A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

862 SOLON. SOLON.
tain his father in his old age. The council of the Greeks months of 29 and 30 days alternately.
Areiopagus had a general power to punish idleness. He also thinks that this was accompanied by the
Solon forbade the exportation of all produce of the introduction of the Trieteris or two-year cycle.
Attic soil except olive oil. The impulse which he We have more than one statement to the effect
gave to the various branches of industry carried on that Solon exacted from the government and people
in towns had eventually an important bearing upon of Athens a solemn oath, that they would observe
the development of the democratic spirit in Athens. his laws without alteration for a certain space(Plut. Sol. 22, 24.) Solon was the first who gave 10 years according to Herodotus (i. 29),- 1)00
to those who died childless the power of disposing years according to other accounts (Plut. Sol. 25).
of their property by will. He enacted several According to a story told by Plutarch (Sol. 15),
laws relating to marriage, especially with regard to Solon was himself aware that he had been comheiresses (Plut. Sol. 20). Other regulations were pelled to leave many imperfections in his system
intended to place restraints upon the female sex and code. Hie is said to have spoken of his laws
with regard to their appearance in public, and as being not the best, but the best which the
especially to repress frantic and excessive mani- Athenians would have received. After he had
festations of grief at funerals (I. c. 21). An adul- completed his task, being, we are told, greatly anterer taken in the act might be killed on the spot, noyed and troubled by those who came to him
but the violation of a free woman was only punish- with all kinds of complaints, suggestions or critiable by a fine of one hundred drachmae, the seduc- cisms about his laws, in order that he might not
tion of a free woman by a fine of twenty drachmae himself have to propose any change, he absented
(I. c. 23). Other laws will be found in Plutarch himself from Athens for ten years, after he had
respecting the speaking evil either of the dead or obtained the oath above referred to. Hie first
of the living, respecting the use of wells, the plant- visited Egypt, and conversed with two learned
ing of trees in conterminous properties, the des- Egyptian priests - Psenophis of Heliopolis, and
truction of noxious animals, &c. (I. c. 21, 23, 24. Sonchis of Sais. The stories which they told him
Comp. Diog. Lairt i. 55, &c.). The rewards which about the submerged island of Atlantis, and the
he appointed to be given to victors at the Olympic war carried on against it by Athens 9000 years
and Isthmian games are for that age unusually before his time, induced him to make it the sublarge (500 drachmae to the former and 100 to the ject of an epic poem, which, however, he did
latter). The law relating to theft, that the thief not complete, and of which nothing now remains.
should restore twice the value of the thing stolen, From Egypt he proceeded to Cyprus, and was
seems to have been due to Solon. (Dict. of' Ant. received with great distinction by Philocyprus,
art. cAho7ris aiKe). He also either established or king of the little town of Aepeia. Solon persuaded
regulated the public dinners at the Prytaneium. the king to remove from the old site, which was
(Plut. Sol. 24.) One of the most curious of his on an inconvenient and precipitous elevation, and
regulations was that which denounced atimia build a new town on the plain. He himself asalgainst any citizen, who, on the outbreak of a sisted in laying out the plan. The new settlesedition, remained neutral. On the design of this ment was called Soli, in honour of the illustrious
enactment to shorten as much as possible any sus- visitor. A fmirgment of an elegiac poem addressed
pension of legal authority, and its connection with by Solon to Philocyprus is preserved by Plutarch
the ostracism, the reader will find some ingenious (Sol. 26; Bergk, 1. c. p. 325). We learn from
and able remarks in Grote (1. c. iii. p. 190, &c.). Herodotus (v. 113) that in this poem Solon beThe laws of Solon were inscribed on wooden rollers stowed the greatest praise upon Philocyprus. The
(ao'Es) and triangular tablets (KvpdesE), in the statement of the blundering Diogenes Lairtius
ouovorpoJ)30'v fashion, and were set up at first in (i. 51, 62) that Solon founded Soli in Cilicia, and
the Acropolis, afterwards in the Prytaneium. (Plut. died in Cyprus, may be rejected without hesiSol. 25; Harpocr. s. VV. Cv. rp@e - d Kca'w0V tation.
vbPos; Pollux, viii. ~ 128; Suidas, s. vv.) It is impossible not to regret that the stern laws
The Athenians were also indebted to Solon for of chronology compel us to set down as a fiction
some rectification of the calendar. Diogenes La'r- the beautiful story so beautifully told by Herotius (i. 59) says that " he made the Athenians dotus (i. 29-45, 86; comp. Plut. Sol. 27, 28) of
regulate their days according to the moon," that is the interview between Solon and Croesus, and the
to say, he introduced some division of time agreeing illustration furnished in the history of the latter of
more accurately with the course of the moon. the truth of the maxim of the Athenian sage, that
Plutarch (Sol. 25) gives the following very confused worldly prosperity is precarious, and that no man's
account of the matter: "Since Solon observed the life can be pronounced happy till he has reached
irregularity of the moon, and saw that its motion its close without a reverse of fortune [CKRosvs].
does not coincide completely either with the setting For though it may be made out that it is just
or with the rising of the sun. but that it often on within the limits of possibility that Solon and
the same day both overtakes and passes the sun, Croesus may have met a few years before B. c. 560,
he ordained that this day should be called &vn7 Kal that could not have been an interview consistent
vea, considering that the portion of it which pre- with any of the circumstances mentioned by Heroceded the conjunction belonged to the month that dotus, and without which the story of the interwas ending, the rest to that which was beginning. view would be entirely devoid of any interest that
The succeeding day he called younvria." Accord- could make it worth while attempting to establish
ing to the scholiast on Aristophanes (Nub. 1129) its possibility. The whole pith and force of the
Solon introduced the practice of reckoning the days story would vanish if any interview of an earlier
from the twentieth onwards in the reverse order. date be substituted for that which the episode in
Ideler (andbzuch der Chronoloyie,vol. i.p. 266, &c.) Herodotus requires, namely one taking place when
gathers from the notices that we have on the sub- Croestus was king (Mr. Grote, 1. c. p. 199 shows
ject, that Solon was the first who introduced among that it is a mere gratuitous hypothesis to nmake