selves wholly to words and theory: but Lycurgus, without dwelling upon ideas and speculative projects, did really and effectually institute an inimitable polity, and form a whole city of philosophers. this admirable principle, which we meet with in many of their writings, that man,' placed in the world as in a certain post by his general, cannot abandon it without the express command of him upon whom he depends, that is, of God himself. At other times, they In order to succeed in this undertaking, and to looked upon man as a criminal condemned to a me- establish the most perfect form of a commonwealth lancholy prison, from whence indeed he might desire that could be, he melted down, as it were, and blended to be released, but could not lawfully attempt to be so, together, what he found best in every kind of governbut by the course of justice, and the order of the ma- ment, and most conducive to the public good; thus gistrate; and not by breaking his chains, and forcing tempering one species with another, and balancing the the gates of his prison. These notions are beautiful, inconveniences to which each of them in particular is because they are true; but the application they made subject, with the advantages that result from their beof them was wrong; by taking that for an expressing united together. Sparta had something of the order of the Deity, which was the pure effect of their monarchical form of government, in the authority of own weakness or pride, by which they were led to put her kings; the council of thirty, otherwise called the themselves to death, either that they might deliver senate, was a true aristocracy; and the power vested themselves from the pains and troubles of this life, or in the people of nominating the senators, and of giv immortalize their names, as was the case with Lycur- ing sanction to the laws, resembled a democratical gus, Cato, and a number of others. government. The institution of the Ephori afterwards served to rectify what was amiss in those previous REFLECTIONS UPON THE GOVERNMENT OF SPARTA, AND establishments, and to supply what was defective. UPON THE LAWS OF LYCURGUS. I. Things commendable in the Laws of Lycurgus. There must needs have been (to judge only by the event) a great fund of wisdom and prudence in the laws of Lycurgus; since, as long as they were observed in Sparta, (which was above 500 years) it was a most flourishing and powerful city. It was not so much (says Plutarch, speaking of the laws of Sparta,) the government and polity of a city, as the conduct and regular behaviour of a wise man, who passes his whole life in the exercise of virtue: or, rather continues the same author, as the poets feign, that Hercules, only with his lion's skin and club, went from country to country to purge the world of robbers and tyrants; so Sparta, with a slip of parchment and an old coat, gave laws to all Greece, which willingly submitted to her dominion; suppressed tyrannies and unjust authority in cities; put an end to wars, as she thought fit, and appeased insurrections; and all this generally without moving a shield or a sword, and only by sending a simple ambassador amongst them, who no sooner appeared, than all the people submitted, and flocked about him like so many bees about their monarch: so much respect did the justice and good government of this city imprint upon the minds of all their neighbours. Plato, in more places than one, admires Lycurgus's wisdom in his institution of the senate, which was ple; because by this means, the law became the only equally advantageous both to the kings and the peosupreme mistress of the kings, and the kings never became tyrants over the law. 3 When I place the transaction I am now speaking of among the laudable part of Lycurgus's laws, I do not pretend it to be absolutely unexceptionable; for I think it can scarce be reconciled with that general law of nature, which forbids the taking away one man's property to give it to another: and yet this is what was really done upon this occasion. Therefore, in this affair of dividing the lands, I consider only so much of it as was truly commendable in itself, and worthy of admiration. 1. The nature of the Spartan government. We find at the end of Lycurgus's life a reflection suade the richest and most opulent inhabitants of a Can we possibly conceive, that a man could per made by Plutarch, which of itself comprehends a city to resign all their revenues and estates, to level great encomium upon that legislator. He there says, and confound themselves with the poorest of the peothat Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, and all those who have ple; to subject themselves to a new way of living, treated of the establishment of a political state of go-both severe in itself, and full of restraint; in a word, vernment, took their plans from the republic of Lycurgus; with this difference, that they confined them 1 Vetat Pythagoras, injussu imperatoris, id est Dei de præsidio et statione vitæ decedere. Cic. de senect. n. 73. Cato sic abiit è vitâ, ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet. Vetat enim dominans ille in nobis Deus injussu hinc nos suo demigrare. Cùm verò causam justam Deus ipse dederit, ut tunc Socrati, nunc Catoni, sæpe multis; næ ille, medius fidius, vir sapiens, lætus ex his tenebris in lucem illam excesserit. Nec tamen illa vincula carceris ruperit ; leges enim vetant: sed, tanquam à magistratu aut ab aliquâ potestate legitimâ, sic à Deo evocatus atque emissus, exierit. Id. 1. Tusc. Quæst. n. 74. to debar themselves of the use of every thing wherein the happiness and comfort of life is thought to consist? And yet this is what Lycurgus actually effected in Sparta. Such an institution as this would have been less wonderful, had it subsisted only during the life of the legislator; but we know that it lasted many ages after his decease. Xenophon, in the encomium he has left observe, that Lacedæmon was the only city in the us of Agesilaus, and Cicero, in one of his orations, world that preserved her discipline and laws for so considerable a term of years unaltered and inviolate. Soli, said the latter, speaking of the Lacedæmonians, 2 This was what the Spartans called scytale, a thong of toto orbe terrarum septingentos jam annos ampliùs unis leather or parchment, which they twisted round a staff in moribus et nunquam mutatis legibus vivunt. I believe, such a manner, that there was no vacancy or void space however, that in Cicero's time the discipline of Sparta, left upon it. They wrote upon this thong, and when they as well as her power, was very much relaxed and had written, they untwisted it, and sent it to the general diminished; but all historians agree, that it was mainfor whom it was intended. This general, who had ano-tained in all its vigour till the reign of Agis, under ther stick of the same size with that on which the thong was twisted and written upon, wrapped it round that staff whom Lysander, though incapable himself of being in the same manner, and by that means found out the connexion and arrangement of the letters, which otherwise were so displaced and out of order, that there was no possibility of their being read. Plut. in vit. Lyc. p. 444. VOL. 1.-23 Νόμος ἐπειδὴ κύριος ἐγένετο βασιλεὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, aλ'obк avОwπоι тораvvoc vouwv. Plat. Epist. viii. • Pro. Flac. num. lxiii. blinded or corrupted with gold, filled his country with 3. The excellent education of their youth. luxury and the love of riches, by bringing into it imThe long duration of the laws established by Lycur mense sums of gold and silver, which were the fruit of gus, is certainly very wonderful: but the means he his victories, and thereby subverting the laws of Ly-made use of to succeed therein are no less worthy of curgus. admiration. The principal of these was the extraordiBut the introduction of gold and silver money was nary care he took to have the Spartan youth brought not the first wound given by the Lacedæmonians to up in an exact and severe discipline: for (as Plutarch the institutions of their legislator. It was the conse- observes) the religious obligation of an oath, which he quence of the violation of another law still more fun- exacted from the citizens, would have been a feeble damental. Ambition was the vice that preceded, and tie, had he not by education infused his laws as it made way for, avarice. The desire of conquests drew were, into the minds and manners of the children, and on that of riches, without which they could not pro- made them suck in almost with their mother's milk an pose to extend their dominions. The main design of affection for his institutions. This was the reason Lycurgus, in the establishing his laws, and especially why his principal ordinances subsisted above 500 that which prohibited the use of gold and silver, was, years, having sunk into the very temper and hearts of as Polybius, and Plutarch have judiciously observed, the people, like a strong and good dye, that pene to curb and restrain the ambition of his citizens; to trates thoroughly. Cicero makes the same remark, disable them from making conquests, and in a man- and ascribes the courage and virtue of the Spartans, ner to force them to confine themselves within the not so much to their own natural disposition, as to narrow bounds of their own country, without carry- their excellent education: Cujus civitatis spectata ac ing their views and pretensions any farther. Indeed, nobilitata virtus, non solùm naturâ corrobarata, verùm the government which he established, was sufficient etiam disciplinâ putatur. All this shows of what imto defend the frontiers of Sparta, but was not calcu-portance it is to a state to take care, that their youth lated for the raising her to a dominion over other be brought up in a manner proper to inspire them with a love for the laws of their country. cities. 1 ་ The design, then, of Lycurgus was not to make The great maxim of Lycurgus, which Aristotle rethe Spartans conquerors. To remove such thoughts peats in express terms, was, that as children belong from his fellow-citizens, he expressly forbid them, to the state, their education ought to be directed by though they inhabited a country surrounded with the the state, and the views and interests of the state only sea, to meddle with maritime affairs; to have any considered therein. It was for this reason he enactfleets, or ever to fight upon the sea. They were re-ed, that they should be educated all in common, and ligious observers of this prohibition for many ages, and even till the defeat of Xerxes: but upon that occasion they began to think of making themselves masters at sea, that they might be able to keep so formidable an enemy at the greater distance. But having soon perceived, that these maritime, remote commands, corrupted the manners of their generals, they laid that project aside without any difficulty, as we shall observe, when we come to speak of king Pausanias. not left to the humour and caprice of their parents, who generally, through a soft and blind indulgence, and a mistaken tenderness, enervate at once both the bodies and minds of their children. At Sparta, from their tenderest years, they were inured to labour and fatigue by the exercises of hunting and racing, and accustomed betimes to endure hunger and thirst, heat and cold; and, what is difficult to make mothers believe, all these hard and laborious exercises tended to procure them health, and make their constitutions the more vigorous and robust; able to bear the hardships and fatigues of war, for which they were all designed from their cradles. 4. Obedience. When Lycurgus armed his fellow-citizens with shields and lances, it was not to enable them to commit wrongs and outrages with impunity, but only to defend themselves against the invasions and injuries of others. He made them indeed a nation of warriors and soldiers; but it was only that, under the But the most excellent thing in the Spartan educashadow of their arms, they might live in liberty, mo- tion, was its teaching young people so perfectly well deration, justice, union, and peace, by being content how to obey. It is from hence the poet Simonides with their own territories, without usurping those of gives that city such a magnificent epithet, which deothers, and by being persuaded, that no city or state, notes that they alone knew how to subdue the pasany more than individuals, can ever hope for solid sions of men, and to render them pliant and submisand lasting happiness but from virtue only. Men of sive to the laws, in the same manner as horses are a depraved taste (says Plutarch farther on the sub-taught to obey the spur and the bridle, by being broject), who think nothing so desirable as riches and a large extent of dominion, may give the preference to those vast empires that have subdued and enslaved the world by violence; but Lycurgus was convinced, that a city had occasion for nothing of that kind, in order to be happy. His policy, which has justly been the admiration of all ages, had no farther views than to establish equity, moderation, liberty, and peace; and was an enemy to all injustice, violence, and ambition, and the passion of reigning and extending the bounds of the Spartan commonwealth. Such reflections as these, which Plutarch agreeably intersperses in his lives, and in which their greatest and most essential beauty consists, are of infinite use towards the giving us true notions, wherein consists the solid and true glory of a state that is really happy; as also to correct those false ideas which we are apt to form of the vain greatness of those empires which have swallowed up kingdoms, and of those celebrated conquerors who owe all their fame and grandeur to violence and usurpation. 1 Polyb. I. vi. p. 491. 2 Plut. in moribus Laced. p. 239. Ibid. in vit. Lycurg. p. 59. Ibid. et in vit. Agesil. p. 614. 9 ken and trained while they are young. For this reason, Agesilaus advised Xenophon to send his children to Sparta, that they might learn there the noblest and greatest of all sciences, that is, how to command, and how to obey. 5. Respect towards the aged. One of the lessons oftenest and most strongly inculcated upon the Lacedæmonian youth, was to entertain great reverence and respect to old men, and to give them proofs of it upon all occasions, by saluting them, by making way for them, and giving them place in the streets,10 by rising up to show them honour in all companies and public assemblies; but above all, by receiving their advice, and even their reproofs, with docility and submission: by these characteristics a Lacedæmonian was known wherever he came; if he had behaved otherwise, it would have been looked upon as a reproach to himself, and a dishonour to his country. An old man of Athens going into the theatre once to see a play, none of his own countrymen offered him a seat; but when he came near the place where the Spartan ambassadors and their retinue were sitting, they all rose up out of reverence to his age, and seated him in the midst of them. Lysander therefore had reason to say,' that old age had no where so honourable an abode as in Sparta, and that it was an agreeable thing to grow old in that city. II. Things blameable in the laws of Lycurgus. In order to perceive more clearly the defects in the laws of Lycurgus, we have only to compare them with those of Moses, which we know were dictated by more than human wisdom. But my design in this place is not to enter into a strict detail of the particulars wherein the laws and institutions of Lycurgus are faulty: I shall content myself with making only some slight reflections, which probably the reader has already anticipated, as he must have been justly disgusted by the mere recital of some of those ordinances. 1. The choice made of the children, that were either to be brought up or exposed. To begin, for instance, with that ordinance relating to the choice they made of their children, which of them were to be brought up, and which exposed to perish; who would not be shocked at the unjust and inhuman custom of pronouncing sentence of death upon all such infants as had the misfortune to be born with a constitution that appeared too weak and delicate to undergo the fatigues and exercises to which the commonwealth destined all her subjects? Is it then impossible, and without example, that children, who are tender and weak in their infancy, should ever alter as they grow up, and become in time of a robust and vigorous constitution? Or suppose it were so, can a man no way serve his country, but by the strength of his body? Is there no account to be made of his wisdom, prudence, counsel, generosity, courage, magnanimity, and, in a word, of all the qualities that depend upon the mind and the intellectual faculties? Omnino illud honestum, quod ex animo excelso magnificoque quærimus, animi efficitur, non corporis viribus. Did Lycurgus himself render less service, or do less honour to Sparta, by establishing his laws, than the greatest generals did by their victories? Agesilaus was of so small a stature, and so mean in person, that at the first sight of him the Egyptians could not help laughing; and yet, little as he was, he made the great king of Persia tremble upon the throne of half the world. But what is yet stronger than all I have said, has any other person a right or power over the lives of men, than He from whom they received them, even God himself? And does not a legislator visibly usurp the authority of God, whenever he arrogates to himself such a power without his commission? That precept of the decalogue, which was only a renewal of the law of nature, Thou shalt not kill, universally condemns all those among the ancients, who imagined they had a power of life and death over their slaves, and even over their own children. 2. Their care confined only to the body. The great defect in Lycurgus's laws (as Plato and Aristotle have observed) is, that they tended only to form a nation of soldiers. All that legislator's thoughts seemed wholly bent upon the means of strengthening Lysandrum Lacedæmonium dicere aiunt solitum: Lacedæmone esse honestissimum domicilium senectutis. Cic. de sen. n. 63. 'Ev Aaxedaíμovi káddiora ynpwơi. Plut. m Mor. p. 795. Cicer. 1. i. de offic. n. 79. Ibid. n. 76. 8 the bodies of the people, without any concern for the cultivation of their minds. Why should he banish from his commonwealth all arts and sciences, which, besides many other advantages, have this most happy effect, that they soften our manners, polish our understandings, improve the heart, and render our behaviour civil, courteous, gentle, and obliging; such, in a word, as qualifies us for company and society, and makes the ordinary intercourse of life agreeable? Hence it came to pass, that there was something of a roughness and austerity in the temper and behaviour of the Spartans, and many times even something of ferocity, a failing that proceeded chiefly from their education, and that rendered them disagreeable and offensive to all their allies. 3. Their barbarous cruelty towards their children. It was an excellent practice in Sparta, to accustom their youth betimes to suffer heat and cold, hunger and thirst, and by several severe and laborious exercises to bring the body into subjection to reason, whose faithful and diligent minister it ought to be in the execution of all her orders and injunctions; which it can never do, if it be not able to undergo all sorts of hardships and fatigues. But was it rational in them to carry their severities so far, as the inhuman treatment we have mentioned? and was it not utterly barbarous and brutal in the fathers and mothers to see the blood trickling from the wounds of their children, nay even to see them expiring under the lashes, without con cern? 4. The mother's inhumanity. Some people admire the courage of the Spartan mothers, who could hear the news of the death of their children slain in battle, not only without tears, but even with a kind of joy and satisfaction. For my part, I should think it much better that nature should show herself a little more on such occasions, and that the love of one's country should not utterly extinguish the sentiments of maternal tenderness. One of our generals in France, who in the heat of battle was told that his son was killed, spoke much more properly on the subject: Let us at present think, said he, how to conquer the enemy; to-morrow I will mourn for my son. 5. Their excessive leisure. Nor can I see what excuse can be made for that law, imposed by Lycurgus upon the Spartans, which enjoined the spending the whole of their time, except when they were engaged in war, in idleness and inaction. He left all the arts and trades entirely to the slaves and strangers that lived amongst them, and put nothing into the hands of the citizens but the lance and the shield. Not to mention the danger there was in suffering the number of slaves that were necessary for tilling the land, to increase to such a degree as to become much greater than that of their masters, which was often an occasion of seditions and riots among them; how many disorders must men necessarily fall into, that have so much leisure upon their hands, and have no daily occupation or regular labour? This is an inconvenience even now but too common among our nobility, and which is the natural effect of their most of our gentry spend their lives in a most useless injudicious education. Except in the time of war, and unprofitable manner. They look upon agriculture, arts, and commerce, as beneath them, and derogatory to their gentility. They seldom know how to handle any thing but their swords. As for the sciences, they take but a very small tincture of them; just so much as they cannot well be without; and many have not the least knowledge of them, nor any manner of taste for books or reading. We are not to 3 Omnes artes quibus ætas puerilis ad humanitatem informari solet. Cic. Orat. pro Arch. Exercendum corpus, et ita efficiendum est ut obedire consilio rationique possit in exsequendis negotiis et labore tolerando. Lib. i. de offic. n. 79. wonder then, if gaming and hunting, eating and drinking, mutual visits and frivolous discourse, make up their whole occupation. What a life is this for men that have any parts or understanding! 6. Their cruelty towards the Helots. Lycurgus would be utterly inexcusable if he gave occasion, as he is accused of having done, for all the rigour and cruelty exercised towards the Helots in his republic. These Helots were slaves employed by the Spartans to till the ground. It was their custom not only to make these poor creatures drunk, and expose them before their children, in order to give them an abhorrence for so shameful and odious a vice, but they treated them also with the utmost barbarity, and thought themselves at liberty to destroy them by any violence or cruelty whatsoever, under pretence of their being always ready to rebel. Upon a certain occasion related by Thucydides,' 2000 of these Helots disappeared at once, without any body's knowing what was become of them. Plutarch pretends, this barbarous custom was not practised till after Lycurgus's time, and that he had no hand in it. 7. Modesty and decency entirely neglected. But that wherein Lycurgus appears to be most culpable, and what most clearly shows the prodigious enormities and gross darkness in which the Pagans were plunged, is the little regard he showed for modesty and decency, in what concerned the education of girls, and the marriages of young women; which was without doubt the source of those disorders that prevailed in Sparta, as Aristotle has wisely observed. When we compare these indecent and licentious institutions of the wisest legislator that ever profane antiquity could boast, with the sanctity and purity of the evangelical precepts; what a noble idea does it give us of the dignity and excellence of the Christian religion! Nor will it give us a less advantageous notion of this pre-eminence, if we compare the most excellent and laudable part of Lycurgus's institutions with the laws of the gospel. It is, we must own, a wonderful thing, that a whole people should consent to a division of their lands, which set the poor upon an equal footing with the rich; and that by a total exclusion of gold and silver, they should reduce themselves to a kind of voluntary poverty. But the Spartan legislator, when he enacted these laws, had the sword in his hand; whereas the Christian Legislator says but a word, Blessed are the poor in spirit, and thousands of the faithful through all succeeding generations, renounce their goods, sell their lands and estates, and leave all to follow Jesus Christ, their master, in poverty and want. ARTICLE VIII. THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS. THE LAWS OF SOLON. THE HISTORY OF THAT REPUBLIC FROM THE TIME OF SOLON TO THE REIGN OF DARIUS THE FIRST. I have already observed, that Athens was at first governed by kings. But they had little more than the name; for their whole power being confined to the command of the armies, vanished in time of peace. Every man was master in his own house, where he lived in an absolute state of independence. Codrus, the last king of Athens, having devoted himself to die for the public good, his sons Medon and Nileus quarrelled about the succession. The Athenians took this occasion to abolish the regal power, though it did not much incommode them; and declared, that Jupiter alone was king of Athens; at the very same time that the Jews, weary of the theocracy, that is, of having the true God for their king, would absolutely have a man to reign over them. Plutarch observes, that Homer, when he enumerates the ships of the confederate Grecians, gives the name of people to none but the Athenians; from whence it may be inferred, that the Athenians even then had a great inclination to a democratical government, and that the chief authority was at that time vested in the people. In the place of their kings they substituted a kind of governors for life, under the title of Archons. But this perpetual magistracy appeared still, in the eyes of this free people, as too lively an image of regal power, of which they were desirous of abolishing even the very shadow; for which reason, they first reduced that office to the term of ten years, and then to that of one: and this they did with a view of resuming the authority the more frequently into their own hands, which they never transferred to their magistrates but with regret. Such a limited power as this was not sufficient to restrain those turbulent spirits, who were grown excessively jealous of their liberty and independence, very tender and apt to be offended at any thing that seemed to encroach upon their equality, and always ready to take umbrage at whatever had the least appearance of dominion or superiority. From hence arose continual factions and quarrels: there was no agreement or concord among them, either about religion or government. Athens therefore continued a long time incapable of enlarging her power, it being very happy for her that she could preserve herself from ruin in the midst of those long and frequent dissensions, with which she had to struggle. Misfortunes instruct. Athens learned, at length, that true liberty consists in a dependence upon justice and reason. This happy subjection could not be established, but by a legislator. She therefore pitched upon Draco, a man of acknowledged wisdom and integrity. It does not appear that Greece had, before his time, any A. M. 3380. written laws. He published some, Ant. J. C. 624. whose rigour, anticipating, as it were, the Stoical doctrine, was so great, that it punished the smallest offence, as well as the most enormous crimes, equally with death. These laws of Draco, written, says Demades, not with ink, but with blood, had the same fate as usually attends all violent extremes. Sentiments of humanity in the judges, compassion for the accused, whom they were wont to look upon rather as unfortunate than criminal, and the apprehensions the accusers and witnesses were under of rendering themselves odious to the people; all these motives, I say, concurred to produce a remissness in the execution of the laws; which by that means, in process of time, became as it were abrogated through disuse and thus an excessive rigour paved the way for impunity. The danger of relapsing into their former disorders, made them have recourse to fresh precautions: for they were willing to slacken the curb and restraint of fear, but not to break it. In order therefore to find out mitigations, which might make amends for what they took away from the letter of the law, they cast their eyes upon one of the wisest and most virtuous persons of his age, I mean Solon; whose singular qualities, and especially his great mildness, had acquired him the affection and veneration of the whole city. A. M. 3400. Ant. J. C. 604. His chief application had been to the study of philosophy, and especially to that part of it which we call politics, and which teaches the art of government. His extraordinary merit gave him one of the first ranks among the seven sages of Greece, who rendered the age we are speaking of so illustrious. These sages often paid visits to one another. One day that Solon went to Miletus to see Thales, the first thing Plut. in Solon. p. 81, 82. had it in his power to make himself king: several of the citizens advised him to it; and even the wisest among them, not thinking it was in the power of human reason to bring about a favourable change consistent with the laws, were not unwilling that the supreme power should be vested in one man, who was so eminently distinguished for his prudence and justice. But, notwithstanding all the remonstrances that were made to him, and all the solicitations and reproaches of his friends, who treated his refusal of the diadem as an effect of pusillanimity and meanness of spirit, he was still firm and unchangeable in his vernment in his country, that should be the parent of a just and reasonable liberty. Not venturing to meddle with certain disorders and evils which he looked upon as incurable, he undertook to bring about no other alterations or changes, than such as he thought he could persuade the citizens to comply with, by the influence of reason; or bring them into, by the weight of his authority; wisely mixing, as he himself said, authority and power with reason and justice. Wherefore, when one afterwards asked him, if the laws which he had made for the Athenians, were the best that could be given them; Yes, said he, the best they were capable of receiving. he said to him was, that he wondered why he had never chosen to have either wife or children. Thales made him no answer then: but a few days after he contrived that a stranger should come into their company, and pretend that he was just arrived from Athens, from whence he hail set out about ten days before. Solon asked him, if there was no news at Athens when he came away. The stranger, who had been taught his lesson, replied, that he had heard of nothing but the death of a young gentleman, whose funeral was attended by all the town; because, as they said, he was the son of the worthiest man in the city, who was then absent.-Alas! cried Solon, inter-purpose, and thought only of settling a form of gorupting the man's story; how much is the poor father of the youth to be pitied! But pray, what is the gentleman's name?—I heard his name, replied the stranger, but I have forgotten it: I only remember, that the people talked much of his wisdom and justice.Every answer afforded new cause for anxiety and terror to the inquiring father, who was so justly alarmed. -Was it not, said he at length, the son of Solon?The very same, replied the stranger. Solon at these words rent his clothes, and beat his breast, and, expressing his sorrow by tears and groans, abandoned himself to the most sensible affliction. Thales, seeing this, took him by the hand, and said to him with a smile: Comfort yourself, my friend; all that has The soul of popular states is equality. But, for been told to you, is a mere fiction. Now you see the fear of disgusting the rich, Solon durst not propose any reason why I never married: it is because I am un-equality of lands and wealth; whereby Attica as well willing to expose myself to such trials and afflictions. Plutarch has given us a large refutation of Thales's reasoning, which tends to deprive mankind of the most natural and reasonable attachments in life, in lieu of which the heart of man will not fail to substitute others of an unjust and unlawful nature, which will expose him to the same pains and inconveniences. The remedy, says this historian, against the grief that may arise from the loss of goods, of friends, or of children, is not to throw away our estates, and reduce ourselves to poverty, to make an absolute renunciation of all friendship, or to confine ourselves to a state of celibacy; but upon all such accidents and misfortunes, to make a right use of our reason. as Laconia, would have resembled a paternal inheritance divided among a number of brethren. However, he went so far as to put an end to the slavery and op pression of those poor citizens, whose excessive debts and accumulated arrears had forced them to sell their persons and liberty, and reduce themselves to a state of servitude and bondage. An express law was made, which declared all debtors discharged and acquitted of all their debts. This affair drew Solon into a troublesome scrape, which gave him a great deal of vexation and concern. When he first determined to cancel the debts, he foresaw, that such an edict, which had something in it contrary to justice, would be extremely offensive. For Athens, after some interval of tranquillity and which reason, he endeavoured in some measure to peace, which the prudence and courage of Solon had rectify the tenor of it, by introducing it with a specious procured, who was as great a warrior as he was a preamble, which set forth a great many very plausible statesman, relapsed into her former dissensions about pretexts, and gave a colour of equity and reason to the the government of the commonwealth, and was di- law, which in reality it had not. But in order hereto, vided into as many parties, as there were different he first disclosed his design to some particular friends, sorts of inhabitants in Attica. For those that lived whom he used to consult in all his affairs, and conupon the mountains, were fond of popular government; certed with them the form and the terms in which this those in the low-lands were for an oligarchy; and edict should be expressed. Now, before it was pubthose that dwelt on the sea-coasts, were for having a lished, his friends, who were more interested than mixed government, compounded of those two forms faithful, secretly borrowed large sums of money of blended together; and these hindered the other two their rich acquaintance, which they laid out in purcontending parties from getting any ground of each chasing of lands, as knowing they would not be afother. Besides these, there was a fourth party which fected by the edict. When the edict was published, consisted only of the poor, who were grievously ha- the general indignation that was raised by such a base rassed and oppressed by the rich, on account of their and flagrant knavery, fell upon Solon, though in fact debts, which they were not able to discharge. This he had no hand in it. But it is not enough for a man unhappy party was determined to choose themselves ain office to be disinterested and upright himself; all chief, who should deliver them from the inhuman severity of their creditors, and make an entire change in the form of their government, by making a new division of the lands. In this extreme danger all the wise Athenians cast their eyes upon Solon, who was obnoxious to neither party; because he had never sided either with the injustice of the rich, or the rebellion of the poor; and they solicited him very earnestly to take the management of affairs, and to endeavour to put an end to these differences and disorders. He was very unwilling to take upon him so dangerous a commission: however, he was at last chosen Archon, and was constituted supreme arbiter and legislator, with the unanimous consent of all parties; the rich liking him, as he was rich; and the poor, because he was honest. He now 1 Plut. in Solon. p. 85, 86. that surround and approach him ought to be so too; wife, relations, friends, secretaries, and servants. The faults of others are charged to his account: all the wrongs, all the rapine, that may be committed either through his negligence or connivance, are justly imputed to him; because it is his business, and one of the principal designs of his being put into trust, to prevent those corruptions and abuses. This ordinance at first pleased neither of the two parties; it disgusted the rich, because it abolished the debts; and dissatisfied the poor, because it did not ordain a new division of the lands, as they had expected, and as Lycurgus had actually effected at Sparta. But Solon's influence at Athens fell very short of that which Lycurgus had acquired in Sparta; for he had no other authority over the Athenians, than what the Plut. in Solon. P. 87. |