[219] Kratinus ap. Plutarch. Solon. 25.—
Πρὸς τοῦ Σόλωνος καὶ Δράκοντος, οἷσι νῦν
Φρύγουσιν ἤδη τὰς κάχρυς τοῖς κύρβεσιν.
Isokratês praises the moderate democracy in early Athens, as compared with that under which he lived; but in the Orat. vii (Areopagitic.) he connects the former with the names of Solon and Kleisthenês, while in the Orat. xii (Panathenaic.), he considers the former to have lasted from the days of Theseus to those of Solon and Peisistratus. In this latter oration he describes pretty exactly the power which the people possessed under the Solonian constitution,—τοῦ τὰς ἀρχὰς καταστῆσαι καὶ λαβεῖν δίκην παρὰ τῶν ἐξαμαρτανόντων, which coincides with the phrase of Aristotle—τὰς ἀρχὰς αἱρεῖσθαι καὶ εὐθύνειν,—supposing ἀρχόντων to be understood as the substantive of ἐξαμαρτανόντων.
Compare Isokratês, Or. vii, p. 143 (p. 192 Bek.) and p. 150 (202 Bek.) and Orat. xii, pp. 260-264 (351-356 Bek.).
[220] Cicero, Orat. pro Sext. Roscio, c. 25; Ælian, V. H. viii, 10.
[221] This seems to be the opinion of Dr. Thirlwall, against Wachsmuth though he speaks with doubt. (History of Greece, vol. ii, ch. 11, p. 48, 2d ed.)
[222] Plutarch, Solon, 23-25. He particularly mentions the sixteenth ἄξων: we learn, also, that the thirteenth ἄξων contained the eighth law (c. 19): the twenty-first law is alluded to in Harpokration, v. Ὅτι οἱ ποιητοί.
Some remnants of these wooden rollers existed in the days of Plutarch, in the Athenian prytaneium. See Harpokration and Photius, v. Κύρβεις; Aristot. περὶ Πολιτειῶν, Frag. 35, ed. Neumann; Euphorion ap. Harpokrat. Ὁ κάτωθεν νόμος. Bekker, Anecdota, p. 413.
What we read respecting the ἄξονες and the κύρβεις does not convey a clear idea of them. Besides Aristotle, both Seleukus and Didymus are named as having written commentaries expressly about them (Plutarch, Solon, i; Suidas, v. Ὀργεῶνες; compare also Meursius, Solon, c. 24; Vit. Aristotelis ap. Westermann. Vitarum Scriptt. Græc. p. 404), and the collection in Stephan. Thesaur. p. 1095.