Polyænus (i, 20) ascribes a different stratagem to Solon: compare Ælian, V. H. vii, 19. It is hardly necessary to say that the account which the Megarians gave of the way in which they lost the island was totally different: they imputed it to the treachery of some exiles (Pausan. i, 40, 4): compare Justin, ii, 7.
[162] Aristot. Rhet. i, 16, 3.
[163] Plutarch, Solon, 10: compare Aristot. Rhet. i, 16. Alkibiadês traced up his γένος to Eurysakês (Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 1); Miltiadês traced up his to Philæus (Herodot. vi, 35).
According to the statement of Hêreas the Megarian, both his countrymen and the Athenians had the same way of interment: both interred the dead with their faces towards the west. This statement, therefore, affords no proof of any peculiarity of Athenian custom in burial.
The Eurysakeium, or precinct sacred to the hero Eurysakês, stood in the deme of Melitê (Harpokrat. ad v), which formed a portion of the city of Athens.
[164] Æschin. Fals. Legat. p. 250, c. 14.
[165] Plutarch, Solon, c. 13. The language of Plutarch, in which he talks of the pedieis as representing the oligarchical tendency, and the diakrii as representing the democratical, is not quite accurate when applied to the days of Solon. Democratical pretensions, as such, can hardly be said to have then existed.
[166] Plutarch, Solon, 13. Ἅπας μὲν γὰρ ὁ δῆμος ἦν ὑπόχρεως τῶν πλουσίων· ἢ γὰρ ἐγεώργουν ἐκείνοις ἕκτα τῶν γινομένων τελοῦντες, ἑκτημόριοι προσαγορευόμενοι καὶ θῆτες· ἢ χρέα λαμβάνοντες ἐπὶ τοῖς σώμασιν, ἀγώγιμοι τοῖς δανείζουσιν ἦσαν· οἱ μὲν αὐτοῦ δουλεύοντες, οἱ δὲ ἐπὶ τῇ ξένῃ πιπρασκόμενοι. Πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ παῖδας ἰδίους ἠναγκάζοντο πωλεῖν, καὶ τὴν πόλιν φεύγειν διὰ τὴν χαλεπότητα τῶν δανειστῶν. Οἱ δὲ πλεῖστοι καὶ ῥωμαλεώτατοι συνίσταντο καὶ παρεκάλουν ἀλλήλους μὴ περιορᾷν, etc.
Respecting these hektêmori, “tenants paying one-sixth portion,” we find little or no information: they are just noticed in Hesychius (v. Ἑκτήμοροι, Ἐπίμορτος) and in Pollux, vii, 151; from whom we learn that ἐπίμορτος γῆ was an expression which occurred in one of the Solonian laws. Whether they paid to the landlord one-sixth, or retained for themselves only one-sixth, has been doubted (see Photius, Πελάται).
Dionysius Hal. (A. R. ii, 9) compares the thêtes in Attica to the Roman clients: that both agreed in being relations of personal and proprietary dependence is certain; but we can hardly carry the comparison farther, nor is there any evidence in Attica of that sanctity of obligation which is said to have bound the Roman patron to his client.