Solinus

“ I was going away, rather disappointed at my having been called in merely to count a number of marks on the black seal, when suddenly there flashed into my mind what I had read in the morning.
"But, Professor Gregg," I cried, breathless, "the seal, the seal. Why, it is the stone Hexecontalithos that Solinus writes of; it is Ixaxar."
"Yes," he said, "I suppose it is. Or it may be a mere coincidence. It never does to be too sure, you know, in these matters. Coincidence killed the professor." ”

“ I knew enough of Latin to steer my way through an ordinary sentence, and I soon became absorbed in the odd mixture of fact and fancy; light shining on a little of the space of the world, and beyond mist and shadow and awful forms. Glancing over the clear-printed pages, my attention was caught by the heading of a chapter in Solinus, and I read the words:—
MIRA DE INTIMIS GENTIBUS LIBYAE, DE LAPIDE HEXECONTALITHO.
"The wonders of the people that inhabit the inner parts of Libya, and of the stone called Sixtystone." ”

“ Solinus calls them, "Alites ferocissimæ et ultra rabiem sævientes." Ktesias declares that India possesses gold in mountains inhabited by griffins, quadrupeds, as large as wolves, which have the legs and claws of a lion, red feathers on their breasts and in their other parts, eyes of fire and golden nests. For the sake of the gold, the Arimaspi, one-eyed men, fight with the griffins. As the latter have long ears, they easily hear the robbers of the gold; and if they capture them, they invariably kill them. ”

“ Mr. Clinton and most of the chronologists accept the date without hesitation, but Volney (Recherches sur l’Histoire Ancienne, vol. i, pp. 306-308; Chronologie des Rois Lydiens) rejects it altogether; considering the capture of Sardis to have occurred in 557 B. C., and the reign of Crœsus to have begun in 571 B. C. He treats very contemptuously the authority of Solinus and Sosikratês, and has an elaborate argumentation to prove that the date which he adopts is borne out by Herodotus. ”

“ The ants, the insects of the forest of night, molest the hero and solar horse that traverse it; the black ants of night are dispersed by the solar fire of the morning: this we can understand all the better when Tzetza, quoted before, speaking of the Indian ants, calls them as large as foxes; when Pliny, in the eleventh book of his History, says they are of the colour of a cat, and the size of Egyptian wolves; and when Solinus tells us that they have the shape of a large dog, with lion's feet, with which they dig gold up. ”

“ We notice next the account of Caius Julius Solinus, the author of the Geographical compendium called Polyhistor, who flourished about 238 A.D. His accounts, which are to be found in chap. xxxv. § 7–10 of his work, are evidently derived from Pliny.
“In the interior of Judea, towards the west, are the Essenes, who differ from the usages of all other nations in their marvellous constitutions, and who, according to my opinion, have been appointed by divine providence for this mode of life. No woman is to be found there; connubial pleasures they have entirely renounced ”

“ Thereupon, one of the priests, who was of very great age, said, 'O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and there is never an old man who is an Hellene.' Solon, hearing this, said, 'What do you mean?' 'I mean to say,' he replied, 'that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. ”

“ SOLON FREES THE SLAVES Solon, the wise lawgiver of Athens, was a descendant of King Codrus. His father had given away most of his wealth to help his city or his countrymen, so Solon became a merchant, as the sons of noblemen often did in these days of long ago. To increase his business, Solon journeyed through many of the states of Greece as well as to Asia. Wherever he went he studied the laws and manners of the people, just as Lycurgus the lawgiver of Sparta had done. ”

“ Many in Athens are upon your side.
From which it is manifest that he was a man of great reputation before he gave his laws. The several mocks that were put upon him for refusing the power, he records in these words:
Solon surely was a dreamer, and a man of simple mind; When the gods would give him fortune, he of his own will declined; When the new was full of fishes, over-heavy thinking it, He declined to haul it up, through want of heart and want of wit. Had but I that chance of riches and of kingship for one day, I would give my skin for flaying, and my house to die away. ”

“ The name of this man was Solon, and he was the lawmaker of Athens in Greece. He was noted for his wisdom; and, centuries after his death, the highest praise that could be given to a learned man was to say, “He is as wise as Solon.”
Solon had heard of Crœsus, and so one day he visited him in his beautiful palace. Crœsus was now happier and prouder than ever before, for the wisest man in the world was his guest. He led Solon through his palace and showed him the grand rooms, the fine carpets, the soft couches, the rich furniture, the pictures, the books. ”

“ That was a fine saying of Solon's," he mused, "an heroic reply to the news of his son's death, 'I knew that I had begotten a mortal being.' Or was it Anaxagoras, as some say, or Xenophon? But that is the pathos of the past; the truth of matters becomes obscured." ”

“ Solon, unwilling either to flatter or exasperate him more, replied, "The gods, O king, have given the Greeks all other gifts in moderate degree; and so our wisdom, too, is a cheerful and a homely, not a noble and kingly, wisdom; and this, observing the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions, forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire any man's happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with every possible variety of fortune ”

“ Pythagoras forbids us, without an order from our commander, that is God, to desert life's fortress and outpost. Solon's epitaph, indeed, is that of a wise man, in which he says that he does not wish his death to be unaccompanied by the sorrow and lamentations of his friends. He wants, I suppose, to be beloved by them. But I rather think Ennius says better:
None grace me with their tears, nor weeping loud Make sad my funeral rites!
He holds that a death is not a subject for mourning when it is followed by immortality. ”

“ Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, who have given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such as theirs; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children. ”

“ But Solon spoke the truth without flattery: “Such an one, O King,” he said, “I have seen—Tellus of Athens.” Croesus wondered at this, and sharply asked Solon “How do you judge Tellus to be most blest?” Solon replied: “Tellus’ city was prosperous, and he was the father of noble sons, and he saw children born to all of them and their state well stablished; moreover, having then as much wealth as a man may among us, he crowned his life with a most glorious death: for in a battle between the Athenians and their neighbours at Eleusis he attacked and routed the enemy and most nobly there died ”

“ Legend tells us that Solon in his old age, when the tyranny had now come, piled his armour in front of his house door—probably near the Market-place of Pisistratus—and turned from politics to a serene enjoyment of the pleasures of ear and eye and intellect to which he had, indeed, never been a stranger. His life had always been consistent with his own epigram:—
“And still as I age, learning many a lesson.” ”

“ A person that had no children was permitted to dispose of his estates as he pleased; females were not allowed to be extravagant in their dress or expenses; licentiousness was punished; and those accustomed to abandoned society, were deprived of the privilege of addressing the public assemblies. These celebrated laws were engraved on several tables; and that they might be better known and more familiar to the Athenians, they were written in verse.
If we consider the time in which Solon lived, we shall see occasion to regard him as a man of extraordinary wisdom and virtue. ”

“ The greatest of the Greeks, whom Crœsus saw at Sardis, was Solon of Athens. [819] Herodotus tells us, that [Pg 455] Crœsus entertained Solon for several days in his palace, and by his servants showed him the splendour of it, the riches and the treasure-chambers, all that he possessed in precious stones, splendid robes, and treasures of art. Then in the pride of the greatness of his dominion, the splendour of his throne, the successes which he had obtained, Crœsus asked Solon, whom he, who had travelled so much in the world, considered the most fortunate of men? ”

“ Solon did not belong to the rich men of Athens, though he was of noble birth, and, like so many of the older Greeks, traced his family line back to the gods. Neptune, the ocean deity, was fabled to be his far-off ancestor. He was born about 638 B.C. His father had spent most of his money, largely in kind deeds to others, and the son found himself obliged to become a merchant. In this pursuit he travelled in many parts of Greece and Asia, and in his journeys paid more heed to the gaining of knowledge than of money, so that when he came back his mind was fuller than his purse. ”

“ And when Solon answered that he had known one Tellus, a fellow-citizen of his own, and told him that this Tellus had been an honest man, had had good children, a competent estate, and died bravely in battle for his country, Croesus took him for an ill-bred fellow and a fool, for not measuring happiness by the abundance of gold and silver, and preferring the life aud death of a private and mean man before so much power and empire. He asked him, however, again, if, besides Tellus, he knew any other man more happy. ”

“ I will add, that instances might be produced of men who, in this period of life, have successfully applied themselves even to the acquisition of some art of science to which they were before entirely strangers. Thus Solon in one of his poems, written when he was advanced in years, glories that "he learned something every day he lived." And old as I myself am, it is but lately that I acquired a knowledge of the Greek language ”

“ In the evening as the wisest of men and the richest of men were dining together, the king said to his guest, “Tell me now, O Solon, who do you think is the happiest of all men?” He expected that Solon would say “Crœsus.”
The wise man was silent for a minute, and then he said, “I have in mind a poor man who once lived in Athens and whose name was Tellus. He, I doubt not, is the happiest of all men.” ”

“ For if one were to mention Solon the Athenian, he lived in the days of the kings Cyrus and Darius, in the time of the prophet Zechariah first mentioned, who was by many years the last of the prophets. [44] Or if you mention the lawgivers Lycurgus, or Draco, or Minos, Josephus tells us in his writings that the sacred books take precedence of them in antiquity, since even before the reign of Jupiter over the Cretans, and before the Trojan war, the writings of the divine law which has been given to us through Moses were in existence. ”

“ When that was done, and the city in an uproar, Megacles, with all his family, at once fled; but Solon, though he was now very old, and had none to back him, yet came into the market-place and made a speech to the citizens, partly blaming their inadvertency and meanness of spirit, and in part urging and exhorting them not thus tamely to lose their liberty; and likewise then spoke that memorable saying, that, before, it was an easier task to stop the rising tyranny, but now the greater and more glorious action to destroy it, when it was begun already, and had gathered strength. ”

“ But the people of Athens regarded this deed as a most wicked murder, and later on, when Solon was made chief ruler and lawgiver of the city, all the persons who took part in this action were sent into exile.
Many of the citizens wished Solon to take the crown. They thought he was a wise and just man, and would act as a wise and just king. Solon, however, had no mind for kingship; he was pleased to do his best to govern Athens, but had no wish for the glory of a crown or the splendor of a palace. ”

“ There is a story that Croesus in magnificent array sat himself down on his throne and asked Solon if he had ever seen anything more beautiful. "Yes," was the reply, "cocks and pheasants and peacocks; for they shine in nature's colours, which are ten thousand times more beautiful." After leaving that place he lived in Cilicia and founded a city which he called Soli after his own name. In it he settled some few Athenians, who in process of time corrupted the purity of Attic and were said to "solecize." ”

“ Solon was one of the seven wise men of Greece, who all lived at the same time. The other six were Thales, Bion, Pittacus, Cleobulus, Chilo, and Periander. This last was called Tyrant of Corinth. When the ancient Greeks spoke of a tyrant, they did not mean a cruel king so much as a king who had not been heir to the crown, but had taken to himself the rule over a free people. A very curious story belongs to Periander, for we have not quite parted with the land of fable. It is about the poet Arion, who lived chiefly with him at Corinth, but made one voyage to Sicily. ”