some of the old Scandinavian laws (Wilda, Das Gildenwesen im

Mittelalter, p. 18).

Other penal enactments of Solon are yet to be mentioned. He forbade

absolutely evil-speaking with respect to the dead: he forbade it

likewise with respect to the living, either in a temple or before

judges or archons, or at any public festival,—on pain of a forfeit

of three drachms to the person aggrieved, and two more to the public

treasury. How mild the general character of his punishments was, may

be judged by this law against foul language, not less than by the law

before mentioned against rape: both the one and the other of these

offences were much more severely dealt with under the subsequent law

of democratical Athens. The peremptory edict against speaking ill of

a deceased person, though doubtless springing in a great degree from

disinterested repugnance, is traceable also in part to that fear of

the wrath of the departed which strongly possessed the early Greek

mind.

It seems generally that Solon determined by law the outlay for the

public sacrifices, though we do not know what were his particular

directions: we are told that he reckoned a sheep and a medimnus (of

wheat or barley?) as equivalent, either of them, to a drachm, and

that he also prescribed the prices to be paid for first-rate oxen

intended for solemn occasions. But it astonishes us to see the large

recompense which he awarded out of the public treasury to a victor at

the Olympic or Isthmian games: to the former five hundred drachms,

equal to one year’s income of the highest of the four classes on

the census; to the latter one hundred drachms. The magnitude of

these rewards strikes us the more when we compare them with the

fines on rape and evil speaking; and we cannot be surprised that the

philosopher Xenophanês noticed, with some degree of severity, the

extravagant estimate of this species of excellence, current among the

Grecian cities.[238] At the same time, we must remember both that

these Pan-Hellenic sacred games presented the chief visible evidence

of peace and sympathy among the numerous communities of Greece, and

that in the time of Solon, factitious reward was still needful to

encourage them. In respect to land and agriculture, Solon proclaimed

a public reward of five drachms for every wolf brought in, and one

drachm for every wolf’s cub: the extent of wild land has at all

times been considerable in Attica. He also provided rules respecting

the use of wells between neighbors, and respecting the planting

in conterminous olive-grounds. Whether any of these regulations

continued in operation during the better-known period of Athenian

history cannot be safely affirmed.[239]

[238] Plutarch, Solon, 23. Xenophanês, Frag. 2, ed. Schneidewin.

If Diogenês is to be trusted, the rewards were even larger

anterior to Solon: he reduced them (Diog. l. i, 55).

[239] Plutarch, Solon, c. 23. See Suidas, v. Φεισόμεθα.

In respect to theft, we find it stated that Solon repealed the

punishment of death which Drako had annexed to that crime, and

enacted as a penalty, compensation to an amount double the value

of the property stolen. The simplicity of this law perhaps affords

ground for presuming that it really does belong to Solon, but the law

which prevailed during the time of the orators respecting theft[240]

must have been introduced at some later period, since it enters into

distinctions and mentions both places and forms of procedure, which

we cannot reasonably refer to the 46th Olympiad. The public dinners

at the prytaneium, of which the archons and a select few partook in

common, were also either first established, or perhaps only more

strictly regulated, by Solon: he ordered barley cakes for their

ordinary meals, and wheaten loaves for festival days, prescribing

how often each person should dine at the table.[241] The honor of

dining at the table of the prytaneium was maintained throughout as a

valuable reward at the disposal of the government.

[240] See the laws in Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. pp. 733-736.

Notwithstanding the opinion both of Heraldus (Animadversion.

in Salmas. iv, 8) and of Meier (Attischer Prozess, p. 356), I

cannot imagine anything more than the basis of these laws to

be Solonian,—they indicate a state of Attic procedure too much

elaborated for that day (Lysias c. Theomn. p. 356). The word

ποδοκάκκῃ belongs to Solon, and probably the penalty of five

days’ confinement in the stocks, for the thief who had not

restored what he had stolen.

Aulus Gell. (xi, 18) mentions the simple _pœna dupli_: in the

authors from whom he copied, it is evident that Solon was stated

to have enacted this law generally for _all_ thefts: we cannot

tell from whom he copied, but in another part of his work, he

copies a Solonian law from the wooden ἄξονες on the authority of

Aristotle (ii, 12).

Plato, in his Laws, prescribes the _pœna dupli_ in all cases of

theft, without distinction of circumstances (Legg. ix, p. 857;

xii, p. 941); it was also the primitive law of Rome: “Posuerunt

furem duplo condemnari, fœneratorem quadruplo.” (Cato, De Re

Rusticâ, Proœmium),—that is to say, in cases of _furtum nec

manifestum_ (Walter, Geschichte des Römisch. Rechts. sect. 757).

[241] Plutarch, Solon, 24; Athenæ. iv, p. 137; Diogen. Laërt. i,

58: καὶ πρῶτος τὴν συναγωγὴν τῶν ἐννέα ἀρχόντων ἐποίησεν, εἰς τὸ

~συνειπεῖν~,—where perhaps, ~συνδειπνεῖν~ is the proper reading.

Among the various laws of Solon, there are few which have attracted

more notice than that which pronounces the man, who in a sedition

stood aloof and took part with neither side, to be dishonored and

disfranchised.[242] Strictly speaking, this seems more in the nature

of an emphatic moral denunciation, or a religious curse, than a

legal sanction capable of being formally applied in an individual

case and after judicial trial,—though the sentence of atīmy, under

the more elaborated Attic procedure, was both definite in its

penal consequences and also judicially delivered. We may, however,

follow the course of ideas under which Solon was induced to write

this sentence on his tables, and we may trace the influence of

similar ideas in later Attic institutions. It is obvious that his

denunciation is confined to that special case in which a sedition

has already broken out: we must suppose that Kylôn has seized the

acropolis, or that Peisistratus, Megaklês, and Lykurgus are in arms

at the head of their partisans. Assuming these leaders to be wealthy

and powerful men, which would in all probability be the fact, the

constituted authority—such as Solon saw before him in Attica, even

after his own organic amendments—was not strong enough to maintain

the peace; it became, in fact, itself one of the contending parties.

Under such given circumstances, the sooner every citizen publicly

declared his adherence to some one of them, the earlier this

suspension of legal authority was likely to terminate. Nothing was so

mischievous as the indifference of the mass, or their disposition to

let the combatants fight out the matter among themselves, and then

to submit to the victor:[243] nothing was so likely to encourage

aggression on the part of an ambitious malcontent, as the conviction

that, if he could once overpower the small amount of physical force

which surrounded the archons and exhibit himself in armed possession

of the prytaneium or the acropolis, he might immediately count upon

passive submission on the part of all the freemen without. Under the

state of feeling which Solon inculcates, the insurgent leader would

have to calculate that every man who was not actively in his favor

would be actively against him, and this would render his enterprise

much more dangerous; indeed, he could then never hope to succeed

except on the double supposition of extraordinary popularity in his

own person, and universal detestation of the existing government.

He would thus be placed under the influence of powerful deterring

motives, and mere ambition would be far less likely to seduce him

into a course which threatened nothing but ruin, unless under such

encouragements from the preëxisting public opinion as to make his

success a result desirable for the community. Among the small

political societies of Greece,—and especially in the age of Solon,

when the number of despots in other parts of Greece seems to have

been at its maximum,—every government, whatever might be its form,

was sufficiently weak to make its overthrow a matter of comparative

facility. Unless upon the supposition of a band of foreign

mercenaries,—which would render it a government of naked force, and

which the Athenian lawgiver would of course never contemplate,—there

was no other stay for it except a positive and pronounced feeling

of attachment on the part of the mass of citizens: indifference on

their part would render them a prey to every daring man of wealth

who chose to become a conspirator. That they should be ready to come

forward not only with voice but with arms,—and that they should be

known beforehand to be so,—was essential to the maintenance of every

good Grecian government. It was salutary in preventing mere personal

attempts at revolution, and pacific in its tendency, even where the

revolution had actually broken out,—because, in the greater number of

cases, the proportion of partisans would probably be very unequal,

and the inferior party would be compelled to renounce their hopes.

[242] Plutarch, Solon, 20, and De Serâ Numinis Vindictâ, p. 550;

Aulus Gell. ii, 12.

[243] See a case of such indifference manifested by the people of

Argos, in Plutarch’s Life of Aratus, c. 27.

It will be observed that in this enactment of Solon, the existing

government is ranked merely as one of the contending parties. The

virtuous citizen is enjoined not to come forward in its support,

but to come forward at all events, either for it or against it:

positive and early action is all that is prescribed to him as matter

of duty. In the age of Solon, there was no political idea or system

yet current which could be assumed as an unquestionable datum,—no

conspicuous standard to which the citizens could be pledged under

all circumstances to attach themselves. The option lay only between

a mitigated oligarchy in possession and a despot in possibility; a

contest wherein the affections of the people could rarely be counted

upon in favor of the established government. But this neutrality

in respect to the constitution was at an end after the revolution

of Kleisthenês, when the idea of the sovereign people and the

democratical institutions became both familiar and precious to every

individual citizen. We shall hereafter find the Athenians binding

themselves by the most sincere and solemn oaths to uphold their

democracy against all attempts to subvert it; we shall discover

in them a sentiment not less positive and uncompromising in its

direction, than energetic in its inspirations. But while we notice

this very important change in their character, we shall at the same

time perceive that the wise precautionary recommendation of Solon,

to obviate sedition by an early declaration of the impartial public

between two contending leaders, was not lost upon them. Such, in

point of fact, was the purpose of that salutary and protective

institution which is called Ostracism. When two party-leaders, in the

early stages of the Athenian democracy, each powerful in adherents

and influence, had become passionately embarked in bitter and

prolonged opposition to each other, such opposition was likely to

conduct one or other to violent measures. Over and above the hopes

of party triumph, each might well fear that if he himself continued

within the bounds of legality, he might fall a victim to aggressive

proceedings on the part of his antagonists. To ward off this

formidable danger, a public vote was called for to determine which of

the two should go into temporary banishment, retaining his property

and unvisited by any disgrace. A number of citizens, not less than

six thousand, voting secretly and therefore independently, were

required to take part, pronouncing upon one or other of these eminent

rivals a sentence of exile for ten years: the one who remained

became of course more powerful, yet less in a situation to be driven

into anti-constitutional courses, than he was before. I shall in a

future chapter speak again of this wise precaution, and vindicate it

against some erroneous interpretations to which it has given rise;

at present, I merely notice its analogy with the previous Solonian

law, and its tendency to accomplish the same purpose of terminating

a fierce party-feud by artificially calling in the votes of the mass

of impartial citizens against one or other of the leaders,—with this

important difference, that while Solon assumed the hostile parties to

be actually in arms, the ostracism averted that grave public calamity

by applying its remedy to the premonitory symptoms.

I have already considered, in a previous chapter, the directions

given by Solon for the more orderly recital of the Homeric poems;

and it is curious to contrast his reverence for the old epic with

the unqualified repugnance which he manifested towards Thespis and

the drama,—then just nascent, and holding out little promise of its

subsequent excellence. Tragedy and comedy were now beginning to be

grafted on the lyric and choric song. First, one actor was provided

to relieve the chorus,—subsequently, two actors were introduced to

sustain fictitious characters and carry on a dialogue, in such manner

that the songs of the chorus and the interlocution of the actors

formed a continuous piece. Solon, after having heard Thespis acting

(as all the early composers did, both tragic and comic) in his own

comedy, asked him afterwards if he was not ashamed to pronounce such

falsehoods before so large an audience. And when Thespis answered

that there was no harm in saying and doing such things merely for

amusement, Solon indignantly exclaimed, striking the ground with his

stick,[244] “If once we come to praise and esteem such amusement

as this, we shall quickly find the effects of it in our daily

transactions.” For the authenticity of this anecdote it would be

rash to vouch, but we may at least treat it as the protest of some

early philosopher against the deceptions of the drama; and it is

interesting, as marking the incipient struggles of that literature in

which Athens afterwards attained such unrivalled excellence.

[244] Plutarch, Solon, 29; Diogen. Laërt. i, 59.

It would appear that all the laws of Solon were proclaimed,

inscribed, and accepted without either discussion or resistance. He

is said to have described them, not as the best laws which he could

himself have imagined, but as the best which he could have induced

the people to accept; he gave them validity for the space of ten

years, for which period[245] both the senate collectively and the

archons individually swore to observe them with fidelity, under

penalty, in case of non-observance, of a golden statue, as large

as life, to be erected at Delphi. But though the acceptance of the

laws was accomplished without difficulty, it was not found so easy

either for the people to understand and obey, or for the framer to

explain them. Every day, persons came to Solon either with praise,

or criticism, or suggestions of various improvements, or questions

as to the construction of particular enactments; until at last he

became tired of this endless process of reply and vindication, which

was seldom successful either in removing obscurity or in satisfying

complainants. Foreseeing that, if he remained, he would be compelled

to make changes, he obtained leave of absence from his countrymen for

ten years, trusting that before the expiration of that period they

would have become accustomed to his laws. He quitted his native city,

in the full certainty that his laws would remain unrepealed until his

return; for, says Herodotus, “the Athenians _could not_ repeal them,

since they were bound by solemn oaths to observe them for ten years.”

The unqualified manner in which the historian here speaks of an oath,

as if it created a sort of physical necessity, and shut out all

possibility of a contrary result, deserves notice as illustrating

Grecian sentiment.[246]

[245] Plutarch, Solon, 15.

[246] Herodot. i, 29. Σόλων, ἀνὴρ Ἀθηναῖος, ὃς Ἀθηναίοισι νόμους

κελεύσασι ποιήσας, ἀπεδήμησε ἔτεα δέκα, ἵνα δὴ μή τινα τῶν νόμων

ἀναγκάσθῃ λῦσαι τῶν ἔθετο· αὐτοὶ γὰρ ~οὐκ οἷοί τε ἦσαν αὐτὸ

ποιῆσαι Ἀθηναῖοι· ὁρκίοισι γὰρ μεγάλοισι κατείχοντο~, δέκα ἔτεα

χρήσεσθαι νόμοισι τοὺς ἄν σφι Σόλων θῆται.

One hundred years is the term stated by Plutarch (Solon, 25).

On departing from Athens, Solon first visited Egypt, where he

communicated largely with Psenôphis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of

Saïs, Egyptian priests, who had much to tell respecting their

ancient history, and from whom he learned matters, real or

pretended, far transcending in alleged antiquity the oldest Grecian

genealogies,—especially the history of the vast submerged island

of Atlantis, and the war which the ancestors of the Athenians had

successfully carried on against it, nine thousand years before.

Solon is said to have commenced an epic poem upon this subject, but

he did not live to finish it, and nothing of it now remains. From

Egypt he went to Cyprus, where he visited the small town of Æreia,

said to have been originally founded by Demophôn, son of Theseus; it

was then under the dominion of the prince Philokyprus,—each town in

Cyprus having its own petty prince. It was situated near the river

Klarius, in a position precipitous and secure, but inconvenient

and ill-supplied; and Solon persuaded Philokyprus to quit the old

site, and establish a new town down in the fertile plain beneath.

He himself stayed and became œkist of the new establishment, making

all the regulations requisite for its safe and prosperous march,

which was indeed so decisively manifested that many new settlers

flocked into the new plantation, called by Philokyprus _Soli_, in

honor of Solon. To our deep regret, we are not permitted to know

what these regulations were; but the general fact is attested

by the poems of Solon himself, and the lines, in which he bade

farewell to Philokyprus on quitting the island, are yet before us.

On the dispositions of this prince, his poem bestowed unqualified

commendation.[247]

[247] Plutarch, Solon, 26; Herodot. v, 113. The statements of

Diogenês that Solon founded Soli in Kilikia, and that he died in

Cyprus, are not worthy of credit (Diog. Laërt. i, 51-62).

Besides his visit to Egypt and Cyprus, a story was also current of

his having conversed with the Lydian king Crœsus, at Sardis; and the

communication said to have taken place between them, has been woven

by Herodotus into a sort of moral tale, which forms one of the most

beautiful episodes in his whole history. Though this tale has been

told and retold as if it were genuine history, yet, as it now stands,

it is irreconcilable with chronology,—although, very possibly, Solon

may at some time or other have visited Sardis, and seen Crœsus as

hereditary prince.[248]

[248] Plutarch tells us that several authors rejected the reality

of this interview as being chronologically impossible. It is to

be recollected that the question all turns upon the interview _as

described by Herodotus_ and its alleged sequel; for that there

may have been an interview between Solon and Crœsus at Sardis, at

some period between B. C. 594 and 560, is possible, though not

shown.

It is evident that Solon made no mention of any interview with

Crœsus in his poems; otherwise, the dispute would have been

settled at once. Now this, in a man like Solon, amounts to

negative evidence of some value for he noticed in his poems both

Egypt and the prince Philokyprus in Cyprus, and had there been

any conversation so impressive as that which Herodotus relates,

between him and Crœsus, he could hardly have failed to mention it.

Wesseling, Larcher, Volney, and Mr. Clinton, all try to obviate

the chronological difficulties, and to save the historical

character of this interview, but in my judgment unsuccessfully.

See Mr. Clinton’s F. H. ad ann. 546 B. C., and Appendix, c. 17,

p. 298. The chronological data are these,—Crœsus was born in 595

B. C., one year before the legislation of Solon: he succeeded

to his father at the age of thirty-five, in 560 B. C.: he was

overthrown, and Sardis captured, in 546 B. C., by Cyrus.

Mr. Clinton, after Wesseling and the others, supposes that Crœsus

was king jointly with his father Halyattês, during the lifetime

of the latter, and that Solon visited Lydia and conversed with

Crœsus during this joint reign in 570 B. C. “We may suppose that

Solon left Athens in B. C. 575, about twenty years after his

archonship, and returned thither in B. C. 565, about five years

before the usurpation of Peisistratus.” (p. 300.) Upon which

hypothesis we may remark:—

1. The arguments whereby Wesseling and Mr. Clinton endeavor

to show that Crœsus was king jointly with his father, do not

sustain the conclusion. The passage of Nikolaus Damaskenus,

which is produced to show that it was Halyattês (and not Crœsus)

who conquered Karia, only attests that Halyattês _marched_ with

an armed force into Karia (ἐπὶ Καρίαν στρατεύων): this same

author states, that Crœsus was deputed by Halyattês to govern

_Adramyttium and the plain of Thêbê_ (ἄρχειν ἀποδεδειγμένος),

but Mr. Clinton stretches this testimony to an inadmissible

extent when he makes it tantamount to a conquest of _Æolis_ by

Halyattês, (“_so that Æolis is already conquered_.”) Nothing at

all is said about Æolis, or the cities of the Æolic Greeks, in

this passage of Nikolaus, which represents Crœsus as governing

a sort of satrapy under his father Halyattês, just as Cyrus the

younger did in after-times under Artaxerxês. And the expression

of Herodotus, ἐπεί τε, δόντος τοῦ πατρὸς, ἐκράτησε τῆς ἀπχῆς ὁ

Κροῖσος, appears to me, when taken along with the context, to

indicate a bequest or nomination of successor, and not a donation

during life.

2. The hypothesis, therefore, that Crœsus was king 570 B. C.,

during the lifetime of his father, is one purely gratuitous,

resorted to on account of the chronological difficulties

connected with the account of Herodotus. But it is quite

insufficient for such a purpose; it does not save us from the

necessity of contradicting Herodotus in most of his particulars;

there may, perhaps, have been an _interview_ between Solon and

Crœsus in B. C. 570, but it cannot be _the interview_ described

by Herodotus. That interview takes place within ten years after

the promulgation of Solon’s laws,—at the maximum of the power

of Crœsus, and after numerous conquests effected by himself as

king,—at a time when Crœsus had a son old enough to be married

and to command armies (Herod, i, 35),—at a time, moreover,

immediately preceding the turn of his fortunes from prosperity

to adversity, first in the death of his son, succeeded by two

years of mourning, which were put an end to (πένθεος ἀπέπαυσε,

Herod. i, 46) by the stimulus of war with the Persians. That war,

if we read the events of it as described in Herodotus, cannot

have lasted more than three or four years,—so that the interview

between Solon and Crœsus, _as Herodotus conceived it_, may be

fairly stated to have occurred within seven years before the

capture of Sardis.

If we put together all these conditions, it will appear that

the interview recounted by Herodotus is a chronological

impossibility: and Niebuhr (Rom. Gesch. vol. i, p. 579) is

right in saying that the historian has fallen into a mistake of

ten olympiads, or forty years; his recital would consist with

chronology, if we suppose that the Solonian legislation were

referable to 554 B. C., and not 594.

In my judgment, this is an illustrative tale, in which certain

real characters,—Crœsus and Solon; and certain real facts,—the

great power and succeeding ruin of the former by the victorious

arm of Cyrus,—together with certain facts probably altogether

fictitious, such as the two sons of Crœsus, the Phyrgian Adrastus

and his history, the hunting of the mischievous wild boar on

Mount Olympus, the ultimate preservation of Crœsus, etc., are

put together so as to convey an impressive moral lesson. The

whole adventure of Adrastus and the son of Crœsus is depicted in

language eminently beautiful and poetical.

Plutarch treats the impressiveness and suitableness of this

narrative as the best proof of its historical truth, and puts

aside the chronological tables as unworthy of trust. Upon which

reasoning Mr. Clinton has the following very just remarks:

“Plutarch must have had a very imperfect idea of the nature of

historical evidence, if he could imagine that the suitableness of

a story to the character of Solon was a better argument for its

authenticity than the number of witnesses by whom it is attested.

Those who invented the scene (assuming it to be a fiction) would

surely have had the skill to adapt the discourse to the character

of the actors.” (p. 300.)

To make this remark quite complete, it would be necessary to add

the words “_trustworthiness and means of knowledge_,” in addition

to the “_number,_” of attesting witnesses. And it is a remark the

more worthy of notice, inasmuch as Mr. Clinton here pointedly

adverts to the existence of _plausible fiction_, as being

completely distinct from attested matter of fact,—a distinction

of which he took no account in his vindication of the historical

credibility of the early Greek legends.

But even if no chronological objections existed, the moral purpose

of the tale is so prominent, and pervades it so systematically,

from beginning to end, that these internal grounds are of themselves

sufficiently strong to impeach its credibility as a matter of fact,

unless such doubts happen to be outweighed—which in this case they

are not—by good contemporary testimony. The narrative of Solon and

Crœsus can be taken for nothing else but an illustrative fiction,

borrowed by Herodotus from some philosopher, and clothed in his

own peculiar beauty of expression, which on this occasion is more

decidedly poetical than is habitual with him. I cannot transcribe,

and I hardly dare to abridge it. The vainglorious Crœsus, at the

summit of his conquests and his riches, endeavors to win from his

visitor Solon an opinion that he is the happiest of mankind. The

latter, after having twice preferred to him modest and meritorious

Grecian citizens, at length reminds him that his vast wealth and

power are of a tenure too precarious to serve as an evidence of

happiness,—that the gods are jealous and meddlesome, and often

make the show of happiness a mere prelude to extreme disaster,—and

that no man’s life can be called happy until the whole of it has

been played out, so that it may be seen to be out of the reach

of reverses. Crœsus treats this opinion as absurd, but “a great

judgment from God fell upon him, after Solon was departed,—probably

(observes Herodotus) because he fancied himself the happiest of all

men.” First, he lost his favorite son Atys, a brave and intelligent

youth,—his only other son being dumb. For the Mysians of Olympus,

being ruined by a destructive and formidable wild boar which they

were unable to subdue, applied for aid to Crœsus, who sent to the

spot a chosen hunting force, and permitted, though with great

reluctance, in consequence of an alarming dream,—that his favorite

son should accompany them. The young prince was unintentionally

slain by the Phrygian exile Adrastus, whom Crœsus had sheltered

and protected;[249] and he had hardly recovered from the anguish

of this misfortune, when the rapid growth of Cyrus and the Persian

power induced him to go to war with them, against the advice of his

wisest counsellors. After a struggle of about three years he was

completely defeated, his capital Sardis taken by storm, and himself

made prisoner. Cyrus ordered a large pile to be prepared, and placed

upon it Crœsus in fetters, together with fourteen young Lydians, in

the intention of burning them alive, either as a religious offering,

or in fulfilment of a vow, “or perhaps (says Herodotus) to see

whether some of the gods would not interfere to rescue a man so

preëminently pious as the king of Lydia.”[250] In this sad extremity,

Crœsus bethought him of the warning which he had before despised,

and thrice pronounced, with a deep groan, the name of Solon. Cyrus

desired the interpreters to inquire whom he was invoking, and learned

in reply the anecdote of the Athenian lawgiver, together with the

solemn memento which he had offered to Crœsus during more prosperous

days, attesting the frail tenure of all human greatness. The remark

sunk deep into the Persian monarch, as a token of what might happen

to himself: he repented of his purpose, and directed that the pile,

which had already been kindled, should be immediately extinguished.

But the orders came too late; in spite of the most zealous efforts

of the bystanders, the flame was found unquenchable, and Crœsus would

still have been burned, had he not implored with prayers and tears

the succor of Apollo, to whose Delphian and Theban temples he had

given such munificent presents. His prayers were heard, the fair sky

was immediately overcast, and a profuse rain descended, sufficient

to extinguish the flames.[251] The life of Crœsus was thus saved,

and he became afterwards the confidential friend and adviser of his

conqueror.

[249] Herod, i, 32. Ὦ Κροῖσε, ἐπιστάμενόν με τὸ θεῖον, πᾶν ἐὸν

φθονερόν τε καὶ ταραχώδες, ἐπειρωτᾷς με ἀνθρωπηΐων πρηγμάτων

πέρι. i, 34. Μετὰ δὲ Σόλωνα οἰχόμενον, ἔλαβεν ἐκ θεοῦ νέμεσις

μεγάλη Κροῖσον, ὡς εἰκάσαι ὅτι ἐνόμισε ἑωϋτὸν εἶναι ἀνθρώπων

ἁπάντων ὀλβιώτατον.

The hunting-match, and the terrible wild boar with whom the

Mysians cannot cope, appear to be borrowed from the legend

of Kalydôn. The whole scene of Adrastus, returning after the

accident in a state of desperate remorse, praying for death with

outstretched hands, spared by Crœsus, and then killing himself on

the tomb of the young prince, is deeply tragic (Herod. i, 44-45).

[250] Herodot. i, 85.

[251] Herodot. i, 86, 87: compare Plutarch, Solon, 27-28. See a

similar story about Gygês king of Lydia (Valerius Maxim. vii, 1,

2).

Such is the brief outline of a narrative which Herodotus has given

with full development and with impressive effect. It would have

served as a show-lecture to the youth of Athens, not less admirably

than the well-known fable of the Choice of Hêraklês, which the

philosopher Prodikus,[252] a junior contemporary of Herodotus,

delivered with so much popularity. It illustrates forcibly the

religious and ethical ideas of antiquity; the deep sense of the

jealousy of the gods, who would not endure pride in any one except

themselves;[253] the impossibility, for any man, of realizing to

himself more than a very moderate share of happiness; the danger from

reactionary nemesis, if at any time he had overpassed such limit; and

the necessity of calculations taking in the whole of life, as a basis

for rational comparison of different individuals; and as a practical

consequence from these feelings, a constant protest on the part of

the moralists against vehement impulses and unrestrained aspirations.

The more valuable this narrative appears, in its illustrative

character, the less can we presume to treat it as a history.

[252] Xenoph. Memorab. ii, 1, 21. Πρόδικος ὁ σοφὸς ἐν

τῷ συγγράμματι τῷ περὶ Ἡρακλέους, ὅπερ δὴ καὶ πλείστοις

ἐπιδείκνυται, etc.

[253] Herodot. vii, 10. φιλέει γὰρ ὁ θεὸς τὰ ὑπερέχοντα πάντα

κολούειν.... οὐ γὰρ ἐᾷ φρονέειν μέγα ὁ θεὸς ἄλλον ἢ ἑωϋτόν.

It is much to be regretted that we have no information respecting

events in Attica immediately after the Solonian laws and

constitution, which were promulgated in 594 B. C., so as to

understand better the practical effect of these changes. What we

next hear respecting Solon in Attica refers to a period immediately

preceding the first usurpation of Peisistratus in 560 B. C., and

after the return of Solon from his long absence. We are here again

introduced to the same oligarchical dissensions as are reported to

have prevailed before the Solonian legislation: the pedieis, or

opulent proprietors of the plain round Athens, under Lykurgus; the

parali of the south of Attica, under Megaklês: and the diakrii,

or mountaineers of the eastern cantons, the poorest of the three

classes, under Peisistratus, are in a state of violent intestine

dispute. The account of Plutarch represents Solon as returning to

Athens during the height of this sedition. He was treated with

respect by all parties, but his recommendations were no longer

obeyed, and he was disqualified by age from acting with effect in

public. He employed his best efforts to mitigate party animosities,

and applied himself particularly to restrain the ambition of

Peisistratus, whose ulterior projects he quickly detected.

The future greatness of Peisistratus is said to have been first

portended by a miracle which happened, even before his birth, to his

father Hippokratês at the Olympic games. It was realized, partly by

his bravery and conduct, which had been displayed in the capture of

Nisæa from the Megarians,[254]—partly by his popularity of speech

and manners, his championship of the poor,[255] and his ostentatious

disavowal of all selfish pretensions,—partly by an artful mixture

of stratagem and force. Solon, after having addressed fruitless

remonstrances to Peisistratus himself, publicly denounced his

designs in verses addressed to the people. The deception, whereby

Peisistratus finally accomplished his design, is memorable in Grecian

tradition.[256] He appeared one day in the agora of Athens in his

chariot with a pair of mules: he had intentionally wounded both his

person and the mules, and in this condition he threw himself upon the

compassion and defence of the people, pretending that his political

enemies had violently attacked him. He implored the people to grant

him a guard, and at the moment when their sympathies were freshly

aroused both in his favor and against his supposed assassins, Aristo

proposed formally to the ekklesia,—the pro-bouleutic senate, being

composed of friends of Peisistratus, had previously authorized the

proposition,[257]—that a company of fifty club-men should be assigned

as a permanent body-guard for the defence of Peisistratus. To this

motion Solon opposed a strenuous resistance,[258] but found himself

overborne, and even treated as if he had lost his senses. The poor

were earnest in favor of it, while the rich were afraid to express

their dissent; and he could only comfort himself, after the fatal

vote had been passed, by exclaiming that he was wiser than the former

and more determined than the latter. Such was one of the first known

instances in which this memorable stratagem was played off against

the liberty of a Grecian community.

[254] Herodot. i, 59. I record this allusion to Nisæa and the

Megarian war, because I find it distinctly stated in Herodotus;

and because it _may_ possibly refer to some other _later_

war between Athens and Megara than that which is mentioned

in Plutarch’s Life of Solon as having taken place before the

Solonian legislation (that is, before 594 B. C.), and therefore

nearly forty years before this movement of Peisistratus to

acquire the despotism. Peisistratus must then have been so young

that he could not with any propriety be said to have “captured

Nisæa” (Νισαιάν τε ἑλών): moreover, the public reputation, which

was found useful to the ambition of Peisistratus in 560 B. C.,

must have rested upon something more recent than his bravery

displayed about 597 B. C.; just as the celebrity which enabled

Napoleon to play the game of successful ambition on the 18th

Brumaire (Nov. 1799) was obtained by victories gained within the

preceding five years, and could not have been represented by any

historian as resting upon victories gained in the Seven Years’

war, between 1756-1763.

At the same time, my belief is that the words of Herodotus

respecting Peisistratus do really refer to the Megarian war

mentioned in Plutarch’s Life of Solon, and that Herodotus

supposed that Megarian war to have been much more near to the

despotism of Peisistratus than it really was. In the conception

of Herodotus, and by what (after Niebuhr) I venture to call a

mistake in his chronology, the interval between 600-560 B. C.

shrinks from forty years to little or nothing. Such mistake

appears, not only on the present occasion, but also upon two

others: first, in regard to the alleged dialogue between Solon

and Crœsus, described and commented upon a few pages above; next,

in regard to the poet Alkæus and his inglorious retreat before

the Athenian troops at Sigeium and Achilleium, where he lost

his shield, when the Mityleneans were defeated. The reality of

this incident is indisputable, since it was mentioned by Alkæus

himself in one of his songs; but Herodotus represents it to have

occurred in an Athenian expedition _directed by Peisistratus_.

Now the war in which Alkæus incurred this misfortune, and which

was brought to a close by the mediation of Periander of Corinth,

must have taken place earlier than 584 B. C., and probably took

place before the legislation of Solon; long before the time when

Peisistratus had the direction of Athenian affairs,—though the

latter may have carried on, and probably did carry on, _another

and a later war_ against the Mityleneans in those regions, which

led to the introduction of his illegitimate son, Hegesistratus,

as despot of Sigeium (Herod. v. 94-95).

If we follow the representation given by Herodotus of these

three different strings of events, we shall see that the same

chronological mistake pervades all of them,—he jumps over nearly

ten olympiads, or forty years. Alkæus is the contemporary of

Pittakus and Solon.

I have already remarked, in the previous chapter respecting

the despots of Sikyôn (ch. ix.), another instance of confused

chronology in Herodotus respecting the events of this

period,—respecting Crœsus, Megaklês, Alkmæôn and Kleisthenês of

Sikyôn.

[255] Aristot. Politic. v, 4, 5; Plutarch, Solon, 29.

[256] Plato, Republic, viii, p. 565. τὸ τυραννικὸν αἴτημα τὸ

πολυθρυλλητὸν ... αἰτεῖν τὸν δῆμον φύλακάς τινας τοῦ σώματος, ἵνα

σῶς αὐτοῖς ᾖ ὁ τοῦ δήμου βοηθός.

[257] Diog. Laërt. i, 49. ἡ βουλὴ, Πεισιστατίδαι ὄντες, etc.

[258] Plutarch, Solon, 29-30; Diog. Laërt. i, 50-51.

The unbounded popular favor which had procured the passing of this

grant, was still farther manifested by the absence of all precautions

to prevent the limits of the grant from being exceeded. The number

of the body-guard was not long confined to fifty, and probably

their clubs were soon exchanged for sharper weapons. Peisistratus

thus found himself strong enough to throw off the mask and seize

the acropolis. His leading opponents, Megaklês and the Alkmæônids,

immediately fled the city, and it was left to the venerable age and

undaunted patriotism of Solon to stand forward almost alone in a

vain attempt to resist the usurpation. He publicly presented himself

in the market-place, employing encouragement, remonstrance, and

reproach, in order to rouse the spirit of the people. To prevent this

despotism from coming, he told them would have been easy; to shake it

off now was more difficult, yet at the same time more glorious.[259]

But he spoke in vain; for all who were not actually favorable to

Peisistratus listened only to their fears, and remained passive; nor

did any one join Solon, when, as a last appeal, he put on his armor

and planted himself in military posture before the door of his house.

“I have done my duty, he exclaimed at length; I have sustained to the

best of my power my country and the laws:” and he then renounced

all farther hope of opposition,—though resisting the instances of

his friends that he should flee, and returning for answer, when they

asked him on what he relied for protection, “On my old age.” Nor did

he even think it necessary to repress the inspirations of his Muse:

some verses yet remain, composed seemingly at a moment when the

strong hand of the new despot had begun to make itself sorely felt,

in which he tells his countrymen: “If ye have endured sorrow from

your own baseness of soul, impute not the fault of this to the gods.

Ye have yourselves put force and dominion into the hands of these

men, and have thus drawn upon yourselves wretched slavery.”

[259] Plutarch, Solon, 30; Diogen. Laërt. i, 49; Diodor.

Excerpta., lib. vii-x, ed. Maii. Fr. xix-xxiv.

It is gratifying to learn that Peisistratus, whose conduct throughout

his despotism was comparatively mild, left Solon untouched. How long

this distinguished man survived the practical subversion of his own

constitution, we cannot certainly determine; but according to the

most probable statement he died the very next year, at the advanced

age of eighty.

We have only to regret that we are deprived of the means of following

more in detail his noble and exemplary character. He represents the

best tendencies of his age, combined with much that is personally

excellent; the improved ethical sensibility; the thirst for enlarged

knowledge and observation, not less potent in old age than in youth;

the conception of regularized popular institutions, departing

sensibly from the type and spirit of the governments around him, and

calculated to found a new character in the Athenian people; a genuine

and reflecting sympathy with the mass of the poor, anxious not merely

to rescue them from the oppressions of the rich, but also to create

in them habits of self-relying industry; lastly, during his temporary

possession of a power altogether arbitrary, not merely an absence

of all selfish ambition, but a rare discretion in seizing the mean

between conflicting exigencies. In reading his poems we must always

recollect that what now appears common-place was once new, so that

to his comparatively unlettered age, the social pictures which he

draws were still fresh, and his exhortations calculated to live in

the memory. The poems composed on moral subjects, generally inculcate

a spirit of gentleness towards others and moderation in personal

objects; they represent the gods as irresistible, retributive,

favoring the good and punishing the bad, though sometimes very

tardily. But his compositions on special and present occasions

are usually conceived in a more vigorous spirit; denouncing the

oppressions of the rich at one time, and the timid submission to

Peisistratus at another,—and expressing, in emphatic language, his

own proud consciousness of having stood forward as champion of the

mass of the people. Of his early poems hardly anything is preserved;

the few lines which remain seem to manifest a jovial temperament,

which we may well conceive to have been overlaid by the political

difficulties against which he had to contend,—difficulties arising

successively out of the Megarian war, the Kylonian sacrilege, the

public despondency healed by Epimenidês, and the task of arbiter

between a rapacious oligarchy and a suffering people. In one of his

elegies, addressed to Mimnermus, he marked out the sixtieth year as

the longest desirable period of life, in preference to the eightieth

year, which that poet had expressed a wish to attain;[260] but his

own life, as far as we can judge, seems to have reached the longer

of the two periods, and not the least honorable part of it—the

resistance to Peisistratus—occurs immediately before his death.

[260] Solon, Fragment 22, ed. Bergk. Isokratês affirms that Solon

was the first person to whom the appellation Sophist—in later

times carrying with it so much obloquy—was applied, (Isokratês,

Or. xv, De Permutatione, p. 344; p. 496, Bek.)

There prevailed a story, that his ashes were collected and scattered

around the island of Salamis, which Plutarch treats as absurd,—though

he tells us at the same time that it was believed both by Aristotle,

and by many other considerable men: it is at least as ancient as the

poet Kratinus, who alluded to it in one of his comedies, and I do not

feel inclined to reject it.[261] The inscription on the statue of

Solon at Athens described him as a Salaminian: he had been the great

means of acquiring the island for his country,—and it seems highly

probable that among the new Athenian citizens who went to settle

there, he may have received a lot of land and become enrolled among

the Salaminian demots. The dispersion of his ashes in various parts

of the island connects him with it as in some sort the œkist; and we

may construe that incident, if not as the expression of a public

vote, at least as a piece of affectionate vanity on the part of his

surviving friends.[262]

[261] Plutarch, Solon, 32; Kratinus ap. Diogen. Laërt. i, 62.

[262] Aristidês, in noticing this story of the spreading of

the ashes of Solon in Salamis, treats him as Ἀρχηγέτης of the

island (Orat. xlvi, Ὑπὲρ τῶν τεττάρων, p. 172; p. 230, Dindorf).

The inscription on his statue, which describes him as born in

Salamis, can hardly have been literally true: for when he was

born, Salamis was not incorporated in Attica; but it may have

been true by a sort of adoption (see Diogen. Laërt. i, 62). The

statue seems to have been erected by the Salaminians themselves,

a long time after Solon: see Menage ad Diogen. Laërt. _l. c._

We have now reached the period of the usurpation of Peisistratus

(B. C. 560), whose dynasty governed Athens—with two temporary

interruptions during the life of Peisistratus himself—for fifty

years. The history of this despotism, milder than Grecian despotism

generally, and productive of important consequences to Athens, will

be reserved for a succeeding chapter.

APPENDIX.

The explanation which M. von Savigny gives of the Nexi and

Addicti under the old Roman law of debtor and creditor (after

he has refuted the elucidation of Niebuhr on the same subject),

while it throws great light on the historical changes in Roman

legislation on that important subject, sets forth at the same

time the marked difference made in the procedure of Rome, between

the demand of the creditor for repayment of _principal_, and the

demand for payment of _interest_.

The primitive Roman law distinguished a debt arising from

money lent (_pecunia certa credita_) from debts arising out of

contract, delict, sale, etc., or any other source: the creditor

on the former ground had a quick and easy process, by which he

acquired the fullest power over the person and property of his

debtor. After the debt on loan was either confessed or proved

before the magistrate, thirty days were allowed to the debtor for

payment: if payment was not made within that time, the creditor

laid hold of him (_manûs injectio_) and carried him before the

magistrate again. The debtor was now again required either to pay

or to find a surety (_vindex_); if neither of these demands were

complied with, the creditor took possession of him and carried

him home, where he kept him in chains for two months; during

which interval he brought him before the prætor publicly on

three successive nundinæ. If the debt was not paid within these

two months, the sentence of addiction was pronounced, and the

creditor became empowered either to put his debtor to death, or

to sell him for a slave (p. 81), or to keep him at forced work,

without any restriction as to the degree of ill usage which might

be inflicted upon him. The judgment of the magistrate authorized

him, besides, to seize the property of his debtor wherever he

could find any, within the limits sufficient for payment: this

was one of the points which Niebuhr had denied.

Such was the old law of Rome, with respect to the consequences

of an action for money had and received, for more than a century

after the Twelve Tables. But the law did not apply this stringent

personal execution to any debt except that arising from loan,—and

even in that debt only to the principal money, not to the

interest,—which latter had to be claimed by a process both more

gentle and less efficient, applying to the property only and not

to the person of the debtor. Accordingly, it was to the advantage

of the creditor to devise some means for bringing his claim of

interest under the same stringent process as his claim for the

principal; it was also to his advantage, if his claim arose, not

out of money lent, but out of sale, compensation for injury,

or any other source, to give it _the form_ of an action for

money lent. Now the nexum, or nexi obligatio, was an artifice—a

fictitious loan—whereby this purpose was accomplished. The severe

process which legally belonged only to the recovery of the

principal money, was extended by the nexum so as to comprehend

the interest; and so as to comprehend, also, claims for money

arising from all other sources (as well as from loan), wherein

the law gave no direct recourse except against the property of a

debtor. The debitor nexus was made liable by this legal artifice

to pass into the condition of an addictus, either without having

borrowed money at all, or for the interest as well as for the

principal of that which he had borrowed.

The Lex Pœtelia, passed about B. C. 325, liberated all the nexi

then under liability, and interdicted the nexi obligatio forever

afterwards (Cicero, De Republ. ii, 34; Livy, viii, 28). Here,

as in the seisachtheia of Solon, the existing contracts were

cancelled, at the same time that the whole class of similar

contracts were forbidden for the future.

But though the nexi obligatio was thus abolished, the old

stringent remedy still continued against the debtor on loan,

_as far as the principal sum borrowed_, apart from interest.

Some mitigations were introduced: by a Lex Julia, the still

more important provision was added, that the debtor by means of

a cessio bonorum might save his person from seizure. But this

cessio bonorum was coupled with conditions which could not always

be fulfilled, nor was the debtor admitted to the benefit of it,

if he had been guilty of carelessness or dishonesty. Accordingly,

the old stringent process, and the addiction in which it ended,

though it became less frequent, still continued throughout the

course of Imperial Rome, and even down to the time of Justinian.

The private prison, with adjudicated debtors working in it, was

still the appendage to a Roman money-lender’s house, even in the

third and fourth centuries after the Christian era, though the

practice seems to have become rarer and rarer. The status of the

_addictus debitor_, with its peculiar rights and obligations, is

discussed by Quintilian (vii, 3); and Aulus Gellius observes:

“Addici namque _nunc_ et vinciri multos _videmus_, quia

vinculorum pœnam deterrimi homines contemnunt,” (xx, 1.)

If the _addictus debitor_ was adjudged to several creditors, they

were allowed by the Twelve Tables to divide his body among them.

No example was known of this power having been ever carried into

effect, but the law was understood to give the power distinctly.

It is useful to have before us the old Roman law of debtor and

creditor, partly as a point of comparison with the ante-Solonian

practice in Attica, partly to illustrate the difference drawn in

an early state of society between the claim for the principal and

the claim for the interest.

See the Abhandlung of Von Savigny in the Transactions of the

Berlin Academy for 1833, pp. 70-103; the subject is also treated

by the same admirable expositor, in his System des heutigen

Römischen Rechts, vol. v, sect. 219, and in Beilage xiv, 10-11 of

that volume.

The same peculiar stringent process, which was available in

the case of an action for _pecunia certa credita_, was also

specially extended to the surety, who had paid down money to

liquidate another man’s debt; the debtor, if solvent, became his

addictus,—this was the _actio depensi_. I have already remarked

in a former note, that in the Attic law, a case analogous to this

was the only one in which the original remedy against the person

of the debtor was always maintained. When a man had paid money to

redeem a citizen from captivity, the latter, if he did not repay

it, became the slave of the party who had advanced the money.

Walter (Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, sects. 583-715, 2d

ed.) calls in question the above explanation of Von Savigny, on

grounds which do not appear to me sufficient.

How long the feeling continued, that it was immoral and

irreligious to receive any interest at all for money lent, may be

seen from the following notice respecting the state of the law in

France even down to 1789:—

“Avant la Révolution Française (de 1789) le prêt à intérêt

n’était pas également admis dans les diverses parties du royaume.

Dans les pays de droit écrit, il était permis de stipuler

l’intérêt des déniers prêtés: mais la jurisprudence des parlemens

resistait souvent à cet usage. Suivant le droit commun des pays

coutumiers, on ne pouvait stipuler aucun intérêt pour le prêt

appelé en droit _mutuum_. On tenait pour maxime que l’argent ne

produisant rien par lui-même, un tel prêt devait être gratuit:

que la perception d’intérêts était une usure: à cet égard, on

admettait assez généralement les principes du droit canonique. Du

reste, la législation et la jurisprudence variaient suivant les

localités et suivant la nature des contrâts et des obligations.”

(Carette, Lois Annotées, ou Lois, Décrets, Ordonnances, Paris

1843; Note sur le Décret de l’Assemblée Nationale concernant le

Prêt et Intérêt. Août 11, 1789.)

The National Assembly declared the legality of all loans on

interest, “suivant le taux déterminé par la loi,” but did not

then fix any special rate. “Le décret du 11 Avril, 1793, défendit

la vente et l’achat du numéraire.” “La loi du 6 floréal, an III,

déclara que l’or et l’argent sont marchandises; mais elle fut

rapportée par le décret du 2 prairial suivant. Les articles 1905

et 1907 du Code Civil permettent le prêt à intérêt, mais au taux

fixé ou autorisé par la loi. La loi du 3 Sept. 1807 a fixé le

taux d’intérêt à 5 per cent. en matière civile et à 6 per cent.

en matière commerciale.”

The article on Lending-houses, in Beckmann’s History of

Inventions (vol. iii, pp. 9-50), is highly interesting and

instructive on the same subject. It traces the gradual calling in

question, mitigation, and disappearance, of the ancient antipathy

against taking interest for money, an antipathy long sanctioned

by the ecclesiastics as well as by the jurists. Lending-houses,

or Monts de Piété, were first commenced in Italy about the

middle of the fifteenth century, by some Franciscan monks, for

the purpose of rescuing poor borrowers from the exorbitant

exactions of the Jews: Pope Pius the Second (Æneas Silvius, one

of the ablest of the popes, about 1458-1464), was the first who

approved of one of them at Perugia, but even the papal sanction

was long combated by a large proportion of ecclesiastics. At

first, it was to be purely charitable; not only neither giving

interest to those who contributed money, nor taking interest

from the borrowers,—but not even providing fixed pay to the

administrators: interest was tacitly taken, but the popes

were a long time before they would formally approve of such a

practice. “At Vicenza, in order to avoid the reproach of usury,

the artifice was employed of not demanding any interest, but

admonishing the borrowers that they should give a remuneration

according to their piety and ability,” (p. 31.) The Dominicans,

partisans of the old doctrine, called these establishments

Montes _Impietatis_. A Franciscan monk Bernardinus, one of the

most active promoters of the Monts de Piété, did not venture to

defend, but only to excuse as an unavoidable evil, the payment

of wages to the clerks and administrators: “Speciosius et

religiosius fatebatur Bernardinus fore, si absque ullo penitus

obolo et pretio mutuum daretur et commodaretur libere pecunia,

sed pium opus et pauperum subsidium exiguo sic duraturum tempore.

Non enim (inquit) tantus est ardor hominum, ut gubernatores

et officiales, Montium ministerio necessarii, velint laborem

hunc omnem gratis subire: quod si remunerandi sint ex sorte

principali, vel ipso deposito, seu exili Montium ærario, brevi

exhaurietur, et commodum opportunumque istud pauperum refugium

ubique peribit.” (p. 33.)

The Council of Trent, during the following century, pronounced

in favor of the legality and usefulness of these lending-houses,

and this has since been understood to be the sentiment of the

Catholic church generally.

To trace this gradual change of moral feeling is highly

instructive,—the more so, as that general basis of sentiment,

of which the antipathy against lending money on interest is

only a particular case, still prevails largely in society and

directs the current of moral approbation and disapprobation. In

some nations, as among the ancient Persians before Cyrus, this

sentiment has been carried so far as to repudiate and despise all

buying and selling (Herodot. i, 153). With many, the principle

of reciprocity in human dealings appears, when conceived in

theory, odious and contemptible, and goes by some bad name, such

as egoism, selfishness, calculation, political economy, etc: the

only sentiment which they will admit in theory, is, that the man

who has, ought to be ready at all times to give away what he has

to him who has not; while the latter is encouraged to expect and

require such gratuitous donation.