Thobes and consecrated to Apollo Ismenius. As Theophrastus tells the story, the tripod was first sent to Bias at Prióne, and secondly to Thales at Miletus, and so on through all of the wise men until it again reached Bias, and was finally offered at Delphi. This is the more common version of the story, although some say that it was not a tripod but a bowl sent by Croesus, others that it was a drinking-cup left behind by one Bathykles.

When

V. Anacharsis is said to have met Solon, and afterwards Thales in private, and to have conversed with them. The story goes that Anacharsis came to Athens, went to Solon's door, and knocked, saying that he was a stranger and had come to enter into friendship with him. Solon answered that friendships were best made at home, Anacharsis said, "Well then, do you, who are at home, enter into friendship with me.' Solon, admiring the man's cleverness, received him kindly, and kept him for some time in his house. Ile was at this time engaged in politics, and was composing his laws. Anacharsis, when he discovered this, laughed at Solon's undertaking, if he thought to restrain the crimes and greed of the citizens by written laws, which he said were just like spiders' webs; for, like them, they caught the weaker criminals, but were broken through by the stronger and more important.

To this Solon answered, that men keep covenants, because it is to the advantage of neither party to break them; and that he so suited his laws to his countrymen, that it was to the advantage of every one to abide by them rather than to break them. Nevertheless, things turned out moro as Anacharsis thought than as Solon wished. Anacharsis said too, when present at an assembly of the people, that he was surprised to see that in Greece wise men spoke upon public affairs, and ignorant men decided them.

VI. When Solon went to Thales at Miletus, he expressed his wonder at his having never married and had a family. Thales made no answer at the time, but a few days afterwards arranged that a man should come to him and say that he left Athens ten days before. When Solon inquired of him, whether anything new had happened at Athens, the man answered, as Thales had instructed him,

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that "there was no news, except the death of a young man who had been escorted to his grave by the whole city. He was the son, they told him, of a leading citizen of great repute for his goodness, but the father was not present, for they said he had been travelling abroad for some years." Unhappy man," said Solon, "what was his name?” “I heard his name," answered the man, “but I cannot remember it; beyond that there was much talk of his wisdom and justice.' Thus by each of his answers he increased Solon's alarm, until he at last in his excitement asked the stranger whether it were not Solon's son that was dead. The stranger said that it was. Solon was proceeding to beat his head and show all the other marks of grief, when Thales stopped him, saying with a smile, This, Solon, which has the power to strike down so strong a man as you, has ever prevented my marrying and having children. But be of good courage, for this talo which you have been told is untrue." This story is said by Hermippus to have been told by Pataikos, ho who said that he had inherited the soul of sop.

VII. It is a strange and unworthy feeling that prompts a man not to claim that to which he has a right, for fear that he may one day lose it; for by the same reasoning ho might refuse wealth, reputation, or wisdom, for fear of losing them hereafter. We see even virtue, the greatest and most dear of all possessions, can be destroyed by discase or evil drugs; and Thales by avoiding marriage still had just as much to fear, unless indeed he ceased to love his friends, his kinsmen, and his native land. But even he adopted his sister's son Kybisthus; for the soul has a spring of affection within it, and is formed not only to perceive, to reflect, and to remember, but also to love. If it finds nothing to love at home, it will find something abroad; and when affection, like a desert spot, has no legitimate possessors, it is usurped by bastard children or even servants, who when they have obtained our love, make us fear for them and be anxious about them. So that one may often see men, in a cynical temper, inveighing against marriage and children, who themselves shortly afterwards will bo plunged into unmanly excesses of grief, at the loss of their child by some slave or concubine

Some have even shown terrible grief at the death of dogs and horses; whereas others, who have lost noble sons, made no unusual or unseemly exhibition of sorrow, but passed the remainder of their lives calmly and composedly. Indeed it is weakness, not affection, which produces such endless misery and dread to those who have not learned to take a rational view of the uncertainty of life, and who cannot enjoy the presence of their loved ones because of their constant agony for fear of losing them. We should not make ourselves poor for fear of losing our property, nor should we guard ourselves against a possible loss of friends by making none; still less ought we to avoid having children for fear that our child might die. But we have already dwelt too much upon this subject.

VIII. After a long and harassing war with the Megarians about the possession of the Island of Salamis, the Athenians finally gave up in sheer weariness, and passed a law forbidding any one for the future, either to speak or to write in favour of the Athenian claim to Salamis, upon pain of death. Solon, grieved at this dishonour, and observing that many of the younger men were eager for an excuse to fight, but dared not propose to do so becauso of this law, pretended to have lost his reason. His family gave out that he was insane, but he meanwhile composed a poem, and when ho had learned it by heart, rushed out into the market-place wearing a small felt cap, and having assembled a crowd, mounted the herald's stone and recited the poem which begins with the lines

"A herald I from Salamis am come,

My verse will tell you what should there be done."

The name of this poem is Salamis; it consists of a hundred beautifully written lines. After he had sung it, his friends began to commend it, and Peisistratus made a speech to the peoplo, which caused such enthusiasm that they abrogated the law and renewed the war, with Solon as their leader. Tho common version of the story runs thus: Solon sailed with Peisistratus to Kolias, where he found all the women of the city performing the customary sacrifice to Demeter (Ceres). At the same time, he sent a trusty man to Salamis, who represented himself as a deserter, and bade

the Megarians follow him at once to Kolias, if they wished to capture all the women of the first Athenian families. The Mogarians were duped, and sent off a force in a ship. As soon as Solon saw this ship sail away from the island, ho ordered the women out of the way, dressed up those young men who were still beardless in their clothes, headdresses, and shoes, gave them daggers, and ordered them to dance and disport themselves near the scashoro until the enemy landed, and their ship was certain to be captured. So the Megarians, imagining them to be women, fell upon them, struggling which should first scizo them, but they were cut off to a man by the Athenians, who at once sailed to Salamis and captured it.

IX. Othors say that the island was not taken in this way, but that first of all Solon_received the following oracular response from Apollo at Delphi:

"Appease the land's true lords, the beroes blast,
Who near Asopia's fair margin rest,

And from their tombs still look towards the West."

After this, Solon is said to have sailed by night, unnoticed by the Megarians, and to have sacrificed to the heroes Periphemus and Kychreus. His next act was to raise five hundred Athenian volunteers, who by a public decree were to be absolute masters of the island if they could conquer it. With theso ho set sail in a number of fishing-boats, with a triaconter or ship of war of thirty oars, sailing in company, and anchored off a certain onpo which stretches towards Euboea. The Megarians in Eubooa heard an indistinct rumour of this, and at onco ran to arms, and sent a ship to reconnoitro the enemy. This ship, when it camo near Solon's fleet, was captured and its crew taken prisoners. On board of it Solon placed some picked men, and ordered them to make sail for the city of of Salamis, and to conceal themselves as far as they could. Meanwhile he with the remaining Athenians attacked the legarian forces by land; and while the battle was at its hottest, the men in the ship succeeded in surprising the city.

This story appears to be borne out by the proceedings which were instituted in memory of the capture. In this

ceremony an Athenian ship used to sail to Salamis, at first in silenco, and then as they neared the shore with warliko shouts. Then a man completely armed used to leap out and run, shouting as he went, up to the top of the hill called Skiradion, where he met those who came by land Close by this place stands the temple of Ares, which Solon built; for he conquered the Megarians in the battle, and sent away the survivors with a flag of truce.

X. However, as the Mcgarians still continued the war, to the great misery of both sides, they agreed to make tho Lacedæmonians arbitrators and judges between them. Most writers say that Solon brought the great authority of Homer's Iliad' to his aid, by interpolating in the catologue of ships the two verses—

"Ajax from Salamis twelve vessels good

Brought, and he placed them where th' Athenians stood,”

which he had read as evidence before the court.

The Athenians, however, say that all this is nonsense, but that Solon proved to the arbitrators that Philæus and Eurysakes, the sons of Ajax, when they were enrolled as Athenian, citizens, made over the island to Athens, and dwelt, one at Brauron, in Attica, and the other at Melité; moreover, there is an Athenian tribe which claims descent from Philus, to which Peisistratus belonged. Wishing, however, yet more thoroughly to prove his case against the Megarians, ho based an argument on the tombs in the island, in which the corpses were buried, not in the Megarian, but in the Athenian manner. For the Megarians bury their dead looking towards the cast, and the Athenians towards the west. But Horeas of Megara denies this, and says that the Megarians also bury their dead looking towards the west, and moreover, that each Athenian had a coffin to himself while the Megarians place two or three bodies in one coffin. However, Solon supported his case by quoting curtain oracles from Delphi, in which the god addresses Salamis as lonian. The Spartan arbitrators wero five in number, their names being Kritolaidas, Amiompharetus, Hypsichidas, Anaxilos, and Kleomenes. XI. Solon's reputation and power were greatly increased by this. But he became much more celebrated and well