The religious mission of Epimenidês to Athens, and its efficacious as well as healing influence on the public mind, deserve notice as characteristics of the age in which they occurred.[152] If we transport ourselves two centuries forward, to the Peloponnesian war, when rational influences and positive habits of thought had acquired a durable hold upon the superior minds, and when practical discussions on political and judicial matters were familiar to every Athenian citizen, no such uncontrollable religious misery could well have subdued the entire public; and if it had, no living man could have drawn to himself such universal veneration as to be capable of effecting a cure. Plato,[153] admitting the real healing influence of rites and ceremonies, fully believed in Epimenidês as an inspired prophet during the past; but towards those who preferred claims to supernatural power in his own day, he was not so easy of faith. He, as well as Euripides and Theophrastus, treated with indifference, and even with contempt, the orpheotelestæ of the later times, who advertised themselves as possessing the same patent knowledge of ceremonial rites, and the same means of guiding the will of the gods, as Epimenidês had wielded before them. These orpheotelestæ unquestionably numbered a considerable tribe of believers, and speculated with great effect, as well as with profit to themselves, upon the timorous consciences of rich men:[154] but they enjoyed no respect with the general public, or with those to whose authority the public habitually looked up. Degenerate as they were, however, they were the legitimate representatives of the prophet and purifier from Knossus, to whose presence the Athenians had been so much indebted two centuries before: and their altered position was owing less to any falling off in themselves, than to an improvement in the mass upon whom they sought to operate. Had Epimenidês himself come to Athens in those days, his visit would probably have been as much inoperative to all public purposes as a repetition of the stratagem of Phyê, clothed and equipped as the goddess Athênê, which had succeeded so completely in the days of Peisistratus,—a stratagem which even Herodotus treats as incredibly absurd, although, a century before his time, both the city of Athens and the demes of Attica had obeyed, as a divine mandate, the orders of this magnificent and stately woman, to restore Peisistratus.[155]
CHAPTER XI.
SOLONIAN LAWS AND CONSTITUTION.
We now approach a new era in Grecian history,—the first known example of a genuine and disinterested constitutional reform, and the first foundation-stone of that great fabric, which afterwards became the type of democracy in Greece. The archonship of the eupatrid Solon dates in 594 B. C., thirty years after that of Drako, and about eighteen years after the conspiracy of Kylôn, assuming the latter event to be correctly placed B. C. 612.
The life of Solon by Plutarch and by Diogenês, especially the former, are our principal sources of information respecting this remarkable man; and while we thank them for what they have told us, it is impossible to avoid expressing disappointment that they have not told us more. For Plutarch certainly had before him both the original poems, and the original laws, of Solon, and the few transcripts which he gives from one or the other form the principal charm of his biography: but such valuable materials ought to have been made available to a more instructive result than that which he has brought out. There is hardly anything more to be deplored, amidst the lost treasures of the Grecian mind, than the poems of Solon; for we see by the remaining fragments, that they contained notices of the public and social phenomena before him, which he was compelled attentively to study,—blended with the touching expression of his own personal feelings, in the post, alike honorable and difficult, to which the confidence of his countrymen had exalted him.
Solon, son of Exekestidês, was a eupatrid of middling fortune,[156] but of the purest heroic blood, belonging to the gens or family of the Kodrids and Neleids, and tracing his origin to the god Poseidôn. His father is said to have diminished his substance by prodigality, which compelled Solon in his earlier years to have recourse to trade, and in this pursuit he visited many parts of Greece and Asia. He was thus enabled to enlarge the sphere of his observation, and to provide material for thought as well as for composition: and his poetical talents displayed themselves at a very early age, first on light, afterwards on serious subjects. It will be recollected that there was at that time no Greek prose writing, and that the acquisitions as well as the effusions of an intellectual man, even in their simplest form, adjusted themselves not to the limitations of the period and the semicolon, but to those of the hexameter and pentameter: nor in point of fact do the verses of Solon aspire to any higher effect than we are accustomed to associate with an earnest, touching, and admonitory prose composition. The advice and appeals which he frequently addressed to his countrymen[157] were delivered in this easy metre, doubtless far less difficult than the elaborate prose of subsequent writers or speakers, such as Thucydidês, Isokratês, or Demosthenês. His poetry and his reputation became known throughout many parts of Greece, and he was classed along with Thalês of Milêtus, Bias of Priênê, Pittakus of Mytilênê, Periander of Corinth, Kleobulus of Lindus, Cheilôn of Lacedæmon,—altogether forming the constellation afterwards renowned as the Seven wise men.
The first particular event in respect to which Solon appears as an active politician, is the possession of the island of Salamis, then disputed between Megara and Athens. Megara was at that time able to contest with Athens, and for sometime to contest with success, the occupation of this important island,—a remarkable fact, which perhaps may be explained by supposing that the inhabitants of Athens and its neighborhood carried on the struggle with only partial aid from the rest of Attica. However this may be, it appears that the Megarians had actually established themselves in Salamis, at the time when Solon began his political career, and that the Athenians had experienced so much loss in the struggle, as to have formally prohibited any citizen from ever submitting a proposition for its reconquest. Stung with this dishonorable abnegation, Solon counterfeited a state of ecstatic excitement, rushed into the agora, and there, on the stone usually occupied by the official herald, pronounced to the crowd around a short elegiac poem,[158] which he had previously composed on the subject of Salamis. He enforced upon them the disgrace of abandoning the island, and wrought so powerfully upon their feelings, that they rescinded the prohibitory law: “Rather (he exclaimed) would I forfeit my native city, and become a citizen of Pholegandrus, than be still named an Athenian, branded with the shame of surrendered Salamis!” The Athenians again entered into the war, and conferred upon him the command of it,—partly, as we are told, at the instigation of Peisistratus, though the latter must have been at this time (600-594 B. C.) a very young man, or rather a boy.[159]
The stories in Plutarch, as to the way in which Salamis was recovered, are contradictory as well as apocryphal, ascribing to Solon various stratagems to deceive the Megarian occupiers; unfortunately, no authority is given for any of them. According to that which seems the most plausible, he was directed by the Delphian god, first to propitiate the local heroes of the island; and he accordingly crossed over to it by night, for the purpose of sacrificing to the heroes Periphêmus and Kychreus, on the Salaminian shore. Five hundred Athenian volunteers were then levied for the attack of the island, under the stipulation that if they were victorious they should hold it in property and citizenship.[160] They were safely landed on an outlying promontory, while Solon, having been fortunate enough to seize a ship which the Megarians had sent to watch the proceedings, manned it with Athenians, and sailed straight towards the city of Salamis, to which the five hundred Athenians who had landed also directed their march. The Megarians marched out from the city to repel the latter, and during the heat of the engagement, Solon, with his Megarian ship, and Athenian crew, sailed directly to the city: the Megarians, interpreting this as the return of their own crew, permitted the ship to approach without resistance, and the city was thus taken by surprise. Permission having been given to the Megarians to quit the island, Solon took possession of it for the Athenians, erecting a temple to Enyalius, the god of war, on Cape Skiradium, near the city of Salamis.[161]
The citizens of Megara, however, made various efforts for the recovery of so valuable a possession, so that a war ensued long as well as disastrous to both parties. At last, it was agreed between them to refer the dispute to the arbitration of Sparta, and five Spartans were appointed to decide it,—Kritolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsêchidas, Anaxilas, and Kleomenês. The verdict in favor of Athens was founded on evidence which it is somewhat curious to trace. Both parties attempted to show that the dead bodies buried in the island conformed to their own peculiar mode of interment, and both parties are said to have cited verses from the catalogue of the Iliad,[162]—each accusing the other of error or interpolation. But the Athenians had the advantage on two points; first, there were oracles from Delphi, wherein Salamis was mentioned with the epithet Ionian; next, Philæus and Eurysakês, sons of the Telamonian Ajax, the great hero of the island, had accepted the citizenship of Athens, made over Salamis to the Athenians, and transferred their own residences to Braurôn and Melitê in Attica, where the deme or gens Philaidæ still worshipped Philæus as its eponymous ancestor. Such a title was held sufficient, and Salamis was adjudged by the five Spartans to Attica,[163] with which it ever afterwards remained incorporated until the days of Macedonian supremacy. Two centuries and a half later, when the orator Æschinês argued the Athenian right to Amphipolis against Philip of Macedon, the legendary elements of the title were indeed put forward, but more in the way of preface or introduction to the substantial political grounds.[164] But in the year 600 B. C., the authority of the legend was more deep-seated and operative, and adequate by itself to determine a favorable verdict.
In addition to the conquest of Salamis, Solon increased his reputation by espousing the cause of the Delphian temple against the extortionate proceedings of the inhabitants of Kirrha, of which more will be said in a coming chapter; and the favor of the oracle was probably not without its effect in procuring for him that encouraging prophecy with which his legislative career opened.