Плутарх - Plutarch's Lives - Volume I

VII. It is a strange and unworthy feeling that prompts a man not to claim that to which he has a right, for fear that he may one day lose it; for by the same reasoning he might refuse wealth, reputation, or wisdom, for fear of losing them hereafter. We see even virtue, the greatest and most dear of all possessions, can be destroyed by disease or evil drugs; and Thales by avoiding marriage still had just as much to fear, unless indeed he ceased to love his friends, his kinsmen, and his native land. But even he adopted his sister's son Kybisthus; for the soul has a spring of affection within it, and is formed not only to perceive, to reflect, and to remember, but also to love. If it finds nothing to love at home, it will find something abroad; and when affection, like a desert spot, has no legitimate possessors, it is usurped by bastard children or even servants, who when they have obtained our love, make us fear for them and be anxious about them. So that one may often see men, in a cynical temper, inveighing against marriage and children, who themselves shortly afterwards will be plunged into unmanly excesses of grief, at the loss of their child by some slave or concubine. Some have even shown terrible grief at the death of dogs and horses; whereas others, who have lost noble sons, made no unusual or unseemly exhibition of sorrow, but passed the remainder of their lives calmly and composedly. Indeed it is weakness, not affection, which produces such endless misery and dread to those who have not learned to take a rational view of the uncertainty of life, and who cannot enjoy the presence of their loved ones because of their constant agony for fear of losing them. We should not make ourselves poor for fear of losing our property, nor should we guard ourselves against a possible loss of friends by making none; still less ought we to avoid having children for fear that our child might die. But we have already dwelt too much upon this subject.

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

The name of this poem is Salamis; it consists of a hundred beautifully written lines. After he had sung it, his friends began to commend it, and Peisistratus made a speech to the people, which caused such enthusiasm that they abrogated the law and renewed the war, with Solon as their leader. The common version of the story runs thus: Solon sailed with Peisistratus to Kolias, where he found all the women of the city performing the customary sacrifice to Demeter (Ceres). At the same time, he sent a trusty man to Salamis, who represented himself as a deserter, and bade the Megarians follow him at once to Kolias, if they wished to capture all the women of the first Athenian families. The Megarians were duped, and sent off a force in a ship. As soon as Solon saw this ship sail away from the island, he ordered the women out of the way, dressed up those young men who were still beardless in their clothes, headdresses, and shoes, gave them daggers, and ordered them to dance and disport themselves near the seashore until the enemy landed, and their ship was certain to be captured. So the Megarians, imagining them to be women, fell upon them, struggling which should first seize them, but they were cut off to a man by the Athenians, who at once sailed to Salamis and captured it.

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

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

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

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

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

XI. Solon's reputation and power were greatly increased by this, but he became much more celebrated and well–known in Greece by his speeches on behalf of the temple at Delphi, in which he urged the necessity of checking the insolent conduct of the people of Kirrha towards the temple, and of rallying in defence of the god. The Amphiktyons, prevailed upon by his eloquence, declared war, as we learn from Aristotle, among other writers, in his book about the winners of the prize at the Pythian games, in which he attributes this decision to Solon. However, he was not made general in that war, as Hermippus relates, quoting from Evanthes of Samos; for Aeschines the orator does not mention him, and, in the records of Delphi, Alkmaeon, not Solon, is mentioned as general of the Athenians on that occasion.