After a brief delay Solon said: ‘In my opinion a king or despot would win most renown by furnishing his fellow-citizens with a popular, in place of a monarchical, government.’ The second to speak was Bias, who said: ‘By identifying his behaviour with the laws of his country.’ Thales came next with the statement that he considered a ruler happy ‘if he died naturally of old age‘. Fourth Anacharsis: ‘If good sense never failed him.’ |*| Fifth Cleobulus: ‘If he trusted none of those about him.’ Sixth Pittacus: ‘If the ruler could get his subjects to fear, not him, but |B| for him.’ Next Chilon said that ‘the ruler’s conceptions should never be mortal, but always immortal‘.
After hearing these dicta, we claimed that Periander himself should express an opinion. With anything but cheerfulness, and pulling a serious face, he replied: ‘Well, the opinion I have to add is that every one of the views stated practically disqualifies a man of sense from being a ruler.’ Whereupon Aesop, as if in a spirit of reproof, said, ‘You ought, of course, to have discussed this subject by yourselves, and not to have delivered an attack upon rulers under pretence of being their advisers and friends.’ |C| ‘Don’t you think,’ said Solon, taking him by the head and smiling, ‘that one can make a ruler more moderate and a despot more reasonable by persuading him that it is better to decline such a position than to hold it?’ ‘And pray who,’ he replied, ‘is likely to follow you in the matter rather than the God, whose opinion is given in the oracle delivered to yourself:
Blessèd the city that hearkens to one commander’s proclaiming.’
‘True,’ said Solon, ‘but, as a matter of fact, the Athenians, though with a popular government, do listen to one proclaimer |D| and ruler in the shape of the law. You have a wonderful gift at understanding ravens and jackdaws, but your hearing of the |*| voice of modesty is indistinct. While you think that a state is best off when it listens, as the God says, to “one”, you believe that the best convivial party is that in which everybody talks on every subject.’ ‘Yes,’ said Aesop, ‘for you have not yet legislated to the effect that “a slave shall not get tipsy” is to stand on the same footing with those Athenian ordinances of yours which say “a slave shall not indulge in love or in dry-rubbing with oil”.’[[29]] At this Solon broke into a laugh, and Cleodorus the physician remarked: ‘But, in one respect, talking when the wine is taking effect does stand on the same footing with dry-rubbing—it is very pleasant.’ ‘Consequently,’ |E| broke in Chilon, ‘it is the more to be avoided.’ ‘Yes,’ said Aesop again,[[30]] ‘Thales did appear to recommend getting old as quickly as possible.’ Periander laughed, and said: ‘Aesop, we have been properly punished for dropping into other questions before bringing forward the whole of those from Amasis, as we proposed. Pray look at the rest of the letter, Niloxenus, and take advantage of the gentlemen being all here together.’ ‘As for that,’ replied Niloxenus, ‘whereas the command sent by the Ethiopian can only be called a “doleful |F| dispatch”—as Archilochus would say—your friend Amasis has shown a fine and more civilized taste in setting such problems. He bade him name the oldest thing, the most beautiful, the greatest, the wisest, the most universal, and—not stopping there—the most beneficent, the most harmful, the most powerful, and the easiest.’ ‘Well, and did his answers give the solution in each case?’ ‘His replies were these,’ said Niloxenus. ‘It is |153| for you to listen and judge; for the king is very anxious neither to be guilty of pettifogging with the answers, nor to let any slip on the part of the answerer escape without refutation. I will read you the replies as given. What is the oldest thing?—Time. What the greatest?—The universe. What the wisest?—Truth. What the most beautiful?—Light. What the most universal?—Death. What the most beneficent?—God. What the most harmful?—Evil genius. What the strongest?—Fortune. What the easiest?—That which is pleasant.’
Well, Nicarchus, after the reading of this second passage there was a silence. Then Thales asked Niloxenus if Amasis was satisfied with the solutions. Upon his replying that he had |B| accepted some, but was dissatisfied with others, Thales said, ‘And yet not one of them is unassailable. There are great blunders and signs of ignorance all through. For instance, how can Time be the oldest thing, seeing that, while some of it is past and some present, some of it is future? Time which is to come after us must be regarded as younger than the events and persons of the present. Again, to call Truth wisdom appears to me as bad as making out that the light is the eye. Next, if he considered Light beautiful—as indeed it is—how came he to ignore the sun? As for the rest, the answer concerning gods and evil spirits is bold and dangerous, while in that |C| concerning Fortune the logic is exceedingly bad. Fortune would not be so readily upset if it was the strongest and most powerful thing in existence. Nor yet again is Death the most universal thing, for in the case of the living it has no existence. However, to avoid seeming merely to criticize the work of others, let us express views of our own and compare them with his. I am ready to be the first to be questioned point by point, if Niloxenus so desires.’
In relating the questions and answers I will put them exactly as they occurred. What is the oldest thing? ‘God,’ said Thales: ‘for He is without birth.’ What is greatest? ‘Space: for |D| while the universe contains everything else, it is space that contains the universe.’ What is most beautiful? ‘The cosmos: for everything duly ordered is part of it.’ What is wisest? ‘Time: for it is Time that has either discovered things or will discover them.’ What most universal? ‘Expectation: for those who have nothing else have that.’ What most beneficent? ‘Virtue: for it makes other things beneficent by using them rightly.’ What most harmful? ‘Vice: for most things suffer from its presence.’ What most powerful? ‘Necessity: for it is invincible.’ What most easy? ‘The natural; not pleasure, for people often fail to cope with that.’
The whole company being satisfied with Thales and his |E| acumen, Cleodorus observed: ‘It is questions and answers of this kind, Niloxenus, that are proper for kings. On the other hand, the barbarian who gave Amasis the sea to drink, required the short answer made by Pittacus to Alyattes, when he wrote the Lesbians a letter containing an arrogant command. The reply was merely a recommendation to eat onions and hot bread.’[[31]]
Here Periander joined in; ‘I may remind you, Cleodorus, that even in old times the Greeks had a habit of posing each |F| other with similar difficulties. We are told, for instance, that there was a gathering at Chalcis of the most distinguished poets among the wise men of the day, in order to celebrate the funeral of Amphidamas—a great warrior who had given much trouble to the Eretrians and had fallen in the fighting for Lelantum. The verses composed by the poets were so well matched, that it became a difficult and troublesome matter to judge between them, and the reputation of the competitors—Homer and Hesiod—caused the jury much diffidence and |154| embarrassment. Thereupon they had recourse to questions of the present kind, and Homer—as Lesches tells us—propounded the following:
Tell me, Muse, of such things as neither before have befallen,
Nor shall hereafter befall?