Such is a brief outline of the institutions of Solon, which exhibit a mingling of aristocracy and democracy well adapted to the character of the age and the circumstances of the people. They evidently exercised much less control over the pursuits and domestic habits of individuals than the Spartan code, but at the same time they show a far greater regard for the public morals. The success of Solon is well summed up in the following brief tribute to his virtues and genius, by the poet THOMSON:
He built his commonweal
On equity's wide base: by tender laws
A lively people curbing, yet undamped;
Preserving still that quick, peculiar fire,
Whence in the laurelled field of finer arts
And of bold freedom they unequalled shone,
The pride of smiling Greece, and of mankind.
Solon is said to have declared that his laws were not the best which he could devise, but were the best that the Athenians could receive. In the following lines we have his own estimate of the services he rendered in behalf of his distracted state:
"The force of snow and furious hail is sent
From swelling clouds that load the firmament.
Thence the loud thunders roar, and lightnings glare
Along the darkness of the troubled air.
Unmoved by storms, old Ocean peaceful sleeps
Till the loud tempest swells the angry deeps.
And thus the State, in full distraction toss'd,
Oft by its noblest citizen is lost;
And oft a people once secure and free,
Their own imprudence dooms to tyranny.
My laws have armed the crowd with useful might,
Have banished honors and unequal right,
Have taught the proud in wealth, and high in place,
To reverence justice and abhor disgrace;
And given to both a shield, their guardian tower,
Against ambition's aims and lawless power."
III. THE USURPATION OF PISIS'TRATUS.
The legislation of Solon was not followed by the total extinction of party-spirit, and, while he was absent from Athens on a visit to Egypt and other Eastern countries, the three prominent factions in the state renewed their ancient feuds. Pisistratus, a wealthy kinsman of Solon, who had supported the measures of the latter by his eloquence and military talents, had the art to gain the favor of the mass of the people and constitute himself their leader. AKENSIDE thus happily describes him as—
The great Pisistratus! that chief renowned,
Whom Hermes and the Ida'lian queen had trained,
Even from his birth, to every powerful art
Of pleasing and persuading; from whose lips
Flowed eloquence which, like the vows of love,
Could steal away suspicion from the hearts
Of all who listened. Thus, from day to day
He won the general suffrage, and beheld
Each rival overshadowed and depressed
Beneath his ampler state; yet oft complained
As one less kindly treated, who had hoped
To merit favor, but submits perforce
To find another's services preferred,
Nor yet relaxeth aught of faith or zeal.
Then tales were scattered of his envious foes,
Of snares that watched his fame, of daggers aimed
Against his life.
When his schemes were ripe for execution, Pisistratus one day drove into the public square of Athens, his mules and himself disfigured with recent wounds inflicted by his own hands, but which he induced the multitude to believe had been received from a band of assassins, whom his enemies, the nobility, had hired to murder "the friend of the people." Of this scene the same poet says:
At last, with trembling limbs,
His hair diffused and wild, his garments loose,
And stained with blood from self-inflicted wounds,
He burst into the public place, as there,
There only were his refuge; and declared
In broken words, with sighs of deep regret,
The mortal danger he had scarce repelled.
The ruse was successful. An assembly was at once convoked by his partisans, and the indignant crowd immediately voted him a guard of fifty citizens to protect his person, although Solon, who had returned to Athens and was present, warned them of the pernicious consequences of such a measure.