Solon

Plutarch

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

After the spectacle, he accosted Thespis, and asked him if he was not ashamed to tell such lies in the presence of so many people. Thespis answered that there was no harm in talking and acting that way in play, whereupon Solon smote the ground sharply with his staff and said: Soon, however, if we give play of this sort so much praise and honor, we shall find it in our solemn contracts.

Now when Peisistratus, after inflicting a wound upon himself,[*](Cf. Hdt. 1.59; Aristot. Const. Ath. 14.1 ) came into the market-place riding in a chariot, and tried to exasperate the populace with the charge that his enemies had plotted against his life on account of his political opinions and many of them greeted the charge with angry cries Solon drew near and accosted him, saying: O son of Hippocrates, thou art playing the Homeric Odysseus badly; for when he disfigured himself it was to deceive his enemies[*](Hom. Od. 4.244-264) but thou doest it to mislead thy fellow-citizens.

After this the multitude was ready to fight for Peisistratus, and a general assembly of the people was held. Here Ariston made a motion that Peisistratus be allowed a body-guard of fifty club-bearers, but Solon formally opposed it, and said many things which were like what he has written in his poems:—

  1. Ye have regard indeed to the speech and words of a wily man.
  2. Yet every one of you walks with the steps of a fox,
  3. And in you all dwells an empty mind.
[*](Fragment 11 (Bergk), verses 7, 5, and 6. Plutarch has changed the order; Bekker and Cobet restore it.)

But when he saw that the poor were tumultuously bent on gratifying Peisistratus, while the rich were fearfully slinking away from any conflict with him, he left the assembly, saying that he was wiser than the one party, and braver than the other; wiser than those who did not understand what was being done and braver than those who, though they understood it, were nevertheless afraid to oppose the tyranny.[*](Cf. Aristot. Const. Ath. 14.2.) So the people passed the decree, and then held Peisistratus to no strict account of the number of his club-bearers, but suffered him to keep and lead about in public as many as he wished, until at last he seized the acropolis.