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

are my laws or all the enactments that I made any better; but those who were in power transgressed them, and did great injury to the commonwealth, inasmuch as they did not hinder Pisistratus from usurping the tyranny. Nor did they believe me when I gave them warning beforehand. But he obtained more credit than I did, who flattered the Athenians while I told him the truth: but I, placing my arms before the principal council-house, being wiser than they, told those who had no suspicion of it that Pisistratus was desirous to make himself a tyrant; and I showed myself more valiant than those who hesitated to defend the state against him. But they condemned the madness of Solon. But at last I spoke loudly⁠—“O my country, I, Solon, here am ready to defend you by word and deed; but to these men I seem to be mad. So I will depart from you, being the only antagonist of Pisistratus; and let these men be his guards if they please.” For you know the man, my friend, and how cleverly he seized upon the tyranny. He first began by being a demagogue; then, having inflicted wounds on himself, he came to the Heliaea, crying out, and saying “that he had been treated in this way by his enemies.” And he entreated the people to assign him as guards four hundred young men; and they, disregarding my advice, gave them to him. And they were all armed with bludgeons. And after that he put down the democracy. They in vain hoped to deliver the poor from their state of slavery, and so now they are all of them slaves to Pisistratus.

Solon to Pisistratus

I am well assured that I should suffer no evil at your hands. For before your assumption of the tyranny I was a friend of yours, and now my case is not different from that of any other Athenian who is not pleased with tyranny. And whether it is better for them to be governed by one individual, or to live under a democracy, that each person may decide according to his own sentiments. And I admit that of all tyrants you are the best. But I do not judge it to be good for me to return to Athens, lest anyone should blame me for, after having established equality of civil rights among the Athenians, and after having refused to be a tyrant myself when it was in my power, returning now and acquiescing in what you are doing.

Solon to Croesus

I thank you for your goodwill towards me. And, by Minerva, if I did not think it precious above everything to live in a democracy, I would willingly prefer living in your palace with you to living at Athens, since Pisistratus has made himself tyrant by force. But life is more pleasant to me where justice and equality prevail universally. However, I will come and see you, being anxious to enjoy your hospitality for a season.

Chilo

Chilo was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses in elegiac meter to the number of two hundred: and it was a saying of his that a foresight of future events, such as could be arrived at by consideration, was the virtue of a man. He also said once to his brother, who was indignant at not being an ephor, while he himself was one: “The reason is because I know how to bear injustice, but you do not.” And he was made ephor in the fifty-fifth Olympiad; but Pamphila says that it was in the fifty-sixth. And he was made first ephor in the year of the archonship of Euthydemus, as we are told by Sosicrates. Chilo was also the first person who introduced the custom of joining the ephors to the kings as their counsellors, though Satyrus attributes this institution to Lycurgus. He, as Herodotus says in his first book, when Hippocrates was sacrificing at Olympia, and the cauldrons began to boil of their own accord, advised him either to marry, or, if he were married already, to discard his wife, and disown his children.

They tell a story, also, of his having asked Aesop what Jupiter was doing, and that Aesop replied, “He is lowering what is high, and exalting what is low.” Being asked in what educated men differed from those who were illiterate, he said: “In good hopes.” Having had the question put to him, “What was difficult?” he said: “To be silent about secrets; to make good use of one’s leisure, and to be able to submit to injustice.” And besides these three things he added further: “To rule one’s tongue, especially at a banquet, and not to speak ill of one’s neighbors; for if one does so one is sure to hear what one will not like.” He advised, moreover: “To threaten no one; for that is a womanly trick. To be more prompt to go to one’s friends in adversity than in prosperity. To make but a moderate display at one’s marriage. Not to speak evil of the dead. To honor old age.⁠—To keep a watch upon oneself.⁠—To prefer punishment to disgraceful gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one’s whole life.⁠—Not to laugh at a person in misfortune.⁠—If one is strong to be also merciful, so that one’s neighbors may respect one rather than fear one.⁠—To learn how to regulate one’s own house well.⁠—Not to let one’s tongue outrun one’s sense.⁠—To restrain anger.⁠—Not to dislike divination.⁠—Not to desire what is impossible.⁠—Not to make too much haste on one’s road.⁠—When speaking not to gesticulate with the hand; for that is like a madman.⁠—To obey the laws.⁠—To love quiet.”

And of all his songs this one was the most approved:

Gold is best tested by a whetstone hard,
Which gives a certain proof of purity;
And gold itself acts as the test of men,
By which we know the temper of their minds.

They say, too, that when he was