There is no reason for an upright statesman either to be over anxious for luxuries or to despise necessaries.  At that period, as Hesiod tells us, “Work was no disgrace,” nor did trade carry any reproach, while the profession of travelling merchant was even honourable, as it civilised barbarous tribes, and gained the friendship of kings, and learned much in many lands.  Some merchants founded great cities, as, for example, Protis, who was beloved by the Gauls living near the Rhone, founded Marseilles.  It is also said that Thales the sage, and Hippocrates the mathematician, travelled as merchants, and that Plato defrayed the expenses of his journey to Egypt by the oil which he disposed of in that country.

III.  Solon’s extravagance and luxurious mode of life, and his poems, which treat of pleasure more from a worldly than a philosophic point of view, are attributed to his mercantile training; for the great perils of a merchant’s life require to be paid in corresponding pleasures.  Yet it is clear that he considered himself as belonging to the class of the poor, rather than that of the rich, from the following verses: 

    “The base are rich, the good are poor; and yet
      Our virtue for their gold we would not change;
    For that at least is ours for evermore,
      While wealth we see from hand to hand doth range.”

His poetry was originally written merely for his own amusement in his leisure hours; but afterwards he introduced into it philosophic sentiments, and interwove political events with his poems, not in order to record them historically, but in some cases to explain his own conduct, and in others to instruct, encourage, or rebuke the Athenians.  Some say that he endeavoured to throw his laws into an epic form, and tell us that the poem began—­

    “To Jove I pray, great Saturn’s son divine,
    To grant his favour to these laws of mine.”

Of ethical philosophy, he, like most of the sages of antiquity, was most interested in that branch which deals with political obligations.  As to natural science, his views are very crude and antiquated, as we see from the following verses: 

    “From clouds the snow and hail descend,
    And thunderbolts the lightnings send;
    The waves run high when gales do blow,
    Without the wind they’re still enow.”

Indeed, of all the sages of that time, Thales alone seems to have known more of physics than was necessary to supply man’s every-day needs; all the others having gained their reputation for political wisdom.

IV.  These wise men are said to have met at Delphi, and again at Corinth, where they were entertained by the despot Periander.  Their reputation was greatly increased by the tripod which was sent to all of them and refused by all with a gracious rivalry.  The story goes that some men of Cos were casting a net, and some strangers from Miletus bought the haul of them before it reached the surface.