which more than anything else confirmed the liberty of the citizens. For laws to establish equality are of no use if poor men are prevented from enjoying it because of their debts; and in the states which appear to be the most free, men become mere slaves to the rich, and conduct the whole business of the state at their dictation. It should be especially noted that although an abolition of debt would naturally produce a civil war, yet this measure of Solon's, liko an unusual but powerful dose of medicine, actually put an end to the existing condition of internal strife; for the well-known probity of Solon's character outweighed the discredit of the means to which he resorted. In fact Solon began his public life with greater glory than Poplicola, for he was the leading spirit, and followed no man, but entirely single handed effected the most important reforms; while Poplicola was more enviable and fortunate at the close of his career.

Solon himself saw his own constitution overthrown, while that of Poplicola preserved order in the city down to the time of the civil wars; and the reason was that Solon, as soon as he had enacted his laws, went on his travels, leaving them written on wooden tablets, defenceless against all assailants; whereas Poplicola remained at home, acted as consul, and by his statesmanship ensured the success and permanence of the new constitution. Moreover, Solon could not stop Peisistratus, although he perceived his designs, but was forced to see a despotism established; while Poplicola destroyed a monarchy which had existed for many years, showing equal virtue with Solon, but greater good fortune and power to enable himn to carry out his intentions.

IV. With regard to warlike achievements, Daimachus of Plata will not even admit that Solon made the campaign against the Megarians, which we have related; but Poplicola both by strategy and personal valour won many great battles. As a statesman, Solon seems to have acted somewhat childishly in pretending that he was_mad, in order to make his speech about Salamis, while Poplicola ran the very greatest risks in driving out the tyrant and crushing the conspiracy. He was especially responsible for the chief criminals being put to death, and thus not

only drove the Tarquins out of the city, but cut off and destroyed their hopes of return. And while he showed Buch vigour in enterprises that required spirit and courage, he was equally admirable in peaceful negotiations and the arts of persuasion; for he skilfully won over the formidable Porsena to be the friend instead of the enemy of Rome.

Still we may be reminded that Solon stirred up the Athenians to capture Salamis, which they had given up to the Megarians, while Poplicola withdrew the Romans from a country which they had conquered. We must, however, consider the circumstances under which these events took place. A subtle politician deals with every thing so as to turn it to the greatest advantage, and will often lose a part in order to save the whole, and by sacrificing some small advantage gain another more important one, as did Poplicola on that occasion; for he, by withdrawing from a foreign country, preserved his own, gained the enemy's camp for the Romans, who before were only too glad to save their city from ruin, and at last, by converting his enemy into an arbitrator and winning his causo, obtained all the fruits of victory: for Porsena put an end to tho war, and left behind him all his war material to show his respect for the noble character of the consul.

LIFE OF THEMISTOKLES

I. THEMISTOKLES came of a family too obscure to entitle him to distinction. His father, Neokles, was a middle-class Athenian citizen, of the township of l'hrcarri and the tribe Leontis. He was base born on his mother's side, as the epigram tells us :

"My name's Abrotonon from Thrace,

I boast not old Athenian race;
Yet, humble though my lineage be,
Themistokles was born of me."

Phanias, however, says that the mother of Thomistokles was a Carian, not a Thracian, and that her name was not Abrotonon but Euterpe. Manthes even tells us that she came from the city of Halikarnassus in Caria. All baseborn Athenians were made to assemble at Kynosarges, a gymnasium outside the walls sacred to Herakles, who was regarded as base born among the gods because his mother was a mortal; and Themistokles induced several youths of noble birth to come to Kynosarges with him and join in the wrestling there, an ingenious device for destroying the exclusive privileges of birth. But, for all that, he evidently was of the blood of Lykomedes; for when the barbarians burned down the temple of the Initiation at Phlya, which belonged to the whole race of the descendants of Lykomedes, it was restored by Themistokles, as wo are told by Simonides.

II. Ho is agreed by all to have been a child of vigorous impulses, naturally clever, and inclined to tako an interest in important affairs and questions of statesmanship. During his holidays and times of leisure he did not play and trifle as other children do, but was always found arranging some speech by himself and thinking it over. The speech was always an attack on, or a defence of, some

one of his playfellows. His schoolmaster was wont to say, "You will be nothing petty, my boy; you will be either a very good or a very bad man.'

In his learning, he cared nothing for the exercises intended to form the character, and mere showy accomplishments and graces, but eagerly applied himself to all real knowledge, trusting to his natural gifts to enable him to master what was thought to be too abstruse for his time of life. In consequence of this, when in society he was ridiculed by those who thought themselves well mannered and well educated, he was obliged to make the somewhat vulgar retort that he could not tune a lute or play upon the harp, but he could make a small and obscure state great and glorious.

In spite of all this, Stesimbrotus says that Themistokles was a pupil of Anaxagoras, and attended the lectures of Melissus the physicist; but here he is wrong as to dates. Melissus was the general who was opposed to Perikles, a much younger man than Themistokles, when he was besieging Samos, and Anaxagoras was one of Perikles's friends. One is more inclined to believe those who tell us that Themistokles was a follower and admirer of Mnesiphilus of 'hrcarri, who was neither an orator nor a natural philosopher, but a man who had deeply studied what went by the name of wisdom, but was really political sharp practice and expedients of statesmanship, which he had, as it were, inherited as a legacy from Solon. Thoso who in later times mixed up this science with forensio devices, and used it, not to deal with the facts of politics, but the abstract ideas of speculative philosophy, were named Sophists. Themistokles used to converse with this man when he had already begun his political career. his childhood he was capricious and unsteady, his genius, as yet untempered by reason and experience, showing great capacities both for good and evil, and after breaking out into vice, as he himself used afterwards to admit, saying that the colts which are the hardest to break in usually make the most valuable horses when properly taught. But as for the stories which some have fabricated out of this, about his being disinherited by his father, and about his mother committing suicide through grief at her

son's disgrace, they seem to be untrue. On the other hand, some writers tell us that his father, wishing to dissuade him from taking part in politics, pointed out to him the old triremes lying abandoned on the beach, and told him that politicians, when the people had no farther use for them, were cast aside in like manner,

III. Very early in life Themistokles took a vigorous part in public affairs, possessed by vehement ambition. Determined from the very outset that he would become the leading man in the state, he eagerly entered into all the schemes for displacing those who where then at the head of affairs, especially attacking Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, whose policy he opposed on every occasion. Yet his enmity with this man seems to have had a very boyish commencement; for they both entertained a passion for the beautiful Stesilans, who, we are told by Ariston the philosopher, was descended from a family residing in the island of Keos. After this difference they espoused different parties in the state, and their different temper and habits widened the breach between them. Aristcides was of a mild and honourable nature, and as a statesman cared nothing for popularity or personal glory, but did what he thought right with great caution and strict rectitude. was thus often brought into collision with Themistokles, who was trying to engage the people in many new schemes, and to introduce startling reforms, by which he would himself have gained credit, and which Aristeides steadily opposed.

He

He is said to have been so recklessly ambitious and so frenziedly eager to take part in great events, that though he was very young at the time of the battle of Marathon, when the country rang with the praises of the generalship of Miltiades, he was often to be seen buried in thought, passing sleepless nights and refusing invitations to wineparties, and that he answered those who asked him the cause of his change of habits, that the trophies of Miltiades would not let him sleep. Other men thought that the victory of Marathon had put an end to the war, but Themistokles saw that it was but the prelude to a greater contest, in which he prepared himself to stand forth as the champion of Greece, and, foresceing long before what was