to answer such a question, in an age which values wealth, luxury, and dominion more than a gentle peaceful life that wrongs no one and suffices for itself.  Yet this fact seems to tell for Lykurgus, that the Romans gained such an enormous increase of power by departing from Numa’s policy, while the Lacedaemonians, as soon as they fell away from the discipline of Lykurgus, having been the haughtiest became the most contemptible of Greeks, and not only lost their supremacy, but had even to struggle for their bare existence.  On the other hand, it was truly glorious for Numa that he was a stranger and sent for by the Romans to be their king; that he effected all his reforms without violence, and ruled a city composed of discordant elements without any armed force such as Lykurgus had to assist him, winning over all men and reducing them to order by his wisdom and justice.

LIFE OF SOLON.

I. Didymus the grammarian, in the book about Solon’s laws which he wrote in answer to Asklepiades, quotes a saying of one Philokles, that Solon was the son of Euphorion, which is quite at variance with the testimony of all other writers who have mentioned Solon:  for they all say that he was the son of Exekestides, a man whose fortune and power were only moderate, but whose family was of the noblest in Athens; for he was descended from Kodrus the last Athenian king.  Herakleides of Pontus relates that the mother of Solon was first cousin to the mother of Peisistratus.  The two boys, we are told, were friends when young, and when in after years they differed in politics they still never entertained harsh or angry feelings towards one another, but kept alive the sacred flame of their former intimate friendship.  Peisistratus is even said to have dedicated the statue of Love in the Academy where those who are going to run in the sacred torch-race light their torches.

II.  According to Hermippus, Solon, finding that his father had by his generosity diminished his fortune, and feeling ashamed to be dependent upon others, when he himself was come of a house more accustomed to give than to receive, embarked in trade, although his friends were eager to supply him with all that he could wish for.  Some, however, say that Solon travelled more with a view to gaining experience and learning than to making money.  He was indeed eager to learn, as he wrote when an old man,

    “Old to grow, but ever learning,”

but disregarded wealth, for he wrote that he regarded as equally rich the man who owned

    “Gold and broad acres, corn and wine;
    And he that hath but clothes and food,
    A wife, and youthful strength divine.”

Yet elsewhere he has written, but

    “I long for wealth, not by fraud obtained,
    For curses wait on riches basely gained.”