Solon to Periander
You send me word that many people are plotting against you; but if you were to think of putting every one of them out of the way, you would do no good; but someone whom you do not suspect would still plot against you, partly because he would fear for himself, and partly out of dislike to you for fearing all sorts of things; and he would think, too, that he would make the city grateful to him, even if you were not suspected. It is better therefore to abstain from the tyranny, in order to escape from blame. But if you absolutely must be a tyrant, then you had better provide for having a foreign force in the city superior to that of the citizens; and then no one need be formidable to you, nor need you put anyone out of the way.
Solon to Epimenides
My laws were not destined to be long of service to the Athenians, nor have you done any great good by purifying the city. For neither can the Deity nor lawgivers do much good to cities by themselves; but these people rather give this power, who, from time to time, can lead the people in any opinions they choose; so also the Deity and the laws, when the citizens are well governed, are useful; but when they are ill governed, they are no good. Nor are my laws or all the enactments that I made any better; but those who were in power transgressed them, and did great injury to the commonwealth, inasmuch as they did not hinder Pisistratus from usurping the tyranny. Nor did they believe me when I gave them warning beforehand. But he obtained more credit than I did, who flattered the Athenians while I told him the truth: but I, placing my arms before the principal council-house, being wiser than they, told those who had no suspicion of it that Pisistratus was desirous to make himself a tyrant; and I showed myself more valiant than those who hesitated to defend the state against him. But they condemned the madness of Solon. But at last I spoke loudly—“O my country, I, Solon, here am ready to defend you by word and deed; but to these men I seem to be mad. So I will depart from you, being the only antagonist of Pisistratus; and let these men be his guards if they please.” For you know the man, my friend, and how cleverly he seized upon the tyranny. He first began by being a demagogue; then, having inflicted wounds on himself, he came to the Heliaea, crying out, and saying “that he had been treated in this way by his enemies.” And he entreated the people to assign him as guards four hundred young men; and they, disregarding my advice, gave them to him. And they were all armed with bludgeons. And after that he put down the democracy. They in vain hoped to deliver the poor from their state of slavery, and so now they are all of them slaves to Pisistratus.
Solon to Pisistratus
I am well assured that I should suffer no evil at your hands. For before your assumption of the tyranny I was a friend of yours, and now my case is not different from that of any other Athenian who is not pleased with tyranny. And whether it is better for them to be governed by one individual, or to live under a democracy, that each person may decide according to his own sentiments. And I admit that of all tyrants you are the best. But I do not judge it to be good for me to return to Athens, lest anyone should blame me for, after having established equality of civil rights among the Athenians, and after having refused to be a tyrant myself when it was in my power, returning now and acquiescing in what you are doing.
Solon to Croesus
I thank you for your goodwill towards me. And, by Minerva, if I did not think it precious above everything to live in a democracy, I would willingly prefer living in your palace with you to living at Athens, since Pisistratus has made himself tyrant by force. But life is more pleasant to me where justice and equality prevail universally. However, I will come and see you, being anxious to enjoy your hospitality for a season.
Chilo was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses in elegiac meter to the number of two hundred: and it was a saying of his that a foresight of future events, such as could be arrived at by consideration, was the virtue of a man. He also said once to his brother, who was indignant at not being an ephor, while he himself was one: “The reason is because I know how to bear injustice, but you do not.” And he was made ephor in the fifty-fifth Olympiad; but Pamphila says that it was in the fifty-sixth. And he was made first ephor in the year of the archonship of Euthydemus, as we are told by Sosicrates. Chilo was also the first person who introduced the custom of joining the ephors to the kings as their counsellors, though Satyrus attributes this institution to Lycurgus. He, as Herodotus says in his first book, when Hippocrates was sacrificing at Olympia, and the cauldrons began to boil of their own accord, advised him either to marry, or, if he were married already, to discard his wife, and disown his children.
They tell a story, also, of his having asked Aesop what Jupiter was doing, and that Aesop replied, “He is lowering what is high, and exalting what is low.” Being asked in what educated men differed from those who were illiterate, he said: “In good hopes.” Having had the question put to him, “What was difficult?” he said: “To be silent about secrets; to make good use of one’s leisure, and to be able to submit to injustice.” And besides these three things he added further: “To rule one’s tongue, especially at a banquet, and not to speak ill of one’s neighbors; for if one does so one is sure to hear what one will not like.” He advised, moreover: “To threaten no one; for that is a womanly trick. To be more prompt to go to one’s friends in adversity than in prosperity. To make but a moderate display at one’s marriage. Not to speak evil of the dead. To honor old age.—To keep a watch upon oneself.—To prefer punishment to disgraceful gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one’s whole life.—Not to laugh at a person in misfortune.—If one is strong to be also merciful, so that one’s neighbors may respect one rather than fear one.—To learn how to regulate one’s own house well.—Not to let one’s tongue outrun one’s sense.—To restrain anger.—Not to dislike divination.—Not to desire what is impossible.—Not to make too much haste on one’s road.—When speaking not to gesticulate with the hand; for that is like a madman.—To obey the laws.—To love quiet.”
And of all his songs this one was the most approved:
Gold is best tested by a whetstone hard, Which gives a certain proof of purity; And gold itself acts as the test of men, By which we know the temper of their minds.
They say, too, that when he was old he said that he was not conscious of having ever done an unjust action in his life; but that he doubted about one thing: For that once when judging in a friend’s cause he had voted himself in accordance with the law, but had persuaded a friend to vote for his acquittal, in order that so he might maintain the law and yet save his friend.
But he was most especially celebrated among the Greeks for having delivered an early opinion about Cythera, an island belonging to Laconia. For having become acquainted with its nature, he said, “I wish it had never existed, or that, as it does exist, it were sunk at the bottom of the sea.” And his foresight was proved afterwards. For when Demaratus was banished by the Lacedaemonians, he advised Xerxes to keep his ships at that island: and Greece would have been subdued, if Xerxes had taken the advice. And afterwards Nicias, having reduced the island at the time of the Peloponnesian war, placed in it a garrison of Athenians, and did a great deal of harm to the Lacedaemonians.
He was very brief in his speech. On which account Aristagoras, the Milesian, calls such conciseness the Chilonean fashion, and says that it was adopted by Branchus, who built the temple among the Branchidae. Chilo was an old man, about the fifty-second Olympiad, when Aesop the fable writer flourished. And he died, as Hermippus says, at Pisa, after embracing his son, who had gained the victory in boxing at the Olympic games. The cause of his death was excess of joy, and weakness caused by extreme old age. All the spectators who were present at the games attended his funeral, paying him the highest honors. And we have written the following epigram on him:
I thank you, brightest Pollux, that the son Of Chilo wears the wreath of victory; Nor need we grieve if at the glorious sight His father died. May such my last end be!
And the following inscription is engraved on his statue:
The warlike Sparta called this Chilo son, The wisest man of all the seven sages.
One of his sayings was, “Suretyship, and then destruction.” The following letter of his is also extant:
Chilo to Periander
You desire me to abandon the expedition against the emigrants, as you yourself will go forth. But I think that a sole governor is in a slippery position at home; and I consider that tyrant a fortunate man who dies a natural death in his own house.
Pittacus was a native of Mitylene, and son of Hyrradius. But Duris says that his father was a Thracian. He, in union with the brothers of Alcaeus, put down Melanchrus the tyrant of Lesbos. And in the battle which took place between the Athenians and Mitylenaeans on the subject of the district of Achilis, he was the Mitylenaean general; the Athenian commander being Phrynon, a Pancratiast, who had gained the victory at Olympia. Pittacus agreed to meet him in single combat, and having a net under his shield, he entangled Phrynon without his being aware of it beforehand, and so, having killed him, he preserved the district in dispute to his countrymen. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that subsequently the Athenians had a trial with the Mitylenaeans about the district, and that the cause was submitted to Periander, who decided it in favor of the Athenians.
In consequence of this victory the Mitylenaeans held Pittacus in the greatest honor, and committed the supreme power into his hands. And he held it for ten years, and then, when he had brought the city and constitution into good order, he resigned the government. And he lived ten years after that, and the Mitylenaeans assigned him an estate, which he consecrated to the God, and to this day it is called the Pittacian land. But Sosicrates says that he cut off a small portion of it, saying that half was more than the whole; and when Croesus offered him some money he would not accept it, as he said that he had already twice as much as he wanted; for that he had succeeded to the inheritance of his brother, who had died without children.
But Pamphila says, in the second book of her Commentaries, that he had a son named Tyrrhaeus, who was killed while sitting in a barber’s shop at Cyma, by a brazier who threw an axe at him; and that the Cymaeans sent the murderer to Pittacus, who when he had learnt what had been done, dismissed the man, saying: “Pardon is better than repentance.” But Heraclitus says that the true story is that he had got Alcaeus into his power, and that he released him, saying: “Pardon is better than punishment.” He was also a lawgiver; and he made a law that if a man committed a crime while drunk, he should have double punishment; in the hope of deterring men from getting drunk, as wine was very plentiful in the island.
It was a saying of his that it was a hard thing to be good, and this apothegm is quoted by Simonides, who says: “It was a saying of Pittacus that it is a hard thing to be really a good man.” Plato also mentions it in his Protagoras. Another of his sayings was: “Even the Gods cannot strive against necessity.” Another was: “Power shows the man.” Being once asked what was best, he replied: “To do what one is doing at the moment well.” When Croesus put the question to him: “What is the greatest power?” “The power,” he replied, “of the variegated wood,” meaning the wooden tablets of the laws. He used to say too that there were some victories without bloodshed. He said once to a man of Phocaea, who was saying that we ought to seek out a virtuous man: “But if you seek ever so much you will not find one.” Some people once asked him what thing was very grateful? and he replied: “Time.”—What was uncertain? “The future.”—What was trusty? “The land.”—What was treacherous? “The sea.” Another saying of his was that it was the part of wise men, before difficult circumstances arose, to provide for their not arising; but that it was the part of brave men to make the best of existing circumstances. He used to say too: “Do not say beforehand what you are going to do; for if you fail, you will be laughed at.” “Do not reproach a man with his misfortunes, fearing lest Nemesis may overtake you.” “If you have received a deposit, restore it.” “Forbear to speak evil not only of your friends, but also of your enemies.” “Practice piety, with temperance.” “Cultivate truth, good faith, experience, cleverness, sociability, and industry.”