CHAP. XII.
His death.
* 1.1 HEraclides affirmes, Solon lived long after Pisistratus began to raign;* 1.2 Lucian that his life extended to a hundred years; with whom those best agree, who say (as Suidas relates) he lived in the fiftie six Olympiad;* 1.3 but according to Phanias, Pisistratus took the Tyranny upon him, when Comias was Archon, and Solon died, Hegestratus being Archon, who s••cceeded Comias, which was in the first year of the fiftie ••ift Olympiad. If this latter opinion had not every where taken place of the other, the disagreement betwixt the time of Solon's death, and Croesus raign had not been urged by many, as an argument against the story of their mee∣ting.
He dyed (according to Laertius) aged eighty years (being as * 1.4 Elian saith, very decrepit) in Cyprus, (as is like wise attested by * 1.5 Valerius Maximus, and* 1.6 Suidas) •• and left order with his friends that they should carry his bones to Salamis, & there causing them to be burnt, s••atter the ashes all over the country; which story Plutarch (though he counts it fabulous) acknowledgeth to be attested by many Authors of credit, particularly Aristotle.
Laertius confirms it by the testimony of Cra••inus, who makes him speak thus;
The Island I inhabit, sown As fame reports, in Ajax Town:
That desire of knowledge which he usually profest continu∣ed with him to his end,* 1.7 confirmed the last day of his life; his friends sitting about him, and falling into some discourse, he raised his weary head, and being demanded why he did so, he answered, that when I have learnt that, whatsoever it be, whereon you dispute, I may die:* 1.8 His brothers son singing an ode of Sappho, he delighted therewith, bad him teach him it, and being de∣manded