The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius (best free ebook reader txt) 📕

He used to say, too, that speech was the image of actions, and that the king was the mightiest man as to his power; but that laws were like cobwebs⁠—for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; but if a thing of any size fell into them, it broke the meshes and escaped. He used also to say that discourse ought to be sealed by silence, and silence by opportunity. It was also a saying of his that those who had influence with tyrants were like the pebbles which are used in making calculations; for that every one of those pebbles were sometimes worth more, and sometimes less, and so that the tyrants sometimes made each of these men of consequence, and sometimes neglected them. Being asked why he had made no law concerning parricides, he made answer that he did not expect that any such person would exist. When he was asked how men could be most effectually deterred from committing injustice, he said, “If those who are not injured feel as much indignation as those who are.” Another apothegm of his was that satiety was generated by wealth, and insolence by satiety.

He it was who taught the Athenians to regulate their days by the course of the moon; and he also forbade Thespis to perform and represent his tragedies, on the ground of falsehood being unprofitable; and when Pisistratus wounded himself, he said it all came of Thespis’s tragedies.

He gave the following advice, as is recorded by Apollodorus in his Treatise on the Sects of Philosophers: “Consider your honor, as a gentleman, of more weight than an oath.⁠—Never speak falsely.⁠—Pay attention to matters of importance.⁠—Be not hasty in making friends; and do not cast off those whom you have made.⁠—Rule, after you have first learnt to submit to rule.⁠—Advise not what is most agreeable, but what is best.⁠—Make reason your guide.⁠—Do not associate with the wicked.⁠—Honor the gods; respect your parents.”

They say also that when Mimnermus had written:

Happy’s the man who ’scapes disease and care,
And dies contented in his sixtieth year

Solon rebuked him, and said:

Be guided now by me, erase this verse,
Nor envy me if I’m more wise than you.
If you write thus, your wish would not be worse,
May I be eighty ere death lays me low.

The following are some lines out of his poems:

Watch well each separate citizen,
Lest having in his heart of hearts
A secret spear, one still may come
Saluting you with cheerful face,
And utter with a double tongue
The feigned good wishes of his wary mind.

As for his having made laws, that is notorious; he also composed speeches to the people, and a book of suggestions to himself, and some elegiac poems, and five thousand verses about Salamis and the constitution of the Athenians, and some iambics and epodes.

And on his statue is the following inscription⁠—

Salamis that checked the Persian insolence,
Brought forth this holy lawgiver, wise Solon.

He flourished about the forty-sixth Olympiad, in the third year of which he was archon at Athens, as Sosicrates records; and it was in this year that he enacted his laws; and he died in Cyprus, after he had lived eighty years, having given charge to his relations to carry his bones to Salamis, and there to burn them to ashes and to scatter the ashes on the ground. In reference to which Cratinus in his Chiron represents him as speaking thus:

And as men say, I still this isle inhabit,
Sown o’er the whole of Ajax’ famous city.

There is also an epigram in the before mentioned collection of poems, in various meters, in which I have made a collection of notices of all the illustrious men that have ever died, in every kind of meter and rhythm, in epigrams and odes. And it runs thus:

The Cyprian flame devour’d great Solon’s corpse
Far in a foreign land; but Salamis
Retains his bones, whose dust is turned to corn.
The tablets of his laws do bear aloft
His mind to heaven. Such a burden light
Are these immortal rules to th’ happy wood.

He also, as some say, was the author of the apothegm⁠—“Seek excess in nothing.” And Dioscorides, in his Commentaries, says that when he was lamenting his son, who was dead (with whose name I am not acquainted), and when someone said to him, “You do no good by weeping,” he replied, “But that is the very reason why I weep, because I do no good.”

The following letters also are attributed to him:

Solon to Periander

You send me word that many people are plotting against you; but if you were to think of putting every one of them out of the way, you would do no good; but someone whom you do not suspect would still plot against you, partly because he would fear for himself, and partly out of dislike to you for fearing all sorts of things; and he would think, too, that he would make the city grateful to him, even if you were not suspected. It is better therefore to abstain from the tyranny, in order to escape from blame. But if you absolutely must be a tyrant, then you had better provide for having a foreign force in the city superior to that of the citizens; and then no one need be formidable to you, nor need you put anyone out of the way.

Solon to Epimenides

My laws were not destined to be long of service to the Athenians, nor have you done any great good by purifying the city. For neither can the Deity nor lawgivers do much good to cities by themselves; but these people rather give this power, who, from time to time, can lead the people in any opinions they choose; so also the Deity and the laws, when the citizens are well governed, are useful; but when they are ill governed, they are no good. Nor