Meier (Der Attische Prozess, iii, 2, p. 427) rejects the above-mentioned statement of Sextus Empiricus, and farther contends that the exposure of new-born infants was not only rare, but discountenanced as well by law as by opinion; the evidence in the Latin comedies to the contrary, he considers as manifestations of Roman, and not of Athenian, manners. In this latter opinion I do not think that he is borne out, and I agree in the statement of Schömann (Ant. J. P. Græc. sect. 82), that the practice and feeling of Athens as well as of Greece generally, left it to the discretion of the father whether he would consent, or refuse, to bring up a new-born child.
[175] Plutarch, Solon, c. 15. See the full exposition given of this debasement of the coinage, in Boeckh’s Metrologie, ch. ix, p. 115.
M. Boeckh thinks (ch. xv, s. 2) that Solon not only debased the coin, but also altered the weights and measures. I dissent from his opinion on this latter point, and have given my reasons for so doing, in a review of his valuable treatise in the Classical Museum, No. 1.
[176] Plutarch, Solon, c. 19. In the general restoration of exiles throughout the Greek cities, proclaimed first by order of Alexander the Great, afterwards by Polysperchon, exception is made of men exiled for sacrilege or homicide (Diodor. xvii, 109; xviii, 8-46).
[177] Plutarch, Solon, c. 15. οὐδὲ μαλακῶς, οὐδ᾽ ὑπείκων τοῖς δυναμένοις, οὐδὲ πρὸς ἡδονὴν τῶν ἑλομένων, ἔθετο τοὺς νόμους, etc.
[178] Plutarch, Solon, c. 16.
[179] See above, vol. ii, part ii, ch. vi.
[180] Plutarch, l. c. ἔθυσάν τε κοινῇ, Σεισάχθειαν τὴν θυσίαν ὀνομάζοντες, etc.
[181] The anecdote is again noticed, but without specification of the names of the friends, in Plutarch, Reipub. Gerend. Præcep. p. 807.
[182] Plutarch, Solon, c. 15. The statement of Dionysius of Hal., in regard to the bearing of the seisachtheia, is in the main accurate,—χρεῶν ἄφεσιν ψηφισαμένην τοῖς ἀπόροις (v, 65),—to the debtors who were liable on the security of their bodies and their lands, and who were chiefly poor,—not to all debtors.