" And his
foresight
was proved afterwards.
Diogenes Laertius
This was the temple of the national diety of the Ionians, Neptune Heliconius, on Mount Mycale.
"-Vide Smith, Dict.
Gr.
and Rom.
Antiq.
The Bohn original has "Euxamius and Cleobule".
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF SOLON
I. SOLON the son of Execestides, a native of Salamis, was the first person who introduced among the Athenians, an ordinance for the lowering1 of debts; for this was the name given to the release of the bodies and possessions of the debtors. For men used to borrow on the security of their own persons, and many became slaves in consequence of their inability to pay; and as seven talents were owed to him as a part of his paternal inheritance when he succeeded to it, he was the first person who made a composition with his debtors, and who exhorted the other men who had money owing to them to do likewise, and this ordinance was called seisachtheia; and the reason why is plain. After that he enacted his other laws, which it would take a long time to enumerate; and he wrote them on wooden revolving tablets.
II. But what was his most important act of all was, when there had been a great dispute about his native land Salamis, between the Athenians and Megarians, and when the Athenians had met with many disasters in war, and had passed a decree that if any one proposed to the people to go to war for the sake of Salamis he should be punished with death, he then pretended to be mad and putting on a crown rushed into the market place, and there he recited to the Athenians by the agency of a crier, the elegies which he had composed, and which were all directed to the subject of Salamis, and by these means he excited them; and so they made war again upon the Megarians and conquered them by means of Solon. And the elegies which had the greatest influence on the Athenians were these:
Would that I were a man of Pholegandros,2
Or small Sicinna,3 rather than of Athens:
For soon this will a common proverb be,
That's an Athenian who won't fight for Salamis.
And another was:
Let's go and fight for lovely Salamis,
And wipe off this our present infamy.
He also persuaded them to take possession of the Thracian Chersonesus, and in order that it might appear that the Athenians had got possession of Salamis not by force alone, but also with justice, he opened some tombs, and showed that the corpses buried in them were all turned towards the east, according to the Athenian fashion of sepulture; likewise the tombs themselves all looked east, and the titles of the boroughs to which the dead belonged were inscribed on them, which was a custom peculiar to the Athenians. Some also say that it was he who added to the catalogue of Homer, after the lines:
With these appear the Salaminian bands,
Whom Telamon's gigantic son commands--
These other verses:
In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course,
And with the great Athenians join their force. 4
III. And ever after this time the people was willingly obedient to him, and was contented to be governed by him: but he did not choose to be their ruler, and moreover, as Sosicrates relates, he, as far as in him lay, hindered also his relative Pisistratus from being so, when he saw that he was inclined to such a step. Rushing into one of the assemblies armed with a spear and shield, he forewarned the people of the design of Pisistratus, and not only that but told them that he was prepared to assist them; and these were his words: "Ye men of Athens, I am wiser than some of you, and braver than others. Wiser than those of you who do not perceive the treachery of Pisistratus; and braver than those who are aware of it, but out of fear hold their peace. " But the council, being in the interest of Pisistratus, said that he was mad, on which he spoke as follows:
A short time will to all my madness prove,
When stern reality presents itself.
And these elegiac verses were written by him about the tyranny of Pisistratus, which he foretold,
Fierce snow and hail are from the clouds borne down,
And thunder after brilliant lightning roars,
And by its own great men a city falls,
The ignorant mob becoming slaves to kings.
IV. And when Pisistratus had obtained the supreme power, he, as he would not influence him, laid down his arms before the chief council-house, and said, "O my country, I have stood by you in word and deed. " And then he sailed away to Egypt, and Cyprus, and came to Croesus. And while at his court being asked by him, "Who appears to you to be happy? "5 He replied, "Tellus the Athenian, and Cleobis and Biton," and enumerated other commonly spoken of instances. But some people say, that once Croesus adorned himself in every possible manner, and took his seat upon his throne, and then asked Solon whether he had ever seen a more beautiful sight. But he said, "Yes, I have seen cocks and pheasants, and peacocks; for they are adorned with natural colours, and such as are ten thousand times more beautiful. " Afterwards leaving Sardis he went to Cilicia, and there he founded a city which he called Soli after his own name; and he placed in it a few Athenians as colonists, who in time departed from the strict use of their native language, and were said to speak Solecisms; and the inhabitants of that city are called Solensians; but those of Soli in Cyprus are called Solians.
V. And when he learnt that Pisistratus continued to rule in Athens as a tyrant, he wrote these verses on the Athenians:
If through your vices you afflicted are,
Lay not the blame of your distress on God;
You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards,
So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod--
Each one of you now treads in foxes' steps,
Bearing a weak, inconstant, faithless mind,
Trusting the tongue and slippery speech of man;
Though in his acts alone you truth can find.
This, then, he said to them.
VI. But Pisistratus, when he was leaving Athens, wrote him a letter in the following terms:
PISISTRATUS TO SOLON.
I am not the only one of the Greeks who has seized the sovereignty of his country, nor am I one who had no right whatever to do so, since I am of the race of Codrus; for I have only recovered what the Athenians swore that they would give to Codrus and all his family, and what they afterwards deprived them of. And in all other respects I sin neither against men nor against gods, but I allow the Athenians to live under the laws which you established amongst them, and they are now living in a better manner than they would if they were under a democracy; for I allow no one to behave with violence: and I, though I am the tyrant, derive no other advantage beyond my superiority in rank and honour, being content with the fixed honours which belonged to the former kings. And every one of the Athenians brings the tithe of his possessions, not to me, but to the proper place in order that it may be devoted to the public sacrifices of the city; and for any other public purposes, or for any emergencies of war which may arise.
But I do not blame you for laying open my plans, for I know that you did so out of regard for the city rather than out of dislike to me; and also because you did not know what sort of government I was about to establish; since, if you had been acquainted with it, you would have been content to live under it and would not have fled. Now, therefore, return home again; believing me even without my swearing to you that Solon shall never receive any harm at the hands of Pisistratus; know also that none of my enemies have suffered any evil from me; and if you will consent to be one of my friends, you shall be among the first; for I know that there is no treachery or faithlessness in you. Or if you wish to live at Athens in any other manner, you shall be allowed to do so; only do not deprive yourself of your country because of my actions.
Thus wrote Pisistratus.
VII. Solon also said, that the limit of human life was seventy years, and he appears to have been a most excellent lawgiver, for he enjoined, "that if any one did not support his parents he should be accounted infamous; and that the man who squandered his patrimony should be equally so, and the inactive man was liable to prosecution by any one who choose to impeach him. But Lysias, in his speech against Nicias, says that Draco first proposed this law, but that it was Solon who enacted it. He also prohibited all who lived in debauchery from ascending the tribunal; and he diminished the honours paid to Athletes who were victorious in the games, fixing the prize for a victor at Olympia at five hundred drachmae,6 and for one who conquered at the Isthmian games at one hundred; and in the same proportion did he fix the prizes for the other games, for he said, that it was absurd to give such great honours to those men as ought to be reserved for those only who died in the wars; and their sons he ordered to be educated and bred up at the public expense. And owing to this encouragement, the Athenians behave themselves nobly and valiantly in war; as for instance, Polyzelus, and Cynaegirus, and Callimachus, and all the soldiers who fought at Marathon, and Harmodius, and Aristogiton, and Miltiades, and numberless other heroes.
But as for the Athletes, their training is very expensive, and their victories injurious, and they are crowned rather as conquerors of their country than of their antagonists, and when they become old, as Euripides says:
They're like old cloaks worn to the very woof.
IX. So Solon, appreciating these facts, treated them with moderation. This also was an admirable regulation of his, that a guardian of orphans should not live with their mother, and that no one should be appointed a guardian, to whom the orphans' property would come if they died. Another excellent law was, that a seal engraver might not keep an impression of any ring which had been sold by him, and that if a person struck out the eye of a man who had but one, he should lose both his own, and that no one should claim what he had not deposited, otherwise death should be his punishment. If an archon was detected being drunk, that too was a capital crime. And he compiled the poems of Homer, so that they might be recited by different bards taking the cue from one another, so that where one had left off the next one might take him up, so that it was Solon rather than Pisistratus who brought Homer to light, as Dieuchidas says, in the fifth book of his History of Megara, and the most celebrated of his verses were:
Full fifty more from Athens stem the main.
And the rest of that passage--"And Solon was the first person who called the thirtieth day of the month eve kai nea. "7
He was the first person also who assembled the nine archons together to deliver their opinions, as Apollodorus tells us in the second book of his Treatise on Lawgivers. And once, when there was a sedition in the city, he took part neither with the citizens, nor with the inhabitants of the plain, nor with the men of the sea-coast.
X. 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 apophthegm of his was, that satiety was generated by wealth, and insolence by satiety.
XI. 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.
XII. He gave the following advice, as is recorded by Apollodorus in his Treatise on the Sects of Philosophers: "Consider your honour, 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. --Honour the gods; respect your parents. "
XIII. 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.
XV. 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 metres, in which I have made a collection of notices of all the illustrious men that have ever died, in every kind of metre 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.
XVI. He also, as some say, was the author of the apophthegm--"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 some one 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. "
XVII. 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 everyone of them out of the way, you would do no good; but some one 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 any one out of the way.
SOLON TO EPIMENIDES.
XVIII. 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 have this power, who, from time to time, can lead the people to 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 are my laws nor 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 ursurping 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 councilhouse, 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 any one 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.
XX. 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.
1. Vide Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, ii. p. 34.
2. One of the Sporades.
3. An island near Crete.
4. Hom. II 2. 671. Dryden's Version.
5. Vide Herod. lib. 1. c. 30-33.
6. A drachma was something less than ten pence.
7. "Ene kai nea the last day of the month: elsewhere trianias. So called for this reason. The old Greek year was lunar; now the moon's monthly orbit is twenty-nine and a half days. So that if the first month began with the sun and moon together at sunrise at the month's end it would be sunset; and the second month would begin at sunset. To prevent this irregularity, Solon made the latter half day belong to the first month; so that this thirtieth day consisted of two halves, one belonging to the old, the other to the new moon. And when the lunar month fell into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was still called Ene kai neaa. " L. & S. Greek Lexicon, in v. enos.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF THE EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF CHILON
I. CHILON was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses in elegiac metre 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. Chilon 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.
II. 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 neighbours; 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 honour old age. --To keep a watch upon one's self. --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 neighbours 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.
III. They say, too, that when he was old he said, that he was not conscious of having ever done an unjust action in his life; but that he doubted about one thing. For that once when judging in a friend's cause he had voted himself in accordance with the law, but had persuaded a friend to vote for his acquittal, in order that so he might maintain the law, and yet save his friend.
IV. But he was most especially celebrated among the Greeks for having delivered an early opinion about Cythera, an island belonging to Laconia. For having become acquainted with its nature, he said, "I wish it had never existed, or that, as it does exist, it were sunk at the bottom of the sea.
" And his foresight was proved afterwards. For when Demaratus was banished by the Lacedaemonians, he advised Xerxes to keep his ships at that island: and Greece would have been subdued, if Xerxes had taken the advice. And afterwards Nicias, having reduced the island at the time of the Peloponnesian war, placed in it a garrison of Athenians, and did a great deal of harm to the Lacedaemonians.
V. He was very brief in his speech. On which account Aristagoras, the Milesian, calls such conciseness, the Chilonean fashion; and says that it was adopted by Branchus, who built the temple among the Branchidae. Chilon was an old man, about the fifty-second Olympiad, when Aesop, the fable writer, flourished. And he died, as Hermippus says, at Pisa, after embracing his son, who had gained the victory in boxing at the Olympic games. The cause of his death was excess of joy, and weakness caused by extreme old age. All the spectators who were present at the games attended his funeral, paying him the highest honours. And we have written the following epigram on him:
I thank you, brightest Pollux, that the son
Of Chilon wears the wreath of victory;
Nor need we grieve if at the glorious sight
His father died. May such my last end be!
And the following inscription is engraved on his statue:
The warlike Sparta called this Chilon son,
The wisest man of all the seven sages.
One of his sayings was, "Suretyship, and then destruction. " The following letter of his is also extant:
CHILON TO PERIANDER.
You desire me to abandon the expedition against the emigrants, as you yourself will go forth. But I think that a sole governor is in a slippery position at home; and I consider that tyrant a fortunate man who dies a natural death in his own house.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PITTACUS
I. PITTACUS was a native of Mitylene, and son of Hyrradius. But Duris says, that his father was a Thracian. He, in union with the brothers of Alcaeus, put down Melanchrus the tyrant of Lesbos. And in the battle which took place between the Athenians and Mitylenaeans on the subject of the district of Achilis, he was the Mitylenaean general; the Athenian commander being Phrynon, a Pancratiast, who had gained the victory at Olympia. Pittacus agreed to meet him in single combat, and having a net under his shield, he entangled Phrynon without his being aware of it beforehand, and so, having killed him, he preserved the district in dispute to his countrymen. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says, that subsequently, the Athenians had a trial with the Mitylenaeans about the district, and that the cause was submitted to Periander, who decided it in favour of the Athenians.
II. In consequence of this victory the Mitylenaeans held Pittacus in the greatest honour, and committed the supreme power into his hands. And he held it for ten years, and then, when he had brought the city and constitution into good order, he resigned the government. And he lived ten years after that, and the Mitylenaeans assigned him an estate which he consecrated to the God, and to this day it is called the Pittacian land. But Sosicrates says that he cut off a small portion of it, saying that half was more than the whole; and when Croesus offered him some money he would not accept it as he said that he had already twice as much as he wanted; for that he had succeeded to the inheritance of his brother, who had died without children.
III. But Pamphila says, in the second book of her Commentaries, that he had a son named Tyrrhaeus, who was killed while sitting in a barber's shop, at Cyma, by a brazier, who threw an axe at him; and that the Cymaeans sent the murderer to Pittacus, who when he had learnt what had been done, dismissed the man, saying, "Pardon is better than repentance. " But Heraclitus says that the true story is, that he had got Alcaeus into his power, and that he released him, saying, "Pardon is better than punishment. " He was also a law-giver; and he made a law that if a man committed a crime while drunk, he should have double punishment; in the hope of deterring men from getting drunk, as wine was very plentiful in the island.
IV. It was a saying of his that it was a hard thing to be good, and this apophthegm is quoted by Simonides, who says, "It was a saying of Pittacus, that it is a hard thing to be really a good man. " Plato also mentions it in his Protagoras. Another of his sayings was, "Even the Gods cannot strive against necessity. " Another was, " Power shows the man. " Being once asked what was best, he replied, "To do what one is doing at the moment well. " When Croesus put the question to him, "What is the greatest power? " "The power," he replied, "of the variegated wood," meaning the wooden tablets of the laws. He used to say too, that there were some victories without bloodshed. He said once to a man of Phocaea, who was saying that we ought to seek out a virtuous man, "But if you seek ever so much you will not find one. " Some people once asked him what thing was very grateful? and he replied, "Time. "--What was uncertain? "The future. "--What was trusty? "The land. "--What was treacherous? "The sea" Another saying of his was, that it was the part of wise men, before difficult circumstances arose, to provide for their not arising; but that it was the part of brave men to make the best of existing circumstances. He used to say too, "Do not say before hand what you are going to do; for if you fail, you will be laughed at. " "Do not reproach a man with his misfortunes, fearing lest Nemesis may overtake you. " "If you have received a deposit, restore it. " "Forbear to speak evil not only of your friends, but also of your enemies. " "Practise piety, with temperance. " "Cultivate truth, good faith, experience, cleverness, sociability, and industry. "
V. He wrote also some songs, of which the following is the most celebrated one:
The wise will only face the wicked man,
With bow in hand well bent,
And quiver full of arrows--
For such a tongue as his says nothing true,
Prompted by a wily heart
To utter double speeches.
He also composed six hundred verses in elegiac metre; and he wrote a treatise in prose, on Laws, addressed to his countrymen.
VI. He flourished about the forty-second Olympiad; and he died when Aristomenes was Archon, in the third year of the fifty-second Olympiad; having lived more than seventy years, being a very old man. And on his tomb is this inscription:
Lesbos who bore him here, with tears doth bury
Hyrradius' worthy son, wise Pittacus.
Another saying of his was, "Watch your opportunity. "
VII. There was also another Pittacus, a lawgiver, as Favorinus tells us in the first book of his Commentaries; and Demetrius says so too, in his Essay on Men and Things of the same name. And that other Pittacus was called Pittacus the less.
VIII. But it is said that the wise Pittacus once, when a young man consulted him on the subject of marriage, made him the following answer, which is thus given by Callimachus in his Epigrams.
Hyrradius' prudent son, old Pittacus
The pride of Mitylene, once was asked
By an Atarnean stranger; "Tell me, sage,
I have two marriages proposed to me;
One maid my equal is in birth and riches;
The other's far above me; which is best?
Advise me now which shall I take to wife? "
Thus spoke the stranger; but the aged prince,
Raising his old man's staff before his face,
Said, "These will tell you all you want to know;"
And pointed to some boys, who with quick lashes
Were driving whipping tops along the street.
"Follow their steps," said he; so he went near them
And heard them say, "Let each now mind his own. "--
So when the stranger heard the boys speak thus,
He pondered on their words, and laid aside
Ambitious thoughts of an unequal marriage.
As then he took to shame the poorer bride,
So too do you, O reader, mind thy own.
And it seems that he may have here spoken from experience, for his own wife was of more noble birth than himself, since she was the sister of Draco, the son of Penthilus; and she gave herself great airs, and tyrannized over him.
IX. Alcaeas calls Pittacus sarapous and sarapos, because he was splay-footed, and used to drag his feet in walking; he also called him cheiropodes, because he had scars on his feet which were called cheirades. And gaurex, implying that he gave himself airs without reason. And phuskon and gastron, because he was fat. He also called him zophodorpidas, because he had weak eyes, and agasurtos, because he was lazy and dirty. He used to grind corn for the sake of exercise, as Clearchus, the philosopher, relates.
X. There is a letter of his extant, which runs thus:
PITTACUS TO CROESUS.
You invite me to come to Lydia in order that I may see your riches; but I, even without seeing them, do not doubt that the son of Alyattes is the richest of monarchs. But I should get no good by going to Sardis; for I do not want gold myself, but what I have is sufficient for myself and my companions. Still, I will come, in order to become acquainted with you as a hospitable man.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF BIAS
Bias. Image adapted from ANU Artserv . . . rubens. anu. edu. au
I. BIAS was a citizen of Priene, and the son of Teutamus, and by Satyrus he is put at the head of the seven wise men. Some writers affirm that he was one of the richest men of the city; but others say that he was only a settler: And Phanodicus says, that he ransomed some Messenian maidens who had been taken prisoners, and educated them as his own daughters, and gave them dowries, and then sent them back to Messina to their fathers. And when, as has been mentioned before, the tripod was found near Athens by some fishermen, the brazen tripod I mean, which bore the inscription--"For the Wise;" then Satyrus says that the damsels (but others, such as Phanodicus, say that it was their father,) came into the assembly, and said that Bias was the wise man--recounting what he had done to them: and so the tripod was sent to him. But Bias, when he saw it, said that it was Apollo who was "the Wise," and would not receive the tripod.
II. But others say that he consecrated it at Thebes to Hercules because he himself was a descendant of the Thebans, who had sent a colony to Priene, as Phanodicus relates. It is said also that when Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened up two mules and drove them into his camp; and that the king, seeing the condition that the mules were in, was astonished at their being able to spare food to keep the brute beasts so well, and so he desired to make peace with them, and sent an ambassador to them. On this Bias, having made some heaps of sand, and put corn on the top, showed them to the convoy; and Alyattes, hearing from him what he had seen, made peace with the people of Priene; and then, when he sent to Bias, desiring him to come quickly to him, "Tell Alyattes, from me," he replied, "to eat onions;"--which is the same as if he had said, "go and weep. "
III. It is said that he was very energetic and eloquent when pleading causes; but that he always reserved his talents for the right side. In reference to which Demodicus of Alerius uttered the following enigmatical saying--"If you are a judge, give a Prienian decision. " And Hipponax says, "More excellent in his decisions than Bias of Priene. " Now he died in this manner:
IV. Having pleaded a cause for some one when he was exceedingly old, after he had finished speaking, he leaned back with his head on the bosom of his daughter's son; and after the advocate on the opposite side had spoken, and the judges had given their decision in favour of Bias's client, when the court broke up he was found dead on his grandson's bosom. And the city buried him in the greatest magnificence, and put over him this inscription--
Beneath this stone lies Bias, who was born
In the illustrious Prienian land,
The glory of the whole Ionian race.
And we ourselves have also written an epigram on him--
Here Bias lies, whom when the hoary snow
Had crowned his aged temples, Mercury
Unpitying led to Pluto's darken'd realms.
He pleaded his friend's cause, and then reclin'd
In his child's arms, repos'd in lasting sleep.
V. He also wrote about two thousand verses on Ionia, to show in what matter a man might best arrive at happiness; and of all his poetical sayings these have the greatest reputation:
Seek to please all the citizens, even though
Your house may be in an ungracious city.
For such a course will favour win from all:
But haughty manners oft produce destruction.
And this one too:
Great strength of body is the gift of nature;
But to be able to advise whate'er
Is most expedient for one's country's good,
Is the peculiar work of sense and wisdom.
Another is:
Great riches come to many men by chance.
He used also to say that that man was unfortunate who could not support misfortune; and that it is a disease of the mind to desire what was impossible, and to have no regard for the misfortunes of others. Being asked what was difficult, he said--"To bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity. " Once he was on a voyage with some impious men, and the vessel was overtaken by a storm; so they began to invoke the assistance of the Gods; on which he said, "Hold your tongues, lest they should find out that you are in this ship. " When he was asked by an impious man what piety was, he made no reply; and when his questioner demanded the reason of his silence, he said, "I am silent because you are putting questions about things with which you have no concern. " Being asked what was pleasant to men, he replied, "Hope. " It was a saying of his that it was more agreeable to decide between enemies than between friends; for that of friends, one was sure to become an enemy to him; but that of enemies, one was sure to become a friend. When the question was put to him, what a man derived pleasure while he was doing, he said, "While acquiring gain. " He used to say, too, that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time: and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were wicked. He used also to give the following pieces of advice:--"Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in it with firmness. --Do not speak fast, for that shows folly. --Love prudence. --Speak of the Gods as they are. --Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches. --Accept of things, having procured them by persuasion, not by force. --Whatever good fortune befalls you, attribute it to the gods. --Cherish wisdom as a means of travelling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession. "
VI. Hipponax also mentions Bias, as has been said before; and Heraclitus too, a man who was not easily pleased, has praised him; saying, in Priene there lived Bias the son of Teutamus, whose reputation is higher than that of the others; and the Prienians consecrated a temple to him which is called the Teutamium. A saying of his was, "Most men are wicked. "
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF CLEOBULUS
I. CLEOBULUS was a native of Lindus, and the son of Evagoras; but according to Duris he was a Carian; others again trace his family back to Hercules. He is reported to have been eminent for personal strength and beauty, and to have studied philosophy in Egypt; he had a daughter named Cleobulina, who used to compose enigmas in hexameter verse, and she is mentioned by Cratinus in his play of the same name, except that the title is written in the plural number. They say also that he restored the temple of Minerva which had been built by Danaus.
II. Cleobulus composed songs and obscure sayings in verse to the number of three thousand lines, and some say that it was he who composed the epigram on Midas.
I am a brazen maiden lying here
Upon the tomb of Midas. And as long
As water flows, as trees are green with leaves,
As the sun shines and eke the silver moon,
As long as rivers flow, and billows roar,
So long will I upon this much wept tomb,
Tell passers by, "Midas lies buried here. "
And as an evidence of this epigram being by him they quote a song of Simonides, which runs thus:
What men possessed of sense
Would ever praise the Lindian Cleobulus?
Who could compare a statue made by man
To everflowing streams,
To blushing flowers of spring,
To the suns rays, to beams o' the golden morn,
And to the ceaseless waves of mighty Ocean?
All things are trifling when compared to God.
While men beneath their hands can crush a stone;
So that such sentiments can only come from fools.
And the epigram cannot possibly be by Homer, for he lived many years, as it is said, before Midas.
III. There is also the following enigma quoted in the Commentaries of Pamphila, as the work of Cleobulus :
There was one father and he had twelve daughters,
Each of his daughters had twice thirty children.
But most unlike in figure and complexion;
For some were white, and others black to view,
And though immortal they all taste of death.
And the solution is, "the year. "
IV. Of his apophthegms, the following are the most celebrated. Ignorance and talkativeness bear the chief sway among men. Opportunity will be the most powerful. Cherish not a thought. Do not be fickle, or ungrateful. He used to say too, that men ought to give their daughters in marriage while they were girls in age, but women in sense; as indicating by this that girls ought to be well educated. Another of his sayings was, that one ought to serve a friend that he may become a greater friend; and an enemy, to make him a friend. And that one ought to guard against giving one's friends occasion to blame one, and one's enemies opportunity of plotting against one. Also, when a man goes out of his house, he should consider what he is going to do: and when he comes home again he should consider what he has done. He used also to advise men to keep their bodies in health by exercise. --To be fond of hearing rather than of talking. --To be fond of learning rather than unwilling to learn. --To speak well of people. --To seek virtue and eschew vice. --To avoid injustice. --To give the best advice in one's power to one's country. --To be superior to pleasure. --To do nothing by force. --To instruct one's children,--To be ready for reconciliation after quarrels. --Not to caress one's wife, nor to quarrel with her when strangers are present, for that to do the one is a sign of folly, and to do the latter is downright madness. --Not to chastise a servant while elated with drink, for so doing one will appear to be drunk one's self. --To marry from among one's equals, for if one takes a wife of a higher rank than one's self, one will have one's connexions for one's masters. --Not to laugh at those who are being reproved, for so one will be detested by them. --Be not haughty when prosperous. --Be not desponding when in difficulties. --Learn to bear the changes of fortune with magnanimity.
V. And he died at a great age, having lived seventy years, and this inscription was put over him :
His country, Lindus, this fair sea-girt city
Bewails wise Cleobulus here entombed.
VI. One of his sayings was, "Moderation is the best thing. " He also wrote a letter to Solon in these terms:
CLEOBULUS TO SOLON.
You have many friends, and a home everywhere, but yet I think that Lindus will be the most agreeable habitation for Solon, since it enjoys a democratic government, and it is a maritime island, and whoever dwells in it has nothing to fear from Pisistratus, and you will have friends flock to you from all quarters.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PERIANDER
I. PERIANDER was a Corinthian, the son of Cypselus, of the family of the Heraclidae. He married Lyside (whom he himself called Melissa), the daughter of Procles the tyrant of Epidaurus, and of Eristhenea the daughter of Aristocrates, and sister of Aristodemus, who governed nearly all Arcadia, as Heraclides Ponticus says in his Treatise on Dominion and had by her two sons Cypselus and Lycophron, the younger of whom was a clever boy, but the elder was deficient in intellect. At a subsequent period he in a rage either kicked or threw his wife down stairs when she was pregnant, and so killed her, being wrought upon by the false accusations of his concubines, whom he afterwards burnt alive. And the child, whose name was Lycophron, he sent away to Corcyra because he grieved for his mother.
II. But afterwards, when he was now extremely old, he sent for him back again, in order that he might succeed to the tyranny.
The Bohn original has "Euxamius and Cleobule".
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF SOLON
I. SOLON the son of Execestides, a native of Salamis, was the first person who introduced among the Athenians, an ordinance for the lowering1 of debts; for this was the name given to the release of the bodies and possessions of the debtors. For men used to borrow on the security of their own persons, and many became slaves in consequence of their inability to pay; and as seven talents were owed to him as a part of his paternal inheritance when he succeeded to it, he was the first person who made a composition with his debtors, and who exhorted the other men who had money owing to them to do likewise, and this ordinance was called seisachtheia; and the reason why is plain. After that he enacted his other laws, which it would take a long time to enumerate; and he wrote them on wooden revolving tablets.
II. But what was his most important act of all was, when there had been a great dispute about his native land Salamis, between the Athenians and Megarians, and when the Athenians had met with many disasters in war, and had passed a decree that if any one proposed to the people to go to war for the sake of Salamis he should be punished with death, he then pretended to be mad and putting on a crown rushed into the market place, and there he recited to the Athenians by the agency of a crier, the elegies which he had composed, and which were all directed to the subject of Salamis, and by these means he excited them; and so they made war again upon the Megarians and conquered them by means of Solon. And the elegies which had the greatest influence on the Athenians were these:
Would that I were a man of Pholegandros,2
Or small Sicinna,3 rather than of Athens:
For soon this will a common proverb be,
That's an Athenian who won't fight for Salamis.
And another was:
Let's go and fight for lovely Salamis,
And wipe off this our present infamy.
He also persuaded them to take possession of the Thracian Chersonesus, and in order that it might appear that the Athenians had got possession of Salamis not by force alone, but also with justice, he opened some tombs, and showed that the corpses buried in them were all turned towards the east, according to the Athenian fashion of sepulture; likewise the tombs themselves all looked east, and the titles of the boroughs to which the dead belonged were inscribed on them, which was a custom peculiar to the Athenians. Some also say that it was he who added to the catalogue of Homer, after the lines:
With these appear the Salaminian bands,
Whom Telamon's gigantic son commands--
These other verses:
In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course,
And with the great Athenians join their force. 4
III. And ever after this time the people was willingly obedient to him, and was contented to be governed by him: but he did not choose to be their ruler, and moreover, as Sosicrates relates, he, as far as in him lay, hindered also his relative Pisistratus from being so, when he saw that he was inclined to such a step. Rushing into one of the assemblies armed with a spear and shield, he forewarned the people of the design of Pisistratus, and not only that but told them that he was prepared to assist them; and these were his words: "Ye men of Athens, I am wiser than some of you, and braver than others. Wiser than those of you who do not perceive the treachery of Pisistratus; and braver than those who are aware of it, but out of fear hold their peace. " But the council, being in the interest of Pisistratus, said that he was mad, on which he spoke as follows:
A short time will to all my madness prove,
When stern reality presents itself.
And these elegiac verses were written by him about the tyranny of Pisistratus, which he foretold,
Fierce snow and hail are from the clouds borne down,
And thunder after brilliant lightning roars,
And by its own great men a city falls,
The ignorant mob becoming slaves to kings.
IV. And when Pisistratus had obtained the supreme power, he, as he would not influence him, laid down his arms before the chief council-house, and said, "O my country, I have stood by you in word and deed. " And then he sailed away to Egypt, and Cyprus, and came to Croesus. And while at his court being asked by him, "Who appears to you to be happy? "5 He replied, "Tellus the Athenian, and Cleobis and Biton," and enumerated other commonly spoken of instances. But some people say, that once Croesus adorned himself in every possible manner, and took his seat upon his throne, and then asked Solon whether he had ever seen a more beautiful sight. But he said, "Yes, I have seen cocks and pheasants, and peacocks; for they are adorned with natural colours, and such as are ten thousand times more beautiful. " Afterwards leaving Sardis he went to Cilicia, and there he founded a city which he called Soli after his own name; and he placed in it a few Athenians as colonists, who in time departed from the strict use of their native language, and were said to speak Solecisms; and the inhabitants of that city are called Solensians; but those of Soli in Cyprus are called Solians.
V. And when he learnt that Pisistratus continued to rule in Athens as a tyrant, he wrote these verses on the Athenians:
If through your vices you afflicted are,
Lay not the blame of your distress on God;
You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards,
So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod--
Each one of you now treads in foxes' steps,
Bearing a weak, inconstant, faithless mind,
Trusting the tongue and slippery speech of man;
Though in his acts alone you truth can find.
This, then, he said to them.
VI. But Pisistratus, when he was leaving Athens, wrote him a letter in the following terms:
PISISTRATUS TO SOLON.
I am not the only one of the Greeks who has seized the sovereignty of his country, nor am I one who had no right whatever to do so, since I am of the race of Codrus; for I have only recovered what the Athenians swore that they would give to Codrus and all his family, and what they afterwards deprived them of. And in all other respects I sin neither against men nor against gods, but I allow the Athenians to live under the laws which you established amongst them, and they are now living in a better manner than they would if they were under a democracy; for I allow no one to behave with violence: and I, though I am the tyrant, derive no other advantage beyond my superiority in rank and honour, being content with the fixed honours which belonged to the former kings. And every one of the Athenians brings the tithe of his possessions, not to me, but to the proper place in order that it may be devoted to the public sacrifices of the city; and for any other public purposes, or for any emergencies of war which may arise.
But I do not blame you for laying open my plans, for I know that you did so out of regard for the city rather than out of dislike to me; and also because you did not know what sort of government I was about to establish; since, if you had been acquainted with it, you would have been content to live under it and would not have fled. Now, therefore, return home again; believing me even without my swearing to you that Solon shall never receive any harm at the hands of Pisistratus; know also that none of my enemies have suffered any evil from me; and if you will consent to be one of my friends, you shall be among the first; for I know that there is no treachery or faithlessness in you. Or if you wish to live at Athens in any other manner, you shall be allowed to do so; only do not deprive yourself of your country because of my actions.
Thus wrote Pisistratus.
VII. Solon also said, that the limit of human life was seventy years, and he appears to have been a most excellent lawgiver, for he enjoined, "that if any one did not support his parents he should be accounted infamous; and that the man who squandered his patrimony should be equally so, and the inactive man was liable to prosecution by any one who choose to impeach him. But Lysias, in his speech against Nicias, says that Draco first proposed this law, but that it was Solon who enacted it. He also prohibited all who lived in debauchery from ascending the tribunal; and he diminished the honours paid to Athletes who were victorious in the games, fixing the prize for a victor at Olympia at five hundred drachmae,6 and for one who conquered at the Isthmian games at one hundred; and in the same proportion did he fix the prizes for the other games, for he said, that it was absurd to give such great honours to those men as ought to be reserved for those only who died in the wars; and their sons he ordered to be educated and bred up at the public expense. And owing to this encouragement, the Athenians behave themselves nobly and valiantly in war; as for instance, Polyzelus, and Cynaegirus, and Callimachus, and all the soldiers who fought at Marathon, and Harmodius, and Aristogiton, and Miltiades, and numberless other heroes.
But as for the Athletes, their training is very expensive, and their victories injurious, and they are crowned rather as conquerors of their country than of their antagonists, and when they become old, as Euripides says:
They're like old cloaks worn to the very woof.
IX. So Solon, appreciating these facts, treated them with moderation. This also was an admirable regulation of his, that a guardian of orphans should not live with their mother, and that no one should be appointed a guardian, to whom the orphans' property would come if they died. Another excellent law was, that a seal engraver might not keep an impression of any ring which had been sold by him, and that if a person struck out the eye of a man who had but one, he should lose both his own, and that no one should claim what he had not deposited, otherwise death should be his punishment. If an archon was detected being drunk, that too was a capital crime. And he compiled the poems of Homer, so that they might be recited by different bards taking the cue from one another, so that where one had left off the next one might take him up, so that it was Solon rather than Pisistratus who brought Homer to light, as Dieuchidas says, in the fifth book of his History of Megara, and the most celebrated of his verses were:
Full fifty more from Athens stem the main.
And the rest of that passage--"And Solon was the first person who called the thirtieth day of the month eve kai nea. "7
He was the first person also who assembled the nine archons together to deliver their opinions, as Apollodorus tells us in the second book of his Treatise on Lawgivers. And once, when there was a sedition in the city, he took part neither with the citizens, nor with the inhabitants of the plain, nor with the men of the sea-coast.
X. 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 apophthegm of his was, that satiety was generated by wealth, and insolence by satiety.
XI. 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.
XII. He gave the following advice, as is recorded by Apollodorus in his Treatise on the Sects of Philosophers: "Consider your honour, 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. --Honour the gods; respect your parents. "
XIII. 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.
XV. 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 metres, in which I have made a collection of notices of all the illustrious men that have ever died, in every kind of metre 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.
XVI. He also, as some say, was the author of the apophthegm--"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 some one 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. "
XVII. 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 everyone of them out of the way, you would do no good; but some one 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 any one out of the way.
SOLON TO EPIMENIDES.
XVIII. 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 have this power, who, from time to time, can lead the people to 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 are my laws nor 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 ursurping 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 councilhouse, 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 any one 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.
XX. 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.
1. Vide Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, ii. p. 34.
2. One of the Sporades.
3. An island near Crete.
4. Hom. II 2. 671. Dryden's Version.
5. Vide Herod. lib. 1. c. 30-33.
6. A drachma was something less than ten pence.
7. "Ene kai nea the last day of the month: elsewhere trianias. So called for this reason. The old Greek year was lunar; now the moon's monthly orbit is twenty-nine and a half days. So that if the first month began with the sun and moon together at sunrise at the month's end it would be sunset; and the second month would begin at sunset. To prevent this irregularity, Solon made the latter half day belong to the first month; so that this thirtieth day consisted of two halves, one belonging to the old, the other to the new moon. And when the lunar month fell into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was still called Ene kai neaa. " L. & S. Greek Lexicon, in v. enos.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF THE EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF CHILON
I. CHILON was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses in elegiac metre 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. Chilon 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.
II. 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 neighbours; 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 honour old age. --To keep a watch upon one's self. --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 neighbours 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.
III. They say, too, that when he was old he said, that he was not conscious of having ever done an unjust action in his life; but that he doubted about one thing. For that once when judging in a friend's cause he had voted himself in accordance with the law, but had persuaded a friend to vote for his acquittal, in order that so he might maintain the law, and yet save his friend.
IV. But he was most especially celebrated among the Greeks for having delivered an early opinion about Cythera, an island belonging to Laconia. For having become acquainted with its nature, he said, "I wish it had never existed, or that, as it does exist, it were sunk at the bottom of the sea.
" And his foresight was proved afterwards. For when Demaratus was banished by the Lacedaemonians, he advised Xerxes to keep his ships at that island: and Greece would have been subdued, if Xerxes had taken the advice. And afterwards Nicias, having reduced the island at the time of the Peloponnesian war, placed in it a garrison of Athenians, and did a great deal of harm to the Lacedaemonians.
V. He was very brief in his speech. On which account Aristagoras, the Milesian, calls such conciseness, the Chilonean fashion; and says that it was adopted by Branchus, who built the temple among the Branchidae. Chilon was an old man, about the fifty-second Olympiad, when Aesop, the fable writer, flourished. And he died, as Hermippus says, at Pisa, after embracing his son, who had gained the victory in boxing at the Olympic games. The cause of his death was excess of joy, and weakness caused by extreme old age. All the spectators who were present at the games attended his funeral, paying him the highest honours. And we have written the following epigram on him:
I thank you, brightest Pollux, that the son
Of Chilon wears the wreath of victory;
Nor need we grieve if at the glorious sight
His father died. May such my last end be!
And the following inscription is engraved on his statue:
The warlike Sparta called this Chilon son,
The wisest man of all the seven sages.
One of his sayings was, "Suretyship, and then destruction. " The following letter of his is also extant:
CHILON TO PERIANDER.
You desire me to abandon the expedition against the emigrants, as you yourself will go forth. But I think that a sole governor is in a slippery position at home; and I consider that tyrant a fortunate man who dies a natural death in his own house.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PITTACUS
I. PITTACUS was a native of Mitylene, and son of Hyrradius. But Duris says, that his father was a Thracian. He, in union with the brothers of Alcaeus, put down Melanchrus the tyrant of Lesbos. And in the battle which took place between the Athenians and Mitylenaeans on the subject of the district of Achilis, he was the Mitylenaean general; the Athenian commander being Phrynon, a Pancratiast, who had gained the victory at Olympia. Pittacus agreed to meet him in single combat, and having a net under his shield, he entangled Phrynon without his being aware of it beforehand, and so, having killed him, he preserved the district in dispute to his countrymen. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says, that subsequently, the Athenians had a trial with the Mitylenaeans about the district, and that the cause was submitted to Periander, who decided it in favour of the Athenians.
II. In consequence of this victory the Mitylenaeans held Pittacus in the greatest honour, and committed the supreme power into his hands. And he held it for ten years, and then, when he had brought the city and constitution into good order, he resigned the government. And he lived ten years after that, and the Mitylenaeans assigned him an estate which he consecrated to the God, and to this day it is called the Pittacian land. But Sosicrates says that he cut off a small portion of it, saying that half was more than the whole; and when Croesus offered him some money he would not accept it as he said that he had already twice as much as he wanted; for that he had succeeded to the inheritance of his brother, who had died without children.
III. But Pamphila says, in the second book of her Commentaries, that he had a son named Tyrrhaeus, who was killed while sitting in a barber's shop, at Cyma, by a brazier, who threw an axe at him; and that the Cymaeans sent the murderer to Pittacus, who when he had learnt what had been done, dismissed the man, saying, "Pardon is better than repentance. " But Heraclitus says that the true story is, that he had got Alcaeus into his power, and that he released him, saying, "Pardon is better than punishment. " He was also a law-giver; and he made a law that if a man committed a crime while drunk, he should have double punishment; in the hope of deterring men from getting drunk, as wine was very plentiful in the island.
IV. It was a saying of his that it was a hard thing to be good, and this apophthegm is quoted by Simonides, who says, "It was a saying of Pittacus, that it is a hard thing to be really a good man. " Plato also mentions it in his Protagoras. Another of his sayings was, "Even the Gods cannot strive against necessity. " Another was, " Power shows the man. " Being once asked what was best, he replied, "To do what one is doing at the moment well. " When Croesus put the question to him, "What is the greatest power? " "The power," he replied, "of the variegated wood," meaning the wooden tablets of the laws. He used to say too, that there were some victories without bloodshed. He said once to a man of Phocaea, who was saying that we ought to seek out a virtuous man, "But if you seek ever so much you will not find one. " Some people once asked him what thing was very grateful? and he replied, "Time. "--What was uncertain? "The future. "--What was trusty? "The land. "--What was treacherous? "The sea" Another saying of his was, that it was the part of wise men, before difficult circumstances arose, to provide for their not arising; but that it was the part of brave men to make the best of existing circumstances. He used to say too, "Do not say before hand what you are going to do; for if you fail, you will be laughed at. " "Do not reproach a man with his misfortunes, fearing lest Nemesis may overtake you. " "If you have received a deposit, restore it. " "Forbear to speak evil not only of your friends, but also of your enemies. " "Practise piety, with temperance. " "Cultivate truth, good faith, experience, cleverness, sociability, and industry. "
V. He wrote also some songs, of which the following is the most celebrated one:
The wise will only face the wicked man,
With bow in hand well bent,
And quiver full of arrows--
For such a tongue as his says nothing true,
Prompted by a wily heart
To utter double speeches.
He also composed six hundred verses in elegiac metre; and he wrote a treatise in prose, on Laws, addressed to his countrymen.
VI. He flourished about the forty-second Olympiad; and he died when Aristomenes was Archon, in the third year of the fifty-second Olympiad; having lived more than seventy years, being a very old man. And on his tomb is this inscription:
Lesbos who bore him here, with tears doth bury
Hyrradius' worthy son, wise Pittacus.
Another saying of his was, "Watch your opportunity. "
VII. There was also another Pittacus, a lawgiver, as Favorinus tells us in the first book of his Commentaries; and Demetrius says so too, in his Essay on Men and Things of the same name. And that other Pittacus was called Pittacus the less.
VIII. But it is said that the wise Pittacus once, when a young man consulted him on the subject of marriage, made him the following answer, which is thus given by Callimachus in his Epigrams.
Hyrradius' prudent son, old Pittacus
The pride of Mitylene, once was asked
By an Atarnean stranger; "Tell me, sage,
I have two marriages proposed to me;
One maid my equal is in birth and riches;
The other's far above me; which is best?
Advise me now which shall I take to wife? "
Thus spoke the stranger; but the aged prince,
Raising his old man's staff before his face,
Said, "These will tell you all you want to know;"
And pointed to some boys, who with quick lashes
Were driving whipping tops along the street.
"Follow their steps," said he; so he went near them
And heard them say, "Let each now mind his own. "--
So when the stranger heard the boys speak thus,
He pondered on their words, and laid aside
Ambitious thoughts of an unequal marriage.
As then he took to shame the poorer bride,
So too do you, O reader, mind thy own.
And it seems that he may have here spoken from experience, for his own wife was of more noble birth than himself, since she was the sister of Draco, the son of Penthilus; and she gave herself great airs, and tyrannized over him.
IX. Alcaeas calls Pittacus sarapous and sarapos, because he was splay-footed, and used to drag his feet in walking; he also called him cheiropodes, because he had scars on his feet which were called cheirades. And gaurex, implying that he gave himself airs without reason. And phuskon and gastron, because he was fat. He also called him zophodorpidas, because he had weak eyes, and agasurtos, because he was lazy and dirty. He used to grind corn for the sake of exercise, as Clearchus, the philosopher, relates.
X. There is a letter of his extant, which runs thus:
PITTACUS TO CROESUS.
You invite me to come to Lydia in order that I may see your riches; but I, even without seeing them, do not doubt that the son of Alyattes is the richest of monarchs. But I should get no good by going to Sardis; for I do not want gold myself, but what I have is sufficient for myself and my companions. Still, I will come, in order to become acquainted with you as a hospitable man.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF BIAS
Bias. Image adapted from ANU Artserv . . . rubens. anu. edu. au
I. BIAS was a citizen of Priene, and the son of Teutamus, and by Satyrus he is put at the head of the seven wise men. Some writers affirm that he was one of the richest men of the city; but others say that he was only a settler: And Phanodicus says, that he ransomed some Messenian maidens who had been taken prisoners, and educated them as his own daughters, and gave them dowries, and then sent them back to Messina to their fathers. And when, as has been mentioned before, the tripod was found near Athens by some fishermen, the brazen tripod I mean, which bore the inscription--"For the Wise;" then Satyrus says that the damsels (but others, such as Phanodicus, say that it was their father,) came into the assembly, and said that Bias was the wise man--recounting what he had done to them: and so the tripod was sent to him. But Bias, when he saw it, said that it was Apollo who was "the Wise," and would not receive the tripod.
II. But others say that he consecrated it at Thebes to Hercules because he himself was a descendant of the Thebans, who had sent a colony to Priene, as Phanodicus relates. It is said also that when Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened up two mules and drove them into his camp; and that the king, seeing the condition that the mules were in, was astonished at their being able to spare food to keep the brute beasts so well, and so he desired to make peace with them, and sent an ambassador to them. On this Bias, having made some heaps of sand, and put corn on the top, showed them to the convoy; and Alyattes, hearing from him what he had seen, made peace with the people of Priene; and then, when he sent to Bias, desiring him to come quickly to him, "Tell Alyattes, from me," he replied, "to eat onions;"--which is the same as if he had said, "go and weep. "
III. It is said that he was very energetic and eloquent when pleading causes; but that he always reserved his talents for the right side. In reference to which Demodicus of Alerius uttered the following enigmatical saying--"If you are a judge, give a Prienian decision. " And Hipponax says, "More excellent in his decisions than Bias of Priene. " Now he died in this manner:
IV. Having pleaded a cause for some one when he was exceedingly old, after he had finished speaking, he leaned back with his head on the bosom of his daughter's son; and after the advocate on the opposite side had spoken, and the judges had given their decision in favour of Bias's client, when the court broke up he was found dead on his grandson's bosom. And the city buried him in the greatest magnificence, and put over him this inscription--
Beneath this stone lies Bias, who was born
In the illustrious Prienian land,
The glory of the whole Ionian race.
And we ourselves have also written an epigram on him--
Here Bias lies, whom when the hoary snow
Had crowned his aged temples, Mercury
Unpitying led to Pluto's darken'd realms.
He pleaded his friend's cause, and then reclin'd
In his child's arms, repos'd in lasting sleep.
V. He also wrote about two thousand verses on Ionia, to show in what matter a man might best arrive at happiness; and of all his poetical sayings these have the greatest reputation:
Seek to please all the citizens, even though
Your house may be in an ungracious city.
For such a course will favour win from all:
But haughty manners oft produce destruction.
And this one too:
Great strength of body is the gift of nature;
But to be able to advise whate'er
Is most expedient for one's country's good,
Is the peculiar work of sense and wisdom.
Another is:
Great riches come to many men by chance.
He used also to say that that man was unfortunate who could not support misfortune; and that it is a disease of the mind to desire what was impossible, and to have no regard for the misfortunes of others. Being asked what was difficult, he said--"To bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity. " Once he was on a voyage with some impious men, and the vessel was overtaken by a storm; so they began to invoke the assistance of the Gods; on which he said, "Hold your tongues, lest they should find out that you are in this ship. " When he was asked by an impious man what piety was, he made no reply; and when his questioner demanded the reason of his silence, he said, "I am silent because you are putting questions about things with which you have no concern. " Being asked what was pleasant to men, he replied, "Hope. " It was a saying of his that it was more agreeable to decide between enemies than between friends; for that of friends, one was sure to become an enemy to him; but that of enemies, one was sure to become a friend. When the question was put to him, what a man derived pleasure while he was doing, he said, "While acquiring gain. " He used to say, too, that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time: and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were wicked. He used also to give the following pieces of advice:--"Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in it with firmness. --Do not speak fast, for that shows folly. --Love prudence. --Speak of the Gods as they are. --Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches. --Accept of things, having procured them by persuasion, not by force. --Whatever good fortune befalls you, attribute it to the gods. --Cherish wisdom as a means of travelling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession. "
VI. Hipponax also mentions Bias, as has been said before; and Heraclitus too, a man who was not easily pleased, has praised him; saying, in Priene there lived Bias the son of Teutamus, whose reputation is higher than that of the others; and the Prienians consecrated a temple to him which is called the Teutamium. A saying of his was, "Most men are wicked. "
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF CLEOBULUS
I. CLEOBULUS was a native of Lindus, and the son of Evagoras; but according to Duris he was a Carian; others again trace his family back to Hercules. He is reported to have been eminent for personal strength and beauty, and to have studied philosophy in Egypt; he had a daughter named Cleobulina, who used to compose enigmas in hexameter verse, and she is mentioned by Cratinus in his play of the same name, except that the title is written in the plural number. They say also that he restored the temple of Minerva which had been built by Danaus.
II. Cleobulus composed songs and obscure sayings in verse to the number of three thousand lines, and some say that it was he who composed the epigram on Midas.
I am a brazen maiden lying here
Upon the tomb of Midas. And as long
As water flows, as trees are green with leaves,
As the sun shines and eke the silver moon,
As long as rivers flow, and billows roar,
So long will I upon this much wept tomb,
Tell passers by, "Midas lies buried here. "
And as an evidence of this epigram being by him they quote a song of Simonides, which runs thus:
What men possessed of sense
Would ever praise the Lindian Cleobulus?
Who could compare a statue made by man
To everflowing streams,
To blushing flowers of spring,
To the suns rays, to beams o' the golden morn,
And to the ceaseless waves of mighty Ocean?
All things are trifling when compared to God.
While men beneath their hands can crush a stone;
So that such sentiments can only come from fools.
And the epigram cannot possibly be by Homer, for he lived many years, as it is said, before Midas.
III. There is also the following enigma quoted in the Commentaries of Pamphila, as the work of Cleobulus :
There was one father and he had twelve daughters,
Each of his daughters had twice thirty children.
But most unlike in figure and complexion;
For some were white, and others black to view,
And though immortal they all taste of death.
And the solution is, "the year. "
IV. Of his apophthegms, the following are the most celebrated. Ignorance and talkativeness bear the chief sway among men. Opportunity will be the most powerful. Cherish not a thought. Do not be fickle, or ungrateful. He used to say too, that men ought to give their daughters in marriage while they were girls in age, but women in sense; as indicating by this that girls ought to be well educated. Another of his sayings was, that one ought to serve a friend that he may become a greater friend; and an enemy, to make him a friend. And that one ought to guard against giving one's friends occasion to blame one, and one's enemies opportunity of plotting against one. Also, when a man goes out of his house, he should consider what he is going to do: and when he comes home again he should consider what he has done. He used also to advise men to keep their bodies in health by exercise. --To be fond of hearing rather than of talking. --To be fond of learning rather than unwilling to learn. --To speak well of people. --To seek virtue and eschew vice. --To avoid injustice. --To give the best advice in one's power to one's country. --To be superior to pleasure. --To do nothing by force. --To instruct one's children,--To be ready for reconciliation after quarrels. --Not to caress one's wife, nor to quarrel with her when strangers are present, for that to do the one is a sign of folly, and to do the latter is downright madness. --Not to chastise a servant while elated with drink, for so doing one will appear to be drunk one's self. --To marry from among one's equals, for if one takes a wife of a higher rank than one's self, one will have one's connexions for one's masters. --Not to laugh at those who are being reproved, for so one will be detested by them. --Be not haughty when prosperous. --Be not desponding when in difficulties. --Learn to bear the changes of fortune with magnanimity.
V. And he died at a great age, having lived seventy years, and this inscription was put over him :
His country, Lindus, this fair sea-girt city
Bewails wise Cleobulus here entombed.
VI. One of his sayings was, "Moderation is the best thing. " He also wrote a letter to Solon in these terms:
CLEOBULUS TO SOLON.
You have many friends, and a home everywhere, but yet I think that Lindus will be the most agreeable habitation for Solon, since it enjoys a democratic government, and it is a maritime island, and whoever dwells in it has nothing to fear from Pisistratus, and you will have friends flock to you from all quarters.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PERIANDER
I. PERIANDER was a Corinthian, the son of Cypselus, of the family of the Heraclidae. He married Lyside (whom he himself called Melissa), the daughter of Procles the tyrant of Epidaurus, and of Eristhenea the daughter of Aristocrates, and sister of Aristodemus, who governed nearly all Arcadia, as Heraclides Ponticus says in his Treatise on Dominion and had by her two sons Cypselus and Lycophron, the younger of whom was a clever boy, but the elder was deficient in intellect. At a subsequent period he in a rage either kicked or threw his wife down stairs when she was pregnant, and so killed her, being wrought upon by the false accusations of his concubines, whom he afterwards burnt alive. And the child, whose name was Lycophron, he sent away to Corcyra because he grieved for his mother.
II. But afterwards, when he was now extremely old, he sent for him back again, in order that he might succeed to the tyranny.
