with every sign of gratitude and admiration. The most substantial offerings would have been made him, but he would only accept a branch of the wild olive-tree, growing on the rock of the Acropolis, and so went back to Crete. Epimenides has always been considered for his time a good and wise man. The light of the true religion did not shine for him, and we must judge a man according to that which he hath and not according to that which he hath not. It is to his credit, if what Aristotle mentions is true, that he disclaimed having any other gift from the gods than of divining the future, taught by the events of the past. The Athenians were cured of their troubles by the very common and efficacious means of having unbounded confidence in their physician. We live in better days, and in all circumstances of national and individual trouble Christians know where they may go for peace and rest. It is most likely that Epimenides adapted his ordinances with rare skill to the necessities and capacities of the people by the advice and co-operation of the illustrious Solon, whose life and legislation claim a separate chapter.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE.

ON THE ANCIENT CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS.

IT will be convenient to repeat the following statement, more concisely and exactly than in the text.

The names of the four Ionic tribes, fabled to be derived from sons of Ion, were Geleontes or Teleontes, Hopletes, Ægicores, and Argades: Γελέοντες οι Τελέοντες, Οπλητες, Αἰγικορεῖς, ̓Αργαδεῖς ; which probably mean cultivators (or, perhaps, priests), the warrior class, goatherds, artizans.

The divisions of society were, the Nobles or Eupatrids, corresponding to the Roman patricians, and the Plebeians, called respectively husbandmen (гewμópol, Geomori), and artizans (Anμoupyoí, Demiurgi).

For political and financial purposes

Each tribe had three Trittyes (TρITTÚes),

Each Trittys had twelve Naucraries (Navкpapía).

For family, social, and religious purposes―

Each tribe had three brotherhoods (Pparpiai, phratria),
Each phratry had thirty clans (Tévn, gentes),

Each gens had thirty heads of families (Tevvirai).

This, however, must be taken as a general statement. numbers could not be thus symmetrically observed.

The

After the institution of the Nine Archons, the first archon was called by way of pre-eminence the archon, and also Archon Eponymus (Apxwv èπúvvμos), because he gave his name to the year. The second archon was called Basileus, or the king (Bariλeus), as he retained that part of the old kingly office which related to religion. The third archon bore the title of Polemarch (Пoλéuapxos), because he had the command of the army. As the duties of the other six were chiefly legislative, they were called legislators (0eoμó0eTαι, Thesmotheta).

The Senate (it was called emphatically the Senate, Bovλ) met on Mars' Hill, or the Hill of Ares (Apelos Táyos).

Draco's fifty-one judges, to try cases of murder, were called Ephetæ (Εφέται).

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CHAPTER IX.

THE LIFE AND LAWS OF SOLON.

SOLON was the son of Execestides, the Athenian. His father was a eupatrid of the purest race, but had diminished his fortune by his extravagance. The youthful Solon is said to have been obliged to have recourse to trade, and in the course of business travelled far and wide. This extended intercourse with the world greatly helped his singularly observant and thoughtful mind. He returned to Athens not long after the time of the Cylonian conspiracy. Solon was born at Salamis, and the state of his native island at this time gave him feelings of the deepest concern. The Dorians of Megara, being at feud with the Athenians, had some time before attacked the island and gained possession of it. The Athenians had again and again attempted its recovery, and had again and again been repulsed. Baffled and disappointed, they passed a law that any man who proposed to renew the attempt should be put to death. Solon composed a poem on the loss of Salamis. To evade the decree, he feigned that he was in a state of ecstatical excitement. In that condition he rushed into the Agora and recited his poem, which lamented the loss of Salamis, and incited his countrymen to recover the "lovely" island. A very youthful kinsman of Solon's, destined afterwards to be famous or infamous in history, aided him in instigating war. His name was Pisistratus.

So the Athenians took courage to attempt the recovery of Salamis once more, and the island, according to Plutarch, was eventually captured through a stratagem of Solon's. But the Megarians were very unwilling to submit, and a long and fruitless war succeeded. At last, it was resolved to refer the matter to the arbitration of five Lacedæmonians. Both parties quoted lines from Homer's catalogue of ships in support of their claim, and both parties were suspected of having invented the lines which they quoted. The Athenians, however, produced

other evidence, which satisfied the arbitrators that the island was Ionian. They accordingly adjudged it to the Athenians, in whose possession it remained till the time of Macedonian supremacy.

But we are chiefly occupied with the national history of Attica during the period of Solon. Violent discussions were now rending its inhabitants into different factions. These were respectively called men of the Plain, men of the Mountain, and men of the Coast. The men of the Plain were the richest, and had possession of Athens itself and the surrounding territory. The men of the Mountain, as usual with mountaineers, were almost as poor as their rocks. The men of the Coast occupied an intermediate position. But there was a far more dangerous feud than any between rival parties, a standing, rancorous feud between the rich and the poor. The mission of Epimenides had relieved the superstitious fears with which the Athenians were troubled on account of the sacrilege of Cylon, but it was now necessary to grapple with the real social and political evils of the day. The condition of the Attic poor appears to have been miserable and deplorable to the last degree. They were in a hopeless and abject state of debt to the rich. Whenever they had been obliged by. misfortune or hard times to borrow money usurious interest had been exacted, secured by a mortgage upon their lands. A great number of the properties in Attica had stone pillars placed upon them stating the name of the lender and the amount of the loan. Nor was this all. Many of these poor people were obliged to sell their children. The debtor could himself be seized and sold as a slave. The injustice and rapacity of the rich had gone too far, and had defeated their own purpose. The country was in that state of general mutiny and sedition which threatened a dissolution of all social order.

B.C. 594.

In this extremity people turned to Solon, and made him archon with extraordinary powers. He was known to be a friend of the poor, and to disapprove of the conduct of the rich, yet the oligarchs thought it best to call for his assistance, and the poor were delighted to accept his mediation. There were not wanting selfish people who told Solon that

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now was the time to make himself a despot. But the upright Solon was superior to this or any other such temptation. Despotism," he said, "might be a fine country, but there was no way out of it." He addressed himself with a single eye to the relief of his distressed country.

Desperate diseases, it is said, require desperate remedies. By his celebrated Disburdening Ordinance, Solon swept away altogether that load of extreme misery and debt in which the poor were hopelessly involved. It swept off the lands of Attica those mortgage pillars with which they were encumbered. It cancelled all contracts on person or land; it made illegal any contract in which the body of the debtor was pledged as security, and so took from the creditor any power to imprison or enslave. In this way Solon gave effectual relief to the poor debtors. But still it was necessary that the creditors and landlords of these men should have some relief, for they too had their obligations which they would now be less able to discharge. Solon resorted to the expedient-which only such extreme circumstances could justify, and which, to the credit of the Athenians, was never repeated in their history— of debasing the coin; he lowered the value of the

ATHENIAN COIN.

coinage to such an extent that the creditors of more substantial debtors were obliged to submit to the loss of one-fourth of their claim. He also made a reform in the calendar.

Besides these salutary remedies for the diseased poli