Solon

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. I. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1914.

Observing the irregularity of the month, and that the motion of the moon does not always coincide with the rising and setting of the sun, but that often she overtakes and passes the sun on the same day, he ordered that day to be called the Old and New, assigning the portion of it which preceded the conjunction to the expiring month, and the remaining portion to the month that was just beginning. He was thus the first, as it would seem, to understand Homer’s verse,[*](Odyssey, xiv. 162=xix. 307, of the day when Odysseus would return to Ithaca.) which speaks of a day when

  1. This month is waning, and the next is setting in,
and the day following this he called the first of the month. After the twentieth he did not count the days by adding them to twenty, but by subtracting them from thirty, on a descending scale, like the waning of the moon.[*]( Thus the twenty-first was called the tenth, the twenty-second the ninth, and so on, of the waning month. The twenty-ninth was the second of the waning month, the thirtieth the Old and New.)

No sooner were the laws of Solon put into operation than some would come to him every day with praise or censure of them, or with advice to insert something into the documents, or take something out. Very numerous, too, were those who came to him with inquiries and questions about them, urging him to teach and make clear to them the meaning and purpose of each several item.

He saw that to do this was out of the question, and that not to do it would bring odium upon him, and wishing to be wholly rid of these perplexities and to escape from the captiousness and censoriousness of the citizens (for in great affairs, as he says himself,[*](Fragment 7 (Bergk).) it is difficult to please all), he made his ownership of a vessel an excuse for foreign travel, and set sail, after obtaining from the Athenians leave of absence for ten years. In this time he hoped they would be accustomed to his laws.

In the first place, then, he went to Egypt,[*](Cf. Aristot. Const. Ath. 11.1.) and lived, as he himself says,[*](Fragment 28 (Bergk).)

  1. Where Nile pours Forth his floods, near the Canobic shore.
He also spent some time in studies with Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais, who were very learned priests. From these, as Plato says,[*](Plat. Tim. 22a) he heard the story of the lost Atlantis, and tried to introduce it in a poetical form to the Greeks.[*](Cf. Plut. Sol. 31.3; Plut. Sol. 32.1 f.)

Next he sailed to Cyprus, and was greatly beloved of Philocyprus, one of the kings of the island. This prince had a small city founded by Demophon, the son of Theseus and lying near the river Clarius, in a position which was strong, but otherwise incommodious and sorry. Solon therefore persuaded him to remove the city to the fair plain which lay below it, and make it more spacious and pleasant.

He also remained and took charge of the new city’s consolidation, and helped to arrange it in the best possible manner both for convenience of living and for safety. The result was that many colonists flocked to Philocyprus, and he was the envy of the other kings. He therefore paid Solon the honor of naming the new city after him, and called it Soli; its name had been Aipeia.

Solon himself also makes mention of this consolidation. In his elegies, namely, he addresses Philocyprus and says:—[*](Fragment 19 (Bergk).)

  1. Now mayest thou long time be lord and master for the Solii here,
  2. Dwelling in this city thyself, and thy family after thee;
  3. But may I and my swift ship, as we leave this storied isle,
  4. Be brought upon our way in safety by Cypris of the violet crown.
  5. Upon this settlement of thine may she bestow favour and glory;
  6. And upon me an auspicious return to my fatherland.