All this is true; it seems, however, to be the result of
circumstances, and not to have been intended by Solon. For the people,
having been instrumental in gaining the empire of the sea in the
Persian War, began to get a notion of itself, and followed worthless
demagogues, whom the better class opposed. Solon, himself, appears
to have given the Athenians only that power of electing to offices and
calling to account the magistrates which was absolutely necessary; for
without it they would have been in a state of slavery and enmity to
the government. All the magistrates he appointed from the notables and
the men of wealth, that is to say, from the pentacosio-medimni, or
from the class called zeugitae, or from a third class of so-called
knights or cavalry. The fourth class were laborers who had no share in
any magistracy.
Mere legislators were Zaleucus, who gave laws to the Epizephyrian
Locrians, and Charondas, who legislated for his own city of Catana,
and for the other Chalcidian cities in Italy and Sicily. Some people
attempt to make out that Onomacritus was the first person who had
any special skill in legislation, and that he, although a Locrian by
birth, was trained in Crete, where he lived in the exercise of his
prophetic art; that Thales was his companion, and that Lycurgus and
Zaleucus were disciples of Thales, as Charondas was of Zaleucus.
Pages:
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99