He gained credit also by his law about wills.  Before his time these were not permitted at Athens, but the money and lands of a deceased person were inherited by his family in all cases.  Solon, however, permitted any one who had no children to leave his property to whom he would, honouring friendship more than nearness of kin, and giving a man absolute power to dispose of his inheritance.  Yet, on the other hand, he did not permit legacies to be given without any restrictions, but disallowed all that were obtained by the effects of disease or by administration of drugs to the testator, or by imprisonment and violence, or by the solicitations of his wife, as he rightly considered that to be persuaded by one’s wife against one’s better judgment is the same as to submit to force.  For Solon held that a man’s reason was perverted by deceit as much as by violence, and by pleasure no less than by pain.

He regulated, moreover, the journeys of the women, and their mournings and festivals.  A woman was not allowed to travel with more than three dresses, nor with more than an obolus’ worth of food or drink, nor a basket more than a cubit in length; nor was she to travel at night, except in a waggon with a light carried in front of it.  He abolished the habits of tearing themselves at funerals, and of reciting set forms of dirges, and of hiring mourners.  He also forbade them to sacrifice an ox for the funeral feast, and to bury more than three garments with the body, and to visit other persons’ graves.  Most of these things are forbidden by our own laws also; with the addition, that by our laws those who offend thus are fined by the gynaeconomi, or regulators of the women, for giving way to unmanly and womanish sorrow.

XXII.  Observing that the city was filled with men who came from all countries to take refuge in Attica, that the country was for the most part poor and unproductive, and that merchants also are unwilling to despatch cargoes to a country which has nothing to export, he encouraged his countrymen to embark in trade, and made a law that a son was not obliged to support his father, if his father had not taught him a trade.  As for Lykurgus, whose city was clear of strangers, and whose land was “unstinted, and with room for twice the number,” as Euripides says, and who above all had all the Helots, throughout Lacedaemon, who were best kept employed, in order to break their spirit by labour and hardship, it was very well that his citizens should disdain laborious handicrafts and devote their whole attention to the art of war.

But Solon had not the power to change the whole life of his countrymen by his laws, but rather was forced to suit his laws to existing circumstances, and, as he saw that the soil was so poor that it could only suffice for the farmers, and was unable to feed a mass of idle people as well, he gave great honour to trade, and gave powers to the senate of the Areopagus to inquire what each man’s source of income might